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

Solihull is the dearest at £335,500 and Sandwell the cheapest at £224,000: the same budget buys 1.5 times as much home by price at one end of West Midlands 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.

300 new homes are for sale across West Midlands today. Coventry has the most (157), then Dudley (56).

Price per square foot takes the size of the home out of the comparison. It runs from £252 in Wolverhampton to £348 in Solihull.

Sales for every thousand households show how often homes change hands, which is how much choice a buyer has in a year. Solihull is the busiest (27) and Sandwell the quietest (16), around a middle of 20.

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

In Coventry, 3% of the homes sold in the last twelve months were sold new, the highest share in West Midlands; in Walsall it was 0%. New sales reach the register later than resales, so the latest months undercount them.

Sold prices rose 1.5% in the middle council area of West Midlands over the last year. Sandwell moved most (up 3.2%) and Walsall least (up 0.0%).

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 9.1%, led by Wolverhampton (up 14.2%).

Over three years the cheaper council areas of West Midlands have clearly grown faster than the dearer ones, closing some of the gap between them.

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

Distance to Birmingham does not explain prices in West Midlands: council areas near and far sell for much the same per square foot, so something else (the coast, a second city, the countryside) is setting them.

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

In West Midlands, 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 Solihull average the highest in West Midlands (48.6) and those of Sandwell the lowest (42.9).

Results are loosely higher closer to Birmingham.

Density says what kind of place an area is: how close the homes, shops, schools and stations sit. Birmingham is the most built up (4,276 people per square kilometre) and Solihull the least (1,213).

Older council areas in West Midlands 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: Birmingham, Sandwell and Walsall lead for residents under fifteen. Towards the bottom left are the areas with more single people and couples.

In the middle council area of West Midlands, 19% of households rent privately. Cheaper areas clearly have more renters.

Birmingham, Sandwell and Coventry have the highest walk scores in West Midlands. 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 Birmingham, 32% have none, the most in West Midlands. Areas towards the bottom right are where daily life depends least on driving.

A band D home pays £2,627 a year in Walsall, the most in West Midlands, and £2,145 in Dudley, the least: a difference of £483 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 129 crimes for every thousand residents in Birmingham over the last year held, and 83 in Dudley. 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.