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

Trafford is the dearest at £385,000 and Wigan the cheapest at £198,500: the same budget buys 1.9 times as much home by price at one end of Greater Manchester as at the other.

The marker on each bar is the middle asking price of the new homes for sale there today. In 9 of the 9 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.

477 new homes are for sale across Greater Manchester today. Salford has the most (111), then Manchester (71).

Price per square foot takes the size of the home out of the comparison. It runs from £230 in Wigan to £389 in Trafford.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. Stockport is the busiest (30) and Manchester the quietest (18), around a middle of 24.

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

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

Sold prices rose 1.4% in the middle council area of Greater Manchester over the last year. Trafford moved most (up 4.1%) and Bury least (down 1.2%).

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 rose 8.4%, led by Oldham (up 16.2%).

Over three years dearer and cheaper council areas of Greater Manchester have grown at much the same pace, so the gaps between them have held.

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

Being ten miles closer to Manchester costs about £82 more per square foot across Greater Manchester, a clear pattern: on a home of a thousand square feet that is about £82,000.

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

In Greater Manchester, 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 Trafford average the highest in Greater Manchester (58.9) and those of Rochdale the lowest (43.9).

Results do not follow distance to Manchester: 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. Manchester is the most built up (4,772 people per square kilometre) and Rochdale the least (1,416).

Older council areas in Greater Manchester are clearly better off. 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: Oldham, Rochdale and Bolton lead for residents under fifteen. Towards the bottom left are the areas with more single people and couples.

In the middle council area of Greater Manchester, 18% of households rent privately. The share renting has little to do with price here.

Manchester, Salford and Stockport have the highest walk scores in Greater Manchester. 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 Manchester, 39% have none, the most in Greater Manchester. Areas towards the bottom right are where daily life depends least on driving.

A band D home pays £2,619 a year in Stockport, the most in Greater Manchester, and £2,153 in Wigan, the least: a difference of £466 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 0 crimes for every thousand residents in Tameside over the last year held, and 0 in Trafford. 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.