Vale Close, Harpenden house prices are built from 83 sales lodged with HM Land Registry, the oldest in 1997 and the most recent on 9 Jan 2025. The median price paid across the whole record is £359,950. Across the 18 years from 2003 to 2021 the median moved +138.4% in cash — but once inflation is taken out, the change in 2026 money is +59.4%.
Median price paid
£359,950
Change in cash, 2003–2021
+138.4%
Change in real terms
+59.4%
Median per m²
£2,724
HM Land Registry83 sales16 with floor areaLatest sale 9 Jan 2025
Section 01
How Vale Close, Harpenden prices moved
The chart tracks the median Vale Close, Harpenden house price for every year with a recorded sale, from 1997 to 2021. The dashed line restates each year in 2026 money, so the two lines separate exactly as much as inflation has eroded the cash figure.
| Decade | Years with sales | Median paid | In today's money |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990s | 1 | £139,750 | £310,311 |
| 2000s | 2 | £217,000 | £395,310 |
| 2020s | 1 | £596,000 | £608,957 |
The highest yearly median on record for Vale Close, Harpenden is £596,000 in 2021; the lowest is £139,750 in 1997. Across the full 25-year record the cash median has moved from £139,750 to £596,000.
In 2026 money that first median is worth £296,312, so the real change over the whole record is +154.1% — about +3.96% 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: +138.4% in cash against +59.4% 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.
Section 02
The most recent sales
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.
| Address | Sold | Type | Price paid | In today's money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | 9 Jan 2025 | Semi-detached | £650,000 | £664,130 |
| 25 | 16 Jul 2024 | Semi-detached | £766,000 | £806,015 |
| 33 | 25 Apr 2024 | Semi-detached | £560,000 | £589,254 |
| 51 | 2 Oct 2023 | Semi-detached | £605,000 | £653,678 |
| 8 | 12 Aug 2022 | Detached | £790,000 | £915,283 |
| 23 | 5 Oct 2021 | Semi-detached | £670,000 | £846,505 |
| 45 | 11 Aug 2021 | Semi-detached | £597,000 | £754,274 |
| 16 | 22 Jun 2021 | Semi-detached | £575,000 | £726,478 |
| 14 | 26 Mar 2021 | Semi-detached | £560,000 | £707,527 |
| 22 | 25 Feb 2021 | Detached | £735,000 | £928,629 |
| 26 | 8 Feb 2021 | Semi-detached | £595,000 | £751,747 |
| 30 | 26 Nov 2020 | Semi-detached | £576,000 | £745,785 |
| 57 | 20 Nov 2019 | Semi-detached | £475,000 | £621,289 |
| 55 | 7 Aug 2019 | Semi-detached | £537,000 | £702,384 |
| 35 | 29 Nov 2018 | Semi-detached | £570,000 | £759,641 |
| 39 | 13 Nov 2018 | Semi-detached | £545,500 | £726,990 |
| 26 | 28 Sep 2018 | Semi-detached | £475,000 | £633,034 |
| 29 | 16 Mar 2018 | Semi-detached | £715,000 | £952,883 |
| 31 | 1 Feb 2017 | Semi-detached | £660,000 | £898,263 |
| 22 | 9 Jan 2017 | Detached | £635,000 | £864,237 |
| 15 | 4 Nov 2016 | Detached | £620,000 | £865,545 |
| 55 | 28 Oct 2016 | Semi-detached | £560,000 | £781,782 |
| 30 | 3 Oct 2016 | Semi-detached | £532,000 | £742,693 |
| 47 | 8 Jul 2016 | Semi-detached | £530,000 | £739,901 |
| 28 | 11 Sep 2015 | Semi-detached | £470,000 | £662,700 |
Section 03
Homes that sold twice
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 Vale Close, Harpenden values — no mix of property types can flatter the number.
| Address | First recorded sale | Most recent sale | Cash a year | Real a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 Vale Close | £144,500 (1997) | £650,000 (2025) | +5.5% | +2.8% |
| 25 Vale Close | £238,000 (2001) | £766,000 (2024) | +5.2% | +2.4% |
| 33 Vale Close | £169,000 (1999) | £560,000 (2024) | +4.9% | +2.2% |
| 8 Vale Close | £359,950 (2003) | £790,000 (2022) | +4.2% | +1.6% |
| 23 Vale Close | £315,000 (2006) | £670,000 (2021) | +5.2% | +2.8% |
| 45 Vale Close | £299,995 (2006) | £597,000 (2021) | +4.7% | +2.3% |
| 22 Vale Close | £395,000 (2009) | £735,000 (2021) | +5.3% | +3.0% |
| 26 Vale Close | £475,000 (2018) | £595,000 (2021) | +7.8% | +5.9% |
| 30 Vale Close | £209,950 (2002) | £576,000 (2020) | +5.8% | +3.5% |
| 55 Vale Close | £138,000 (1997) | £537,000 (2019) | +6.4% | +4.1% |
| 29 Vale Close | £405,000 (2006) | £715,000 (2018) | +4.9% | +2.4% |
| 31 Vale Close | £97,500 (1995) | £660,000 (2017) | +9.1% | +6.7% |
Section 04
What sells here
The mix of property types explains a large part of any area's median. Vale Close, Harpenden is dominated by the type at the top of this table, so its overall median leans that way.
| Property type | Sales | Share | Median paid | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semi-detached | 63 | 75.9% | £320,000 | £93,000 – £766,000 |
| Detached | 20 | 24.1% | £395,000 | £121,000 – £790,000 |
Section 06
Ownership and new build in Vale Close, Harpenden
0 of the sales on record are leasehold and 83 freehold — 0.0% 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.
| Category | Sales | Share | Median paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leasehold | 0 | 0.0% | — |
| Freehold | 83 | 100.0% | £359,950 |
A further 2 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.
Section 07
Living in Vale Close, Harpenden
Every certificate carries an energy efficiency band as well as a floor area. Across Central Bedfordshire, 54.5% of 139,601 certificates sit in bands A to C, and 2.9% in F or G — the bands that cost the most to heat and are hardest to mortgage.
| Energy band | Certificates | Share |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1,405 | 1.0% |
| B | 28,531 | 20.4% |
| C | 46,180 | 33.1% |
| D | 45,015 | 32.2% |
| E | 14,404 | 10.3% |
| F | 3,286 | 2.4% |
| G | 780 | 0.6% |
The Office for National Statistics puts the mean private rent in Central Bedfordshire at £1,250 a month as of Jun 2026 — £864 for a one-bedroom home and £1,374 for three bedrooms.
Against the median sale of £359,950 here, that rent is a gross yield of 4.17% 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 AL5, 109 crimes were recorded in Jun 2026: 19 violent, 3 burglary, 3 vehicle-related and 32 anti-social behaviour. The median postcode district in this archive recorded 167 in the same month, so this one is 1.5 times quieter.
Against the 294,252 residents the 2021 census counted in Central Bedfordshire, that is 0.37 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.
Section 08
The neighbourhood around Vale Close, Harpenden
The 2021 census counted 294,252 residents in Central Bedfordshire across 120,754 households. 72.9% of those households own their home and 27.0% rent — a split the sold record cannot show, because only owners appear in it.
18 state and independent schools have a AL5 postcode: 13 primary, 4 secondary, 1 nursery. Catchment areas do not follow postcodes, so treat this as what is nearby rather than what a child would be offered.
| School | Phase | Type | Pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roundwood Park School | Secondary | Academy converter | 1,421 |
| Sir John Lawes School | Secondary | Academy converter | 1,373 |
| St George's School | Secondary | Academy converter | 1,351 |
| Katherine Warington School | Secondary | Free schools | 1,113 |
| Wood End School | Primary | Community school | 457 |
| High Beeches Primary School | Primary | Community school | 420 |
| The Grove Junior School | Primary | Community school | 350 |
| Roundwood Primary School | Primary | Community school | 338 |
| Crabtree Junior School | Primary | Academy converter | 256 |
| The Grove Infant and Nursery School | Primary | Community school | 243 |
| Station | Mode | Distance from the district centre |
|---|---|---|
| Harpenden Rail Station | Rail | 0.2 km |
| Luton Airport Parkway Rail Station | Rail | 7.0 km |
| Luton Airport DART Station | Metro or underground | 7.1 km |
| St Albans City Rail Station | Rail | 7.5 km |
Section 09
How Vale Close, Harpenden compares
The median across the whole archive is £157,500. Vale Close, Harpenden sits above that national figure — +128.5%.
Within Harpenden the street ranks 236 of 387 by median price, and its median is below the town figure of £375,000 (-4.0%).
Where an EPC floor area could be matched to the sale, the median works out at £2,724 per square metre, across 16 of the 83 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 £93,000 to £790,000. 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.
Vale Close, Harpenden sits in Central Bedfordshire, in the East of England.
The Office for National Statistics puts the median home in Central Bedfordshire at 9.7 times median local earnings of £37,704 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.
Section 10
Nearby on the record
Streets nearby
- Station Road£240,000 median
- Luton Road£325,000 median
- Milton Road£235,000 median
- Roundwood Lane£147,750 median
- Cravells Road£268,000 median
- Southdown Road£250,000 median
- Crabtree Lane£525,000 median
- Cowper Road£409,375 median
- Overstone Road£420,000 median
- Lower Luton Road£247,500 median
- Tuffnells Way£500,000 median
- Grove Road£250,000 median
- Park Mount£395,000 median
- Sun Lane£325,000 median
- Chesterton Avenue£358,750 median
- Piggottshill Lane£450,000 median
Addresses with more than one recorded sale
- 35 Vale Close5 sales
- 55 Vale Close5 sales
- 25 Vale Close4 sales
- 8 Vale Close4 sales
- 23 Vale Close4 sales
- 30 Vale Close4 sales
- 47 Vale Close4 sales
- 22 Vale Close3 sales
- 15 Vale Close3 sales
- 21 Vale Close3 sales
- 7 Vale Close3 sales
- 1 Vale Close3 sales
- 10 Vale Close3 sales
- 37 Vale Close3 sales
- 33 Vale Close2 sales
- 45 Vale Close2 sales
- 26 Vale Close2 sales
- 29 Vale Close2 sales
- 31 Vale Close2 sales
- 43 Vale Close2 sales
- 41 Vale Close2 sales
- 49 Vale Close2 sales
- 36 Vale Close2 sales
- 3 Vale Close2 sales
Back to Harpenden house prices.
Quick answers
Common questions about this data
What is the average house price in Vale Close, Harpenden?
The median price paid in Vale Close, Harpenden across every sale on the register is £359,950. 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 Vale Close, Harpenden?
83 sales are on record for Vale Close, Harpenden, the most recent completing on 9 Jan 2025. Every one is a completed transfer lodged with HM Land Registry, not an asking price or an estimate.
Have Vale Close, Harpenden house prices actually risen?
In cash, the median rose +138.4% between 2003 and 2021. In 2026 money — that is, after inflation — the change is +59.4%. Both numbers are true; only the second one tells you whether buying here preserved value.
When were Vale Close, Harpenden house prices at their highest?
The highest yearly median on record is £596,000, set in 2021. 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 Vale Close, Harpenden?
£2,724 per square metre, from the 16 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 9 Jan 2025. 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, “Vale Close, Harpenden 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.