Homes in Ashford's TN23 and TN24 sold for a £300,000 median over the past year, below the £344,000 borough average. Prices by type, and why Tenterden differs.
Ashford is one of the cheaper places to buy in the South East, and the numbers say so plainly. The average home in the borough is worth about £37,000 less than the regional average, and inside the town itself the typical sale is lower again. This page gives the official borough figure, the figure for Ashford town on its own, and the figures for Tenterden and the villages, and says exactly where each one comes from.
The two numbers, and why they differ
The average home across Ashford borough sold for £344,000 in May 2026, up 0.7% on the £342,000 recorded a year earlier. That is the provisional figure from the UK House Price Index, built from completed sales registered by HM Land Registry rather than from asking prices.
Narrow the lens to Ashford town and the number comes down. Of the 890 residential sales in the TN23 and TN24 postcodes that HM Land Registry had registered for the year to 31 July 2026 when we checked on 9 August, the median price paid was £300,000 and the mean was £321,970. Those two postcodes are the town: central Ashford, South Ashford, Willesborough, Kennington, Kingsnorth, Singleton, Park Farm and the estates around them.
The borough figure is higher because the borough is much bigger than the town. Ashford Borough Council also covers Tenterden, Charing, Biddenden, Wye, Bethersden and Hamstreet, and the Wealden and downland villages carry higher values than the town does. Strip those out and Ashford town reads as a mid-priced market in an expensive region: the South East average was £381,000 in May 2026 and the UK average £271,000, so the town sits closer to the national number than the regional one. For a place with a 38-minute train to St Pancras, that gap is the single most useful fact on this page.
Ashford town prices by property type
Land Registry records every completed sale with its property type, so the town’s year of sales splits cleanly.
| Property type | Sales | Share | Median | Mean |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | 190 | 21.3% | £440,000 | £452,818 |
| Semi-detached | 256 | 28.8% | £317,500 | £325,183 |
| Terraced | 301 | 33.8% | £271,000 | £277,718 |
| Flats and maisonettes | 119 | 13.4% | £170,000 | £172,429 |
| Other | 24 | 2.7% | £373,500 | £548,270 |
| All types | 890 | 100% | £300,000 | £321,970 |
The terrace is the biggest single slice of the Ashford market at 34%, and at a £271,000 median it sets the entry point for anyone buying a house rather than a flat. Add semis and two out of every three homes sold in the town last year were terraced or semi-detached. The flat market is the one to watch if you are buying your first place: at a £170,000 median it is roughly £130,000 below the town’s all-types median, and it is the only category where a deposit on a Kent salary is a realistic proposition without help.
Tenterden, Wye and the villages
The borough’s rural postcodes are a different market, and they are the reason the borough average sits above the town. These are postcode-district figures from the same Land Registry data, over the same twelve months. Read them with one caveat: TN23, TN24 and TN30 sit wholly inside Ashford borough, but TN25, TN26 and TN27 spill over into Folkestone and Hythe, Maidstone, Swale and Tunbridge Wells, so those three describe the postcode area rather than the borough.
| Postcode | Main places | Sales | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| TN23 | South Ashford, Singleton, Park Farm | 524 | £295,000 |
| TN24 | Central Ashford, Willesborough, Kennington | 366 | £306,000 |
| TN25 | Wye and the downs villages | 249 | £390,000 |
| TN26 | Hamstreet and the marsh edge | 104 | £500,000 |
| TN27 | Charing and Biddenden | 149 | £441,000 |
| TN30 | Tenterden | 156 | £425,000 |
TN26 is the striking one. A £500,000 median off only 104 sales reflects a thin market of larger rural properties around Hamstreet, Woodchurch and Bethersden, where a single farmhouse sale moves the middle of the range. Tenterden at £425,000 is the more reliable rural benchmark, because it is a proper town with a steady flow of sales, and it is comfortably £125,000 above the Ashford town median.
The two Ashford postcodes are close together, £295,000 in TN23 and £306,000 in TN24, which tells you something useful: there is no dramatic good-side, bad-side split in this town. What you pay is driven far more by property type than by which side of the ring road you are on.
How the borough compares
| Area | Average price | Change on the year |
|---|---|---|
| Ashford borough | £344,000 | +0.7% |
| South East | £381,000 | from £377,000 |
| United Kingdom | £271,000 | from £264,000 |
All three figures come from the UK House Price Index for May 2026. Ashford borough is about £37,000 below the South East average and £73,000 above the UK average, and it moved almost not at all over the year. A 0.7% rise in cash terms is a flat market, not a rising one.
The index also splits buyers. A first-time buyer in Ashford borough paid an average of £285,000 in May 2026, in line with a year earlier, and a home mover paid £411,000, against £409,000 the year before. The £126,000 gap between those two is, in practice, the size of the step from a first flat or terrace to a family house here.
What it means for you
If you are buying your first home, the flat market at a £170,000 median is the realistic entry point, and terraces at £271,000 are the next rung. Both are well below what the same rung costs in Tonbridge or Sevenoaks, and the 38-minute high speed train to St Pancras is the reason people accept the trade of a longer commute for a smaller price.
If you are selling, a market that moved 0.7% in a year is one where pricing at the 2022 peak will leave a property sitting. The middle of the market is where the volume is: 557 of last year’s 890 town sales were terraced or semi-detached.
If you are buying in the villages, budget for a genuine step up. Tenterden’s median is 42% above Ashford town’s, and that gap has nothing to do with the housing stock being better and everything to do with there being far less of it.
One thing worth checking before you commit to a particular corner of the borough: what is allocated for building near it. Our Ashford planning news page sets out the Local Plan timetable and the housing numbers behind it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average house price in Ashford?
The average home in Ashford borough sold for £344,000 in May 2026 according to the provisional UK House Price Index. Inside Ashford town itself, the median price paid across 890 sales in TN23 and TN24 over the year to July 2026 was £300,000.
Are Ashford house prices going up or down in 2026?
Broadly flat. The borough average rose 0.7% in the year to May 2026, from £342,000 to £344,000. That is a holding pattern rather than growth or decline.
How much is a house in Ashford compared with a flat?
A terraced house in Ashford town had a median price of £271,000 and a flat £170,000 over the year to July 2026, a gap of about £101,000. Semi-detached homes sat at £317,500 and detached at £440,000.
Is Tenterden more expensive than Ashford?
Yes, substantially. The TN30 Tenterden postcode had a £425,000 median against £300,000 in the two Ashford town postcodes, a difference of £125,000 on the middle sale.
Is Ashford cheap for the South East?
Comparatively, yes. Ashford borough’s £344,000 average is about £37,000 below the South East average of £381,000, which is unusual for a Kent town with a direct high speed line into London.
Where can I check what a specific house sold for?
Every completed sale in England and Wales is public. Look up a street or an address free on the HM Land Registry Price Paid service.
Sources
- UK House Price Index, Ashford (ONS and HM Land Registry) for the borough average, the annual change, property-type and buyer-type figures and the regional and UK comparisons.
- HM Land Registry Price Paid data for every figure by postcode district and property type, queried for sales registered between 1 August 2025 and 31 July 2026 and retrieved on 9 August 2026.
- HM Land Registry Price Paid search to check any individual address.
Land Registry figures are counts of sales registered, not sales completed, so the most recent months fill in as registrations catch up. Always confirm current numbers against the linked sources before making a decision.
Have your say
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