Bedford house prices

Bedford house prices are built from 127,557 sales lodged with HM Land Registry, the oldest in 1995 and the most recent on 29 Jun 2026. The median price paid across the whole record is £185,000. Across the 10 years from 2016 to 2026 the median moved +38.5% in cash — but once inflation is taken out, the change in 2026 money is -0.8%.

HM Land Registry127,557 sales13,019 with floor areaLatest sale 29 Jun 2026

The chart tracks the median Bedford house price for every year with a recorded sale, from 1995 to 2026. The dashed line restates each year in 2026 money, so the two lines separate exactly as much as inflation has eroded the cash figure.

The highest yearly median on record for Bedford is £360,000 in 2025; the lowest is £57,000 in 1995. Across the full 32-year record the cash median has moved from £57,000 to £360,000.

In 2026 money that first median is worth £126,567, so the real change over the whole record is +184.4% — about +3.43% a year after inflation. Cash growth and real growth are not the same story, and the gap is the part most price reports leave out.

Over the last decade alone the difference is stark: +38.5% in cash against -0.8% once inflation is removed. A buyer who sold at the end of that decade would have needed the real figure, not the headline one, to know whether they had actually gained.

Every row is a completed sale as lodged with HM Land Registry. The right-hand column restates the price in 2026 money, which is the only fair way to compare a sale from the 1990s with one from last year.

These addresses appear in the register more than once, so the same bricks are being priced twice. That makes them the strongest evidence of what actually happened to Bedford values — no mix of property types can flatter the number.

The mix of property types explains a large part of any area's median. Bedford is dominated by the type at the top of this table, so its overall median leans that way.

Energy Performance Certificates record a floor area for every home that has been surveyed, sold or let — far more homes than have changed hands. 28,985 certificates cover Bedford, and their median floor area is 80 m².

The median across the whole register is 76 m², so homes here are larger than average — +5.3%. Size explains a large part of why one area's median price sits above another's, which is why the price per square metre further up this page is the fairer comparison.

15,325 of the sales on record are leasehold and 112,232 freehold — 12.0% of the market. Tenure is not a detail: a leasehold flat and a freehold house are different assets, and mixing them into one median hides the difference.

The median leasehold sale is £114,950 and the median freehold sale £201,000 — a gap of +74.9%. Most of that gap is property type rather than tenure itself: leasehold here is largely flats, freehold largely houses.

New builds sold for more than the median existing home — +42.8%. A new-build premium is normal: the buyer gets a warranty and nothing to fix, and the price is set by a developer rather than negotiated between two households.

A further 6,163 transfers for this area are on the register but are left out of every figure above. HM Land Registry marks them as additional price paid entries: repossessions, buy-to-let portfolio moves, transfers between companies or family, and sales at a discount such as right to buy. They are real records but they are not open-market prices, and including them would drag the median somewhere no buyer ever paid.

Every certificate carries an energy efficiency band as well as a floor area. Across Bedford, 53.4% of 89,810 certificates sit in bands A to C, and 3.7% in F or G — the bands that cost the most to heat and are hardest to mortgage.

The Office for National Statistics puts the mean private rent in Bedford at £1,169 a month as of Jun 2026 — £797 for a one-bedroom home and £1,255 for three bedrooms.

Against the median sale of £185,000 here, that rent is a gross yield of 7.58% a year. It is a measured figure rather than an assumption: a real local rent over a real local price, before any cost of ownership.

Police forces publish every recorded street-level crime. Within a mile of the centre of MK45, 19 crimes were recorded in Jun 2026: 11 violent, 1 burglary, 0 vehicle-related and 4 anti-social behaviour. The median postcode district in this archive recorded 167 in the same month, so this one is 8.8 times quieter.

Against the 185,225 residents the 2021 census counted in Bedford, that is 0.10 recorded crimes per thousand people in the month. The count covers a mile around the district centre while the population covers the whole council, so read the rate as an order of magnitude rather than a precise figure.

A count is not a rate. A district with shops and a station records more crime than a residential one of the same size, because more people pass through it. Read this next to the median, not on its own.

The 2021 census counted 185,225 residents in Bedford across 74,949 households. 64.6% of those households own their home and 35.4% rent — a split the sold record cannot show, because only owners appear in it.

21 state and independent schools have a MK45 postcode: 17 primary, 3 middle deemed secondary, 1 secondary. Catchment areas do not follow postcodes, so treat this as what is nearby rather than what a child would be offered.

The median across the whole archive is £157,500. Bedford sits above that national figure — +17.5%.

Where an EPC floor area could be matched to the sale, the median works out at £2,124 per square metre, across 13,019 of the 127,557 sales on record. Price per square metre is the only figure that compares a two-bed flat with a four-bed house honestly.

The full range on record runs from £500 to £3,030,000. Extremes usually mean something unusual — a plot sold without a house on it, a transfer between family members, or a very large property — so the median is the number to trust.

Bedford sits in Bedford, in the East of England.

The Office for National Statistics puts the median home in Bedford at 9.1 times median local earnings of £37,994 a year, measured to Sep 2025. Across England and Wales the same ratio is 7.6. That number, not the price alone, is what decides whether a place is within reach of the people who work in it.

Streets in Bedford

• High Street3,403 sales
• Bedford Road1,778 sales
• Ampthill Road586 sales
• Station Road567 sales
• George Street523 sales
• Redwood Grove521 sales
• Goldington Road501 sales
• Church Road455 sales
• Palgrave Road451 sales
• Shakespeare Road446 sales
• Kimbolton Road429 sales
• Chaucer Road400 sales
• Mill Lane388 sales
• Church Lane380 sales
• Millwright Way377 sales
• Dunstable Street370 sales
• Ashburnham Road367 sales
• Warwick Avenue361 sales
• Castle Road341 sales
• Lincroft338 sales
• Dudley Street332 sales
• Bromham Road329 sales
• Hurst Grove328 sales
• Bower Street321 sales
• Grange Road316 sales
• Park Road313 sales
• Deep Spinney303 sales
• Cardington Road299 sales
• Manor Road299 sales
• Greenkeepers Road284 sales
• Goldington Avenue283 sales
• Alburgh Close279 sales
• Poppyfields279 sales
• Denton Drive276 sales
• Spring Road270 sales
• Brooklands Avenue268 sales
• De Parys Avenue264 sales
• Linden Road264 sales
• Foster Hill Road262 sales
• Howbury Street262 sales
• Gladstone Street260 sales
• Church End257 sales
• Hartington Street256 sales
• Lower Shelton Road254 sales
• St Andrews Road245 sales
• Gold Furlong242 sales
• Margetts Road239 sales
• Clapham Road237 sales
• Flitwick Road236 sales
• The Hawthorns234 sales
• Townfield Road231 sales
• Wilkinson Road231 sales
• Oliver Street226 sales
• Bluebell Close224 sales
• Kings Road218 sales
• Bushmead Avenue214 sales
• Clophill Road214 sales
• Windmill Road212 sales
• Beaumont Road211 sales
• Chestnut Avenue210 sales

Postcode districts covering Bedford

• MK45£218,750 median
• MK42£151,000 median
• MK41£170,000 median
• MK43£233,995 median
• MK40£157,000 median
• MK44£247,000 median

What is the average house price in Bedford?

The median price paid in Bedford across every sale on the register is £185,000. The median is used rather than the mean because a handful of very large sales would otherwise drag the average away from what a typical buyer paid.

How many homes have sold in Bedford?

127,557 sales are on record for Bedford, the most recent completing on 29 Jun 2026. Every one is a completed transfer lodged with HM Land Registry, not an asking price or an estimate.

Have Bedford house prices actually risen?

In cash, the median rose +38.5% between 2016 and 2026. In 2026 money — that is, after inflation — the change is -0.8%. Both numbers are true; only the second one tells you whether buying here preserved value.

When were Bedford house prices at their highest?

The highest yearly median on record is £360,000, set in 2025. That is the cash figure; measured in 2026 money the peak may fall in a different year, because inflation reshapes the series.

What is the price per square metre in Bedford?

£2,124 per square metre, from the 13,019 sales where an EPC floor area could be matched to the address. Price per square metre strips out size, so a flat and a house can be compared on the same basis.

How current is this data?

The latest sale shown here completed on 29 Jun 2026. HM Land Registry publishes Price Paid Data monthly and a sale can take a month or two to appear after completion, so the most recent weeks are always incomplete.

Cite this page: Sold Price History, “Bedford house prices”, 2026. Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data © Crown copyright and database right, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Inflation adjustment: ONS CPIH.