Best places to live in Cambridgeshire: house prices and data by area

Cambridge is the dearest at £485,000 and Fenland the cheapest at £230,000: the same budget buys 2.1 times as much home by price at one end of Cambridgeshire as at the other.

The marker on each bar is the middle asking price of the new homes for sale there today. In 5 of the 5 council areas with enough new homes to compare, new homes are asking more than the homes sold around them: a new home is often larger or a different kind, so the gap is not the new-build premium on its own.

486 new homes are for sale across Cambridgeshire today. South Cambridgeshire has the most (165), then Cambridge (106).

Price per square foot takes the size of the home out of the comparison. It runs from £241 in Fenland to £541 in Cambridge.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. Huntingdonshire is the busiest (29) and Cambridge the quietest (18), around a middle of 25.

A busy market is a sign of both supply and demand: more homes are coming up, and more buyers are competing for them.

In South Cambridgeshire, 2% of the homes sold in the last twelve months were sold new, the highest share in Cambridgeshire; in Fenland it was 0%. New sales reach the register later than resales, so the latest months undercount them.

Sold prices fell 2.0% in the middle council area of Cambridgeshire over the last year. Fenland moved most (down 1.1%) and Huntingdonshire least (down 3.1%).

The mix of homes sold changes from year to year, so a single council area can swing for that reason alone; read the pattern across the areas more than any one bar.

Over three years the middle council area's sold prices fell 4.2%, led by Cambridge (up 1.0%).

Over three years the dearer council areas of Cambridgeshire have clearly grown faster than the cheaper ones, widening the gap between them.

Council areas closer to central London have clearly seen more growth over three years than those further out.

Being ten miles closer to central London costs about £85 more per square foot across Cambridgeshire, a clear pattern: on a home of a thousand square feet that is about £85,000.

The further a council area is from central London, the more of its workers clearly drive to work.

In Cambridgeshire, house prices do not follow school outcomes from one council area to the next: there are well-judged schools in cheaper areas as well as dearer ones.

A council area is large: the school a home is offered depends on its own address, so check the schools around a development before relying on this.

Attainment 8 is a pupil's score across eight GCSE subjects. The secondary schools of Cambridge average the highest in Cambridgeshire (57.8) and those of Fenland the lowest (38.9).

Results are clearly higher closer to central London.

Density says what kind of place an area is: how close the homes, shops, schools and stations sit. Cambridge is the most built up (3,579 people per square kilometre) and East Cambridgeshire the least (135).

Younger council areas in Cambridgeshire are loosely better off, which is common where a city draws working-age people. Areas above the line earn more than their age alone would suggest.

Areas towards the top right have the most children and the largest households: South Cambridgeshire, East Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire lead for residents under fifteen. Towards the bottom left are the areas with more single people and couples.

In the middle council area of Cambridgeshire, 17% of households rent privately. Dearer areas loosely have more renters, as buying is further out of reach there.

Cambridge, Fenland and Huntingdonshire have the highest walk scores in Cambridgeshire. Denser areas are clearly more walkable, because more is close by; an area above the line is easier on foot than its density alone would suggest.

Another way to see how easy it is to get about is how many households manage without a car. In Cambridge, 34% have none, the most in Cambridgeshire. Areas towards the bottom right are where daily life depends least on driving.

A band D home pays £2,556 a year in Huntingdonshire, the most in Cambridgeshire, and £2,467 in Cambridge, the least: a difference of £89 every year for the same band.

A new home is banded when it is finished, so ask the builder which band each plot is expected to fall in.

Police recorded 115 crimes for every thousand residents in Cambridge over the last year held, and 63 in South Cambridgeshire. City centres record more because of the people who visit them, not only those who live there, and a council area's figure hides wide differences between its streets.