Local market reports › BL area › BL3 › BL3 2
Bolton centre market report BL3 2, Bolton
The standing BL3 2 (Bolton centre) property market report, rebuilt from the full public record every month. The raw material for this page is 3,796 HM Land Registry entries for BL3 2 (Bolton), going back to 1995: each an actual purchase at an actual price. Rents come from the ONS. Valuations, estimates and asking prices appear nowhere in it.
Covers registered sales to 2026 and ONS rents for May 2026. Refreshed monthly as new sales reach the register.
In short: the typical home in BL3 2 (Bolton) sold for £151,000 in 2026, the median of 29 registered sales, up 18% on five years earlier. The mean was £163,500, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £1,900 per square metre over the last five years. The figures cover 3,796 sales recorded by HM Land Registry since 1995 and refresh with each monthly release: completed sale prices, not valuations or asking prices.
BL3 2 is one sector of BL3 (Bolton): a handful of streets, and the most local view the sold record can give. The price of that locality is lumpier charts, because each year's median rests on fewer sales.
Where BL3 2 sits
Shaded by median price on the same scale as the average prices map. Click any shape to open it on the live map with every sale plotted at its address, or zoom in past street level to see the sold homes right here.
What a home in BL3 2 sells for
Across 29 registered 2026 sales, the typical (median) BL3 2 home went for £151,000. The mean is £163,500, a little above it, the familiar pattern where pricier homes stretch the average.
BL3 2 prices by floor area
By floor space, homes in BL3 2 have sold for about £1,900 per square metre on average over the last five years: the like-for-like measure that lets you compare a small flat with a large house, from the Energy Performance Certificate floor areas behind each sale.
For scale: the England and Wales median is £285,000, so BL3 2 trades 47% below the country as a whole.
A typical BL3 2 home, priced year by year (1995 to 2026)
The median as recorded at the time, and each year restated in today's money (ONS CPIH), the sharper test of whether homes really got dearer. Hover for the year-by-year figures; click a legend entry to isolate a series.
See this chart as a table
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | £151,000 | £151,000 | 29 |
| 2025 | £150,000 | £153,587 | 54 |
| 2024 | £160,000 | £170,113 | 71 |
| 2023 | £125,600 | £138,004 | 106 |
| 2022 | £126,800 | £148,687 | 112 |
| 2021 | £127,500 | £161,431 | 104 |
| 2020 | £105,000 | £136,240 | 84 |
| 2019 | £90,000 | £117,968 | 89 |
| 2018 | £95,000 | £126,637 | 82 |
| 2017 | £82,500 | £112,522 | 93 |
| 2016 | £92,000 | £128,709 | 90 |
| 2015 | £79,500 | £112,334 | 92 |
| 2014 | £84,500 | £119,878 | 92 |
| 2013 | £68,500 | £98,565 | 76 |
| 2012 | £67,000 | £98,616 | 80 |
| 2011 | £65,000 | £98,125 | 112 |
| 2010 | £80,000 | £125,461 | 88 |
| 2009 | £85,000 | £136,638 | 70 |
| 2008 | £90,000 | £147,529 | 103 |
| 2007 | £97,000 | £164,539 | 194 |
| 2006 | £85,000 | £147,549 | 206 |
| 2005 | £66,200 | £117,809 | 162 |
| 2004 | £57,500 | £104,431 | 215 |
| 2003 | £35,000 | £64,478 | 231 |
| 2002 | £29,700 | £55,880 | 242 |
| 2001 | £30,000 | £57,673 | 163 |
| 2000 | £28,000 | £54,950 | 148 |
| 1999 | £32,200 | £64,173 | 132 |
| 1998 | £29,000 | £58,539 | 129 |
| 1997 | £30,000 | £61,524 | 112 |
| 1996 | £25,000 | £52,724 | 127 |
| 1995 | £28,500 | £61,955 | 108 |
In cash terms the typical BL3 2 home went from £28,500 in 1995 to £151,000 in 2026, roughly 5 times the price. Inflation explains only part of it: in today's money the rise is still about 144%, a genuine increase in what a home here costs. In inflation-adjusted terms the high-water mark was 2024. The market now sits about 11% below it, so a peak-time purchase has yet to recover its real value.
Year-on-year change in the BL3 2 median
Each bar is the change on the year before, in cash. The zero line is the boundary between rising and falling.
The strongest year on record here is 2004 (+64.3% on the year before); the weakest, 2011 (−18.8%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
The long view: annualised growth
| Period | Cash, per year | Real terms, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 years (since 2025) | +0.7% | −1.7% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | +3.4% | −1.3% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | +5.1% | +1.6% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +2.9% | +0.1% |
Compound annual growth of the median sold price; the real column deflates by ONS CPIH. Annualised figures smooth the cycle (the chart above shows the cycle), and past growth is a record, not a forecast.
How many homes change hands in BL3 2
How many homes change hands
Annual recorded sales. The post-2008 trough is the financial crisis; treat the final bar as provisional while registrations catch up.
BL3 2 recorded 29 sales in the last twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 195 sales a year before the financial crisis and 74 a year over the last five. Watch the volume as closely as the price. Thin years make jumpy medians, where one street's sales can move the figure, and the newest year is always incomplete because registrations trail completions by weeks or months.
What tenants pay around BL3 2
BL3 2 falls under Bolton, where the ONS puts the average private rent at £883 a month (May 2026 figures). The spread runs from £646 a month for a typical one-bed to £1,433 at four-plus bedrooms, which is size doing most of the pricing.
Average monthly rent by size, Bolton
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
Against the £151,000 median purchase price, a rent of £883 a month (£10,596 a year) works out at a 7.0% gross yield, a ceiling figure that ignores letting costs, voids, maintenance and tax. Because rents are local-authority statistics, districts sharing the authority share the figure.
The shape of the BL3 2 market
This is a thin market: 29 sales in the last twelve months of data. With that few transactions, one street selling well (or one block of cheap transfers) can move the median, so read the year lines as a range rather than a verdict. Expect volatility in the annual figures: swings past ten per cent show up repeatedly above, and they usually reflect the mix of homes sold in a given year rather than genuine repricing. Within BL3, this sector trades 17% below the district median: one of its district's cheaper corners.
What people ask about BL3 2 (Bolton centre)
Is BL3 2 (Bolton centre) a good place to buy a house?
How much did a house sell for in BL3 2 (Bolton centre)?
Are property prices falling in BL3 2 (Bolton centre)?
What happens to BL3 2 prices now?
Prediction is not this page's business. Its business is the record, which says: the median is up 18% over five years in cash but down 6% after inflation. Read the volume chart with the price chart before acting on either, remembering that registrations trail the deals themselves by weeks.
What you could buy in BL3 now
This is what you could actually buy today: 134 homes currently on the market from 8 agents publishing to HomesIndex.
These cover the whole BL3 district, not just BL3 2: live asking prices are collected per district.
Of everything listed here, 23% asks less than the sold record of comparable homes. Every listing is measured against recent recorded sales of similar nearby homes.
"Under comparable sales" means the asking price sits below what similar homes nearby actually fetched. Treat it as the start of a conversation, never a valuation, and always view the home.
See every BL3 home for sale on the map →
These asking prices come live from estate agents publishing feeds to HomesIndex, refreshed each Monday and Thursday. They are a sample of the market rather than its entirety, and an asking price is not a sale price.
Bedroom by bedroom: BL prices by size
The Land Registry record, split by size: what each kind of home actually sold for across the BL area. The jump between sizes is local: in some areas a third bedroom adds a quarter to the price, in others nearly four fifths, so a national rule of thumb will mislead you here.
| Type | 1 bed | 2 bed | 3 bed | 4 bed | 5 bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | — | £279,995 | £365,000 (+30%) | £530,500 (+45%) | £775,000 (+46%) |
| Semi-detached | £180,000 | £209,000 (+16%) | £255,000 (+22%) | £337,500 (+32%) | £444,000 (+32%) |
| Terraced | £131,000 | £153,500 (+17%) | £180,000 (+17%) | £245,000 (+36%) | £358,000 (+46%) |
| Flat | £106,000 | £135,000 (+27%) | £208,500 (+54%) | — | — |
Built from the last four years of recorded sales by form and bedroom count. Bedroom counts are estimated from EPC records (the register carries none), so expect a small number of homes one size adrift. Blank cells mean too few homes for the figure to mean anything.
The risers and the fallers
The spread across the BL area is the point: the same five years treated these districts very differently.
BL area districts: five years of change
The biggest risers and fallers in cash terms; every row links to that district's report.
Other sectors in BL3
Sector boundaries hide real price steps. The rest of BL3, one report each:
| Sector | Median (latest) | Sales that year |
|---|---|---|
| BL3 1 | £202,500 | 60 |
| BL3 3 | £165,000 | 51 |
| BL3 4 | £242,000 | 51 |
| BL3 5 | £160,000 | 5 |
| BL3 6 | £132,500 | 8 |
Zoom out to the full BL3 district report for the type split, monthly volumes and how BL3 compares with its neighbours.
Selling in BL3 2? Start from the sold record
Start from what homes here actually sold for, not an estimate. Before booking a house valuation or flat valuation in BL3 2, use the average prices map for a rough value: zoom from BL3 2's shading down to the sold homes on your own street. The figures above are every recorded BL3 2 sale; agents price with this same Land Registry record, and now you have it too.
For local estate agents: each district report carries one featured-agent spot, free while founding places last. Claim BL3 2.
Go deeper
Answers come from the same Land Registry data behind this report, and the AI knows you are asking about BL3 2. Free, with a one click sign in.
See every individual BL3 2 sale on the live map, mapped to the exact address, or zoom the average prices map from neighbourhood shading down to single homes. The report tool writes a custom answer to a specific question, and the mortgage and rent calculator on any sale runs the numbers on a real purchase.
Method, briefly: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0) supplies every sale, geocoded to address level; CPIH from the ONS restates prices in today's money; ONS local-authority figures supply the rents. Medians of real sales, not valuations. No part of this page is financial advice.