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

Elmbridge is the dearest at £665,000 and Woking the cheapest at £450,000: the same budget buys 1.5 times as much home by price at one end of Surrey 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 10 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.

319 new homes are for sale across Surrey today. Surrey Heath has the most (117), then Waverley (50).

Price per square foot takes the size of the home out of the comparison. It runs from £446 in Surrey Heath to £597 in Elmbridge.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. Surrey Heath is the busiest (30) and Mole Valley the quietest (25), 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 Waverley, 3% of the homes sold in the last twelve months were sold new, the highest share in Surrey; in Epsom and Ewell it was 0%. New sales reach the register later than resales, so the latest months undercount them.

Sold prices rose 0.9% in the middle council area of Surrey over the last year. Epsom and Ewell moved most (up 5.0%) and Waverley least (down 0.9%).

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 were flat, led by Surrey Heath (up 8.9%).

Over three years dearer and cheaper council areas of Surrey 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 £25 more per square foot across Surrey, a loose pattern: on a home of a thousand square feet that is about £25,000.

How many people drive to work has little to do with distance to central London here.

Council areas with more schools judged good or better are loosely dearer: every ten points more goes with about £74,000 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 Epsom and Ewell average the highest in Surrey (58.5) and those of Tandridge the lowest (45.2).

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. Epsom and Ewell is the most built up (2,376 people per square kilometre) and Mole Valley the least (338).

Younger council areas in Surrey are loosely better off, which is common where a city draws working-age people. 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: Elmbridge, Reigate and Banstead and Woking lead for residents under fifteen. Towards the bottom left are the areas with more single people and couples.

In the middle council area of Surrey, 16% of households rent privately. Cheaper areas loosely have more renters.

Epsom and Ewell, Spelthorne and Elmbridge have the highest walk scores in Surrey. 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 Woking, 15% have none, the most in Surrey. Areas towards the bottom right are where daily life depends least on driving.

A band D home pays £2,605 a year in Waverley, the most in Surrey, and £2,493 in Runnymede, the least: a difference of £112 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 91 crimes for every thousand residents in Spelthorne over the last year held, and 46 in Waverley. 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.