Bangor

Bangor reads like a university city long before it reads like anywhere else — terraced streets running down toward the water, students filling the takeaways and charity shops on the high street, and a cathedral and a pier sitting almost incidentally among it all. The median age here is a startling 25, more than fifteen years below the Welsh average, and that single fact colours everything from the housing stock to the nightlife scene, which is rated well above the Welsh norm. This is not a retirement town, and it doesn't try to be.

The practical picture is dominated by that youth. Terraced houses are the default sale here — the sample shows Terraced well ahead of any other type, nearly all of it freehold — and a typical price sits close to £197,000, some way under both the Welsh average and, more tellingly, roughly in line with the wider Gwynedd figure. Eight schools serve the city, including Ysgol Friars and the smaller Ysgol Tryfan for secondary-age children, plus a run of Welsh-medium and voluntary primaries like Ysgol Gymraeg y Garnedd and Ysgol Hirael — a real choice of language and ethos for families who stay on rather than move away after graduation. One rail station, Bangor (Gwynedd), gives a direct line out along the coast, useful if your work or your family isn't local. What doesn't fit the otherwise comfortable pattern is safety: the area's overall grade sits well above the Welsh average, but the safety grade alone lags behind, and violence and sexual offences account for over a third of recorded crime, with anti-social behaviour and shoplifting close behind. Set against Gwynedd as a whole, the crime rate here runs more than double the county figure — a city-centre concentration you'd expect given the density of pubs, students, and footfall, but worth sitting with rather than skipping past.