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

Oxford is the dearest at £450,000 and Cherwell the cheapest at £350,000: the same budget buys 1.3 times as much home by price at one end of Oxfordshire 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.

324 new homes are for sale across Oxfordshire today. Vale of White Horse has the most (150), then South Oxfordshire (84).

Price per square foot takes the size of the home out of the comparison. It runs from £379 in Cherwell to £531 in Oxford.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. Vale of White Horse is the busiest (28) and Oxford the quietest (21), 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 Vale of White Horse, 5% of the homes sold in the last twelve months were sold new, the highest share in Oxfordshire; in Oxford it was 0%. New sales reach the register later than resales, so the latest months undercount them.

Sold prices fell 2.2% in the middle council area of Oxfordshire over the last year. Oxford moved most (up 0.0%) and Vale of White Horse least (down 3.8%).

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 3.2%, led by Oxford (up 0.0%).

Over three years the dearer council areas of Oxfordshire 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 £46 more per square foot across Oxfordshire, a clear pattern: on a home of a thousand square feet that is about £46,000.

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 loosely dearer: every ten points more goes with about £42,000 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 South Oxfordshire average the highest in Oxfordshire (50.1) and those of Vale of White Horse the lowest (44.0).

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. Oxford is the most built up (3,553 people per square kilometre) and West Oxfordshire the least (160).

Older council areas in Oxfordshire are loosely 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: Vale of White Horse, Cherwell and South Oxfordshire lead for residents under fifteen. Towards the bottom left are the areas with more single people and couples.

In the middle council area of Oxfordshire, 18% of households rent privately. Dearer areas loosely have more renters, as buying is further out of reach there.

Oxford, Cherwell and West Oxfordshire have the highest walk scores in Oxfordshire. 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 Oxford, 32% have none, the most in Oxfordshire. Areas towards the bottom right are where daily life depends least on driving.

A band D home pays £2,678 a year in Oxford, the most in Oxfordshire, and £2,567 in West Oxfordshire, the least: a difference of £111 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 109 crimes for every thousand residents in Oxford over the last year held, and 51 in South Oxfordshire. 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.