Rush Green records about 140 crimes a year for every 1,000 residents, and a buyer has to make room for that figure before the parks and the schools get a say. It decides which streets feel easy after dark and which ones you hurry along. Everything else is decent and ordinary: green space a couple of minutes from most front doors, schools that are almost all rated good or better, and family houses at outer-London prices. The crime number is the cost of all that, and it is a heavy one.
The police.uk figures for the twelve months to May 2026 put Rush Green at about 140 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents, roughly 49% above the Havering average of about 94. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 21% of incidents here against 16% across England and Wales, and drug offences about 8% against a national 4%. Shoplifting runs below the national share. The Metropolitan Police, which covers the area, charges about 10% of the crimes it records against a national figure near 12%, putting it 33rd of 42 forces on that measure. The mix leans towards what happens on the pavement more than what happens behind a front door, and the clear-up rate is no comfort either.
About 60% of households own their home, and the typical resident is 36. The Office for National Statistics models gross household income across the area at about £70,700 in the financial year to March 2023, an average across seven neighbourhoods and not a figure for any one street. Those are the numbers of a working suburb with mortgages to pay, not a retirement colony. Since December 2015 Rush Green has also been home to West Ham United's training ground, and the women's team play their home matches there. The best-kept grass in Rush Green belongs to a football club.
The Land Registry logged 268 sales in the year to May 2026, at a typical price of about £430,000. Semis went for about £469,000, terraces about £442,000 and flats about £256,000. Only six detached houses sold, at a median of about £512,000. Anyone set on a detached house here will spend more weekends refreshing a search page than viewing. Band C is the most common council-tax band, and about 18% of homes fall in bands A or B.
Rents are only published for the whole borough. Havering's typical private rent was about £1,560 a month in April 2026, a mean from the Office for National Statistics index, and up about 5% on the year.
The council-tax valuation list, which covers every home, shows flats at about 36% of the stock and terraces about 33%. Semis make up about 23%, bungalows 4% and detached houses 3%. Only about 15% of homes were built before 1930. On energy certificates about 41% of rated homes are band D, about 47% are C or better, and about 12% are E or worse. Roughly 76% of homes heat with mains gas, and about 10% are electric-only, a running cost to ask about before the second viewing.
Romford station is the nearest railway station. The Department for Transport modelled the trip into Romford town centre in 2019 at about 16 minutes by public transport or about 21 on foot. Rush Green has 166 bus stops, the average stop sees about 560 departures on a weekday, and 99% of stops get a weekend service. Even so, at the last census about 34% of workers drove, about 29% worked from home, and the train and the bus each took about 8%. Gigabit broadband reaches about 92% of premises. Given a station a short bus ride away and buses every few minutes, a third of commuters still reach for the car keys.
On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones, about 3% of Rush Green's postcodes are in Zone 3 and about 5% in Zone 2. A wider measure is less flattering: about 20% of postcodes carry a high rating on at least one flood indicator, surface water included. The agency has recorded 13 flood events, the latest in June 2016, when a main river overtopped a channel with no raised defences. Most of that 20% comes from rain with nowhere to go, not from a river.
The five primary schools with published results averaged about 107 on the end-of-primary maths test, and the one secondary with results scored about 44 on Attainment 8. Rush Green Primary School is one of the local options. Across Havering, Ofsted rates 29 of 30 graded settings good or better, seven of them outstanding, though that count covers the whole borough. In a borough where nearly every graded school is good, parents end up fighting over the gap between good and outstanding.
Rush Green has 29 listed buildings, two at Grade II* and 27 at Grade II. Two conservation areas reach onto its map, Romford and the Chadwell Heath Anti-aircraft Gun Site. For most owners of a semi or a terrace, an extension goes through the ordinary planning rules. The most carefully protected ground nearby was built for shooting at aeroplanes.
The nearest green space is about 130 metres from the average home, with about 28 within a kilometre, and water is roughly 440 metres away. A park two minutes from the front door is Rush Green's strongest suit, and a dog owner will be on first-name terms with half of them within a month.
Rush Green is a sensible buy for a family after a three-bed, parks on the doorstep and good primaries without inner-London prices, as long as most of their evenings end indoors. Anyone who walks home late, or wants Havering's calmer crime record along with Havering's prices, should look further east.
Rush Green is a middling place to live. The green space and the schools are the reason to come, and the crime rate is what you live with once you get there. That gap with the rest of the borough decides which street you buy on, more than whether you buy here at all.