Yes, and Farnham invoices you for every bit of it. About two-thirds of households own their home. Half the working residents never leave the house to do it. A detached house costs north of a million. The surprise is the crime figure, which the castle postcards leave out.
Houses run the town, though not in one style. On the council-tax valuation list, 30% of dwellings are detached, 21% semi-detached, 18% terraced and 21% flats, with bungalows making up the last 9%. Only 28% were built before 1930, so the old frontages in the centre are the shop window, not the stock. The energy certificates split down the middle: 51% of certificated homes sit in bands A to C, 37% in band D and 13% in band E or worse. About 79% of homes run on mains gas and roughly 8% heat with electricity alone. If the house you like is old and on the electric-only list, ask for the bills before you ask about the Aga.
The Land Registry recorded 251 sales in the twelve months to early May 2026, at a median of £500,000. That figure conceals a town of four price brackets. Flats went for a median of about £328,000, terraces about £443,000, semis about £565,000, and the 81 detached sales cleared a median of £1,020,000. Council tax matches the mood: the most common band is D, and only 8% of homes sit in bands A or B. Cheap homes exist here in the same sense that parking exists on Castle Street on a Saturday.
Renting is no escape hatch. The typical private rent across the Waverley area was about £1,440 a month as of April 2026. That is a borough-wide figure from the Office for National Statistics index, not a Farnham street price, and anyone who has looked at a two-bed near the station will not expect Farnham to undercut it.
Here is where the brochure goes quiet. Farnham's published crime rate for the year to May 2026 was 58 per 1,000 residents, roughly 26% above the Waverley average of about 46. Most of the mix tracks the national pattern, with one exception: public order offences made up 11% of recorded crime against 7% nationally. That's the shape of a town centre with pubs in it rather than a place under siege, but the number is the number, and it's worse than the surrounding borough's.
Schools are the reason half the buyers are here. At the seven primaries in the town's postcode districts, the average Key Stage 2 maths score was 108, and the three secondaries in those districts averaged an Attainment 8 score of 56. Across Surrey, Ofsted has graded 147 of 159 inspected settings good or better, 30 of them outstanding. South Farnham School has more than once been named the best state primary in the country on exam results, which does wonders for the house prices around it and nothing for the stress levels of anyone just outside its reach. Weydon School, All Hallows Catholic School and Farnham Heath End cover the secondary years.
Farnham Rail Station runs services up to Waterloo and down to Alton, yet only 2% of working residents commute by train. Half, 51%, work from home, and 34% drive. There are 144 bus stops in the area, averaging about 138 weekday departures each, with weekend service at nearly all of them. Gigabit broadband reaches 68% of premises and superfast 99%, which explains why the home office outnumbers the season ticket. The London commute is on the timetable. Most of the town decided it wasn't worth the bother.
Water runs through the middle of it all, because the River Wey does. Of the area's postcodes, 13% carry a high rating on at least one flood indicator once surface water is counted. The Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones are narrower: 2% of the area sits in zone 3 and 7% in zone 2. The green side is where Farnham earns its keep. The average home is roughly 180 metres from green space, with about 21 green spaces within a kilometre, Farnham Park runs up behind the castle, and a sliver of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty clips the edge of the town.
Now for the paperwork. The area holds 325 listed buildings: five at Grade I, 39 at Grade II star and 281 at Grade II. Four conservation areas cover Farnham itself, Great Austins, Old Church Lane and Wrecclesham, and five scheduled monuments sit alongside them, the castle among them. Buy in one of those and new windows turn into a planning application. Dreaming of a glass box on the back of a listed cottage off Castle Street is a lovely way to learn the planning officer's first name.
The people match the prices. About 67% of households own their home, the median resident is 43, and the Office for National Statistics models median gross household income at around £74,500 for the financial year to March 2023. Nearly half the adults hold a degree. The farmers' market is monthly, the independents on West Street have outlasted several generations of chain stores, and the whole town has the calm of people who got in before the prices did.
This page also covers the villages and edges that hang off the town. Hale, Heath End and Badshot Lea run north towards Aldershot, sharing shops and bus routes with it. Tongham, Runfold and Seale sit east under the Hog's Back. Tilford, Frensham and Rushmoor go south into heath and river country, while Bentley, Crondall and Ewshot sit over the county line in Hampshire. The postcode stays the same across all of them. The feel changes a lot within a couple of miles.
Farnham suits the family that has done the school research and budgeted for it, the remote worker who wants a proper high street within a walk of the house, and the downsizer who would rather a listed flat in the centre than a big garden in a village. It works best for people who plan to stay long enough for the catchment premium to pay them back.
It doesn't suit a first-time buyer hoping to stretch a modest deposit. It doesn't suit anyone who needs a fast daily train into London and wants that to be normal, or anyone who wants to put up something modern without a planning debate. Aldershot, up the road, gets you more house for the money in exchange for the castle and the catchment. Only you know which of those you'd miss.
History here has a sense of humour. In 1642 the Parliamentarian garrison commander at the castle, the poet George Wither, pulled out. A Royalist High Sheriff, John Denham, also a poet, walked in with 100 supporters. Sir William Waller then blew the gates open with a petard and retook the castle for the loss of one man. Two poets fought over a castle and neither of them held it. The town has since produced George Sturt, William Willett and Maud Gonne, and the racing team that won the 2018 Formula 2 teams' title with Lando Norris is based here.
Farnham is a good place to live if the money works. Its real strength is its community: settled, educated, mostly homeowners, and in no hurry to leave. The weak spot is safety, with a crime rate that sits well above the rest of Waverley. Buy here with your eyes open. The castle has been taken before.