Windsor is a good place to live once you stop staring at the castle. Six in ten households own their home. Nearly half the workers stayed home when the census was taken. The Thames that built the town also floods bits of it. The castle gets the coach parties, and the residents get a fairly expensive, well-run commuter town with a royal park at the end of the road.
The housing is more ordinary than the postcards. On the council-tax valuation list, flats make up about a third of Windsor's homes, terraces 29%, semis 19%, detached houses 12% and bungalows 4%. About a quarter of homes were built before 1930. On energy certificates, about half the certificated homes are rated A to C, 37% D and 12% E or worse. About 76% of homes heat with mains gas and about 13% run on electricity alone, so it's worth asking which kind you're viewing. The Georgian frontage in the listing photographs is the quarter built before 1930, and the flat you can afford is usually in the third that isn't.
The Land Registry recorded 304 sales in the year to mid-May 2026, at a typical price of about £519,000. Flats went for about £310,000, terraces about £522,000, semis about £622,000 and detached houses about £865,000. The most common council tax band is D, which costs about £1,950 a year across the Royal Borough, and only about 13% of Windsor's homes are in bands A and B. Going from a terrace to a semi means paying for one wall you no longer share, and in Windsor that wall is very expensive.
Across Windsor and Maidenhead as a whole, typical private rent was about £1,810 a month in April 2026, up about 4% on a year earlier. By size, that borough average is about £1,250 for a one-bed and about £1,580 for a two-bed. These are Office for National Statistics averages for the whole council area, Maidenhead and the villages included, so a flat near the castle and a house out in Oakley Green can come in well apart.
Thames Valley Police recorded about 93 crimes per 1,000 residents in the year to May 2026, roughly 35% above the Windsor and Maidenhead average of about 69. The mix leans towards theft. Shoplifting is about 9% of recorded crime, other theft about 9% and vehicle crime about 7%, each a little above the England and Wales share. Violence and sexual offences come to about 32%, a touch below the national share. The rate is worked out on the people who live here, and a castle pulls in a great many people who don't.
Windsor still runs three tiers. First schools take children to age nine, middle schools to 13, and then most go to one of the town's two single-sex secondaries, The Windsor Boys' School or Windsor Girls' School. The five primary-phase schools in the postcode district average about 104 on the key stage 2 maths score, and the two secondaries average about 47 on Attainment 8. Across Windsor and Maidenhead, Ofsted has graded 21 of 25 settings good or better, two of them outstanding. Parents moving in from a two-tier county find out about the extra change of school when the forms arrive.
There are two stations. Windsor & Eton Central runs a shuttle to Slough for Paddington and Reading trains, and Windsor & Eton Riverside runs direct to London Waterloo. In the 2021 Census about 2% of working residents went to work by train, about 36% drove and about 46% worked from home. Gigabit broadband reaches about 78% of premises and superfast about 95%. There are 135 bus stops, averaging about 65 weekday departures each. Windsor has two railway termini, and on census day most of its commuters used neither.
The river is the main risk. About 9% of Windsor is in the Environment Agency's highest river-and-sea flood zone and about 16% in the zone below it. About a quarter of postcodes rate high on at least one flood indicator, surface water included, and about 16% of the area has flooded before. The last recorded event was in December 2000, when the main river overtopped its banks. The green space makes up for a lot. The nearest park or open space is about 140 metres away on average, with about 27 within a kilometre, and Windsor Forest and Great Park is a Site of Special Scientific Interest on the doorstep. Buyers tend to view the riverside flat on a dry day and get the insurance quote after a wet one.
Windsor has 320 listed buildings: three at Grade I, 25 at Grade II* and 292 at Grade II. The area also has two scheduled monuments and one conservation area, Boveney. On a listed house, a new window, a knocked-through wall or a changed door needs consent before the builder starts. Geoffrey Chaucer was Clerk of the Works at the castle in 1391 and left no record of ever visiting. Owners of listed houses can expect the planning officers to visit.
About 60% of households own their home, about 25% rent privately and about 15% rent from a social landlord. The median age is 41. The Office for National Statistics models average gross household income at about £70,000 for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area. About 45% of adults have a degree. That adds up to a professional town with a sizeable rented share, which is roughly what happens when a tourist economy and a commuter economy share the same streets.
This page covers more than the centre. Clewer and Dedworth are on the western side, Old Windsor is to the south and older than Windsor itself, Eton is over the bridge, and Eton Wick, Oakley Green and Cranbourne add a village edge. Windsor Bridge is now for pedestrians and cyclists only, so Eton is a short walk from Windsor and a much longer drive.
Windsor suits professionals who mostly work from home and want a real town centre, a big park, and London by direct train when they need it. It also suits families happy with single-sex secondaries and a three-tier system, and buyers who like a listed house and don't mind asking permission to change it.
It suits buyers with a tight budget less well, because the typical sale price is well above what most first-time buyers can manage. It is also a poor fit for anyone set on a riverside house without checking the flood maps first, and for anyone who needs the crime figures to be low. Before an offer, check the address on the Environment Agency's flood map and ask whether the house is listed.
Residents have a long record of being brief. Nell Gwyn was given Burford House on St Albans Street and seems to have barely lived there. Sir Michael Caine lived at the Old Mill House in Clewer.
Windsor is a decent place to live, and the castle has little to do with it. Its main strength is the setting, with green space almost everywhere and the Great Park close by. Its weak spot is the river, which floods a noticeable part of the town, and the crime rate is high for the borough. If you buy above the flood line, you get a good town with a royal park next door.