Edgware is a strong pick for anyone who lives on buses and broadband, with one damp complication worth understanding before the rest. Nine in ten homes can get gigabit broadband. Almost every bus stop still sees a bus at the weekend. Nearly a third of postcodes carry a high flag for flooding on at least one measure. The good news comes by bus and the bad news comes by rain.
Connections are where Edgware earns its money. On the national timetable data there are 219 bus stops across the area, and the average stop sees about 494 departures on a weekday and around 28 an hour at peak. About 99% of stops keep a weekend service. Mainline rail is within reach at Mill Hill Broadway and Elstree & Borehamwood, though at the 2021 Census only about 4% of working residents commuted by train. About 31% worked from home, about 31% drove and about 9% took the bus. Gigabit broadband reaches about 90% of premises and superfast about 99%, and every operator's 4G or 5G signal covers the whole area. The Department for Transport's modelled times, from 2019, put the town centre about 13 minutes away by public transport and a major employment centre about 17. Argonaut Games designed Worms in an Edgware office, and the bus network has the same instinct for sending lots of small things everywhere at once.
Flooding is the weak spot, and the two measures say different things. In the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones, about 4% of Edgware falls in zone 3 and about 4% in zone 2. On the wider postcode indicators, which include surface water, about 30% of postcodes are rated high on at least one indicator and a further 26% medium. The Environment Agency has 27 recorded flood events here, the latest in December 1992, when a main river overflowed its channel. Deans Brook and Edgware Brook meet near Edgware Hospital to become the Silk Stream, though the gap between those two percentages says that the risk on most streets comes from rain with nowhere to go, not from the brooks.
Edgware's population is younger than its interwar semis suggest. About 52% of households own their home, the typical resident is about 37, and the Office for National Statistics models gross household income at about £72,600 for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area. That patch takes in Burnt Oak and Canons Park, so the averages smooth over a lot of variety from one ward to the next.
The Land Registry recorded 296 sales in the year to May 2026, with a typical price of £549,000. Flats went for about £328,000, terraced houses for about £500,000, semis for about £638,000 and detached houses for about £940,000. The official house price index puts the average at about £591,000, down about 4% on a year earlier. Band D is the most common council-tax band, and only about 6% of homes are in bands A or B, so cheap bills are hard to find.
Barnet's typical private rent is about £1,930 a month as of April 2026, up about 4% on the year. That is a borough-wide average from the Office for National Statistics index, so it covers far more than Edgware's own streets.
Edgware is a town of flats and semis in roughly equal measure. On the council-tax list, about 34% of homes are flats, 32% semis, 23% terraced, 9% detached and 2% bungalows, and only about 21% were built before 1930. Most of the certificated stock is interwar. About 76% of homes heat with mains gas and about 10% with electricity alone. On energy certificates, about 42% are band D, about 49% are C or better and about 10% are E or worse. George Cross was already building here in 1919, five years before the Tube station opened, which takes real faith in public transport.
The schools are better than buyers tend to expect. Ofsted has graded 59 settings here, and 57 are good or better, with 12 outstanding. Across 15 primary schools the average maths score at the end of primary is about 108, and the area's two secondaries average an Attainment 8 score of about 45. Canons High School and London Academy are the secondary names. The modelled walk to a primary is about seven minutes. Two secondaries is a thin sample to argue over at the school gate, and parents argue over it all the same.
Police figures put recorded crime at about 91 per 1,000 residents in the year to May 2026, about 6% below the Barnet average. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 25% of the total against about 16% nationally. Burglary is about 7% against about 4%, and vehicle crime about 9% against 5%. The Metropolitan Police charged about 10% of cases over the same year, against about 12% nationally, and that is a force-wide figure that tells you nothing about Edgware in particular. The overall rate looks calmer than the mix underneath it.
Heritage rules rarely get in the way. Edgware has 33 listed buildings, one at grade I and 32 at grade II, four entries on Historic England's at-risk register, and one conservation area, the Watling Estate. For most interwar semis, a loft conversion is a conversation with the planning department and nobody from heritage.
Green space is close everywhere. The average front door is about 165 metres from a park and about 320 metres from water. Edgwarebury Park is a Site of Nature Conservation Interest, Stoneyfields Park is nearby, and Canons Park is what remains of the Duke of Chandos's estate at Cannons. The grounds that once flattered a duke now take the Sunday dog walk. The Green Belt has kept the houses off Scratch Wood and Deacons Hill, so the countryside stops where it always has.
The town's residents have ranged widely. John Bercow, the former Commons Speaker, is on the list, along with the comedian Paul Chowdhry, the Blue singer Antony Costa and Boz Boorer, Morrissey's guitarist and musical director. Green Shield Stamps ran its business from Premier House until 1991, and the building has since been turned into flats. Edgware converts its offices the way other towns convert their churches.
Edgware is a sound choice for buyers who commute by bus, families who want a dense spread of well-graded schools, and first-time buyers who can get into a flat for around £328,000. Anyone who wants period houses, or a ground floor on a road where the rain collects, should look harder at somewhere else.
Overall, Edgware is better than average: a bus every few minutes, fast broadband in nine homes out of ten, and a flood map that every buyer has to read street by street.