A typical home in Melbourn sells for about £400,000, and most of the choice is in houses with gardens. Terraces and semis sell for a bit less than that. Detached houses sell for a lot more. Prices have barely moved in a year. The middle of the market has plenty to choose from, and the cheap end hardly exists.
In the Land Registry's year to April 2026, 84 homes sold across the Melbourn area at a median of about £402,000. Semi-detached houses were the busiest type, with 30 sales at a median of about £366,000. Twenty terraces went for about £350,000, so the step up from terrace to semi is small here. Detached houses were the real jump, with 29 sales at a median of £650,000. Flats managed five sales at a median of £255,000. Five sales is too few to price anything from, so anyone looking at a flat should ask for the individual sale prices behind any valuation they are shown.
The official house price index for the area rose about 0.4% in the twelve months to May 2026, which is close enough to flat that nobody should be celebrating or panicking. Flats in the same index fell about 3.4% over the year. In a place with almost no flats, that matters to a handful of sellers and almost nobody else.
Band C is the most common council tax band in the Melbourn area. Only about 11% of homes are in Bands A or B, the two cheapest. A Band D home costs about £2,536 a year in council tax, which is the easiest figure to compare against your current bill. Most people buying here will pay somewhere near it, because hardly any homes are in the bands that would save them money.
The typical private rent across the South Cambridgeshire area was about £1,400 a month as of April 2026, up about 4% on a year earlier. By size, the district averages are about £1,000 a month for a one-bed, £1,275 for a two-bed, £1,520 for a three-bed and £2,140 for four or more bedrooms. These are means from the Office for National Statistics' rent index, covering the whole district, so they describe South Cambridgeshire in general and no particular Melbourn lane.
The Office for National Statistics models gross household income in the Melbourn area at about £68,000 a year, before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. After tax it comes to about £49,000. On those figures a £400,000 semi is a real stretch for one earner and manageable for two, and detached houses at £650,000 need either two good salaries or equity from a previous sale. Incomes here look healthy until tax comes off. Both figures are a few years old now.
Of the sales that could be matched to a floor area on an energy certificate, about 91% of them, the median price was about £4,250 per square metre. The typical home behind that figure has about 91 square metres of floor space. That is a family house of ordinary size at an ordinary South Cambridgeshire price, with nothing added for a sea view or a famous postcode.
The 2021 Census counted about 34% of Melbourn-area homes with four or more bedrooms, 33% with three, 24% with two and 8% with one. Three- and four-bedroom homes together make up about two-thirds of the stock, so a buyer wanting a big family house has the most to choose from. A first-time buyer hoping for a one-bed has very little.
House prices in Melbourn are middling: there is nothing cheap here to grab, and for a big village with this much space the costs aren't outrageous either. The money buys a house of normal size at a normal price, in a place where one-bed homes are rare.