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

Winchester is the dearest at £460,000 and Gosport the cheapest at £255,000: the same budget buys 1.8 times as much home by price at one end of Hampshire as at the other.

The marker on each bar is the middle asking price of the new homes for sale there today. In 8 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.

390 new homes are for sale across Hampshire today. Winchester has the most (104), then East Hampshire (57).

Price per square foot takes the size of the home out of the comparison. It runs from £295 in Gosport to £452 in Hart.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. Eastleigh is the busiest (32) and Basingstoke and Deane the quietest (27), 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 Winchester, 3% of the homes sold in the last twelve months were sold new, the highest share in Hampshire; in Gosport it was 0%. New sales reach the register later than resales, so the latest months undercount them.

Sold prices rose 0.5% in the middle council area of Hampshire over the last year. New Forest moved most (up 2.7%) and Hart least (down 4.5%).

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 Basingstoke and Deane (up 3.3%).

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

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

Being ten miles closer to central London costs about £13 more per square foot across Hampshire, a loose pattern: on a home of a thousand square feet that is about £13,000.

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

Council areas with more schools judged good or better are clearly dearer: every ten points more goes with about £84,000 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 Winchester average the highest in Hampshire (54.7) and those of Gosport the lowest (39.4).

Results do not follow distance to central London: 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. Gosport is the most built up (3,230 people per square kilometre) and Winchester the least (193).

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

Areas towards the top right have the most children and the largest households: Basingstoke and Deane, Eastleigh and Hart lead for residents under fifteen. Towards the bottom left are the areas with more single people and couples.

In the middle council area of Hampshire, 14% of households rent privately. The share renting has little to do with price here.

Rushmoor, Gosport and Eastleigh have the highest walk scores in Hampshire. 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 Gosport, 21% have none, the most in Hampshire. Areas towards the bottom right are where daily life depends least on driving.

A band D home pays £2,420 a year in New Forest, the most in Hampshire, and £2,255 in Basingstoke and Deane, the least: a difference of £165 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 89 crimes for every thousand residents in Havant over the last year held, and 46 in Hart. 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.