Houses in Royston typically sell for about £362,000. A flat costs around £205,000, and a detached house costs a quarter of a million more than that. Semis and terraces sit close together in the middle. Prices are still edging up, though slowly. For anyone with Cambridge money, it is a town where a family house is within reach.
The Land Registry recorded 228 sales in Royston in the year to May 2026, at a median of about £362,000. By type, 55 flats sold at a median of about £205,000, 74 terraced houses at about £355,000, 51 semi-detached houses at about £395,000 and 48 detached houses at about £515,000. A semi costs only a little more than a terrace, so buyers here mostly pay for the extra wall rather than any change of postcode.
The house price index for the area shows average prices up 3.7% in the twelve months to May 2026, with an average of about £417,000. Flats rose just 1.1% over the same period. That is steady growth for houses and close to standing still for flats. Anyone who bought a flat expecting it to fund a semi in a couple of years will be waiting a while.
Most Royston homes are in council tax band C, and about a fifth are in bands A or B. A band D bill in North Hertfordshire comes to about £2,450 a year. Council tax bands were set in 1991 and are rarely revisited when a house is extended, so it is worth looking up the band on the valuation list for the exact house. A loft conversion added since then may not have changed the band yet, but the next sale can prompt a review.
Across North Hertfordshire as a whole, private rents average about £1,420 a month as of April 2026, up 4.6% on the year. That figure is a mean from the Office for National Statistics index, so it is no median of advertised listings, and it covers the whole district. By size, the district averages about £1,010 a month for one bedroom, £1,270 for two, £1,550 for three and £2,210 for four or more. Royston has a station with direct trains to Cambridge and King's Cross, and landlords set rents with that in mind.
Household income in Royston averaged about £66,000 a year before tax in the financial year to March 2023. That is an Office for National Statistics model, so it is now a few years old and comes before deductions. On that income a two-earner household can reach a terrace or a flat without heroics. A detached house at the top of the market needs equity from a previous sale or a second good salary. Royston is a town people tend to trade up within, and each step up costs a bigger jump in price.
On price per square metre, the median in the year to May 2026 was about £4,400. That covers the 93% of sales that could be matched to an energy certificate's floor area, and the typical floor area behind those sales was about 80 square metres. Royston is mostly post-war housing built to sensible dimensions, so buyers are mostly paying for space they will use. The period cottage with a corridor nobody can furnish is the exception here.
The 2021 Census found about 42% of Royston households in three-bedroom homes, about 26% with four or more, about 22% with two and about 11% with one. Three bedrooms is what most of the town is built from, and three-bedroom houses are what most buyers end up competing for. Whoever lists a three-bed semi near the heath will meet the same few families again by the second viewing.
House prices are one of Royston's strengths: the cost is steady, not cheap, and for what most buyers want, a sensible three-bedroom house within reach of Cambridge, it is fair value.