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

St Albans is the dearest at £621,750 and Great Yarmouth the cheapest at £221,000: the same budget buys 2.8 times as much home by price at one end of East of England as at the other.

The marker on each bar is the middle asking price of the new homes for sale there today. In 38 of the 38 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.

2,785 new homes are for sale across East of England today. Central Bedfordshire has the most (276), then South Cambridgeshire (173).

In the middle council area of East of England, homes sold new went for 26% more than resales over the last twelve months.

The gap is widest in Braintree (73% more) and narrowest in St Albans (41% 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 £241 in Fenland to £609 in St Albans.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. Central Bedfordshire is the busiest (33) and Luton the quietest (18), around a middle of 27.

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

In Uttlesford, 7% of the homes sold in the last twelve months were sold new, the highest share in East of England; in Thurrock it was 0%. New sales reach the register later than resales, so the latest months undercount them.

Sold prices fell 0.8% in the middle council area of East of England over the last year. Three Rivers moved most (up 6.7%) and Mid Suffolk least (down 4.3%).

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 2.2%, led by Brentwood (up 9.3%).

Over three years the dearer council areas of East of England have loosely 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 £27 more per square foot across East of England, a clear pattern: on a home of a thousand square feet that is about £27,000.

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

In East of England, 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 East of England (57.8) and those of Tendring the lowest (38.3).

Results are loosely higher closer to central London.

Density says what kind of place an area is: how close the homes, shops, schools and stations sit. Luton is the most built up (5,196 people per square kilometre) and North Norfolk the least (107).

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

Areas towards the top right have the most children and the largest households: Luton, Thurrock and Peterborough 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 of England, 16% of households rent privately. The share renting has little to do with price here.

Norwich, Southend-on-Sea and Cambridge have the highest walk scores in East of England. 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 East of England. 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 East of England, and £2,255 in Thurrock, the least: a difference of £302 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 132 crimes for every thousand residents in Peterborough over the last year held, and 41 in Broadland. 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.