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

Rushcliffe is the dearest at £325,000 and Bolsover the cheapest at £175,000: the same budget buys 1.9 times as much home by price at one end of East Midlands as at the other.

The marker on each bar is the middle asking price of the new homes for sale there today. In 33 of the 33 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.

3,229 new homes are for sale across East Midlands today. Charnwood has the most (318), then West Northamptonshire (311).

In the middle council area of East Midlands, homes sold new went for 31% more than resales over the last twelve months.

The gap is widest in Chesterfield (81% more) and narrowest in East Lindsey (0% less). It compares every new home with every resale, whatever their size and kind, so read it as the price of buying new there, not as a like-for-like premium.

Price per square foot takes the size of the home out of the comparison. It runs from £201 in Boston to £321 in Rushcliffe.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. South Derbyshire is the busiest (35) and Leicester the quietest (15), around a middle of 28.

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 Derbyshire, 6% of the homes sold in the last twelve months were sold new, the highest share in East Midlands; in Erewash it was 0%. New sales reach the register later than resales, so the latest months undercount them.

Sold prices fell 1.7% in the middle council area of East Midlands over the last year. Bassetlaw moved most (up 2.8%) and Amber Valley least (down 5.7%).

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 1.1%, led by Derby (up 10.0%).

Over three years the cheaper council areas of East Midlands have loosely grown faster than the dearer ones, closing some of the gap between them.

There is no clear pattern between distance to Nottingham and growth over three years: places close in and far out have moved alike.

Distance to Nottingham does not explain prices in East Midlands: council areas near and far sell for much the same per square foot, so something else (the coast, a second city, the countryside) is setting them.

The further a council area is from Nottingham, the more of its workers loosely drive to work.

Council areas with more schools judged good or better are loosely dearer: every ten points more goes with about £26,000 on the middle sold price. The schools do not cause all of that; both follow the same households.

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 Rushcliffe average the highest in East Midlands (54.1) and those of Bolsover the lowest (40.7).

Results do not follow distance to Nottingham: there is no trade here between results and a short journey in.

Density says what kind of place an area is: how close the homes, shops, schools and stations sit. Leicester is the most built up (5,027 people per square kilometre) and East Lindsey the least (81).

Age and income are not linked across East Midlands: there are younger and older areas at every level of income.

Areas towards the top right have the most children and the largest households: Leicester, Derby and North Northamptonshire lead for residents under fifteen. Towards the bottom left are the areas with more single people and couples.

In the middle council area of East Midlands, 17% of households rent privately. Cheaper areas loosely have more renters.

Leicester, Nottingham and Derby have the highest walk scores in East Midlands. 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 Nottingham, 38% have none, the most in East Midlands. Areas towards the bottom right are where daily life depends least on driving.

A band D home pays £2,755 a year in Nottingham, the most in East Midlands, and £2,260 in South Kesteven, the least: a difference of £495 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 162 crimes for every thousand residents in Lincoln over the last year held, and 47 in Rutland. 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.