Denton

Terraced streets dominate here, row after row of red-brick Victorian and inter-war housing, and the For Sale boards you'll see are almost always outside a two-up-two-down rather than anything grander. This is a working town on the eastern edge of Greater Manchester's sprawl, dense in population but modest in price, and it reads as a place people settle into rather than pass through on their way up the ladder.

The numbers back that up: with a median house price around £205,500, Denton sits nearly 30% below neighbouring Stockport and comfortably under both the regional and national medians, and freehold terraces make up the bulk of the 315 sales sampled here — 151 of them, against just 115 semis and a scattering of detached homes. That's a market for first-time buyers and long-term owner-occupiers rather than investors chasing new-builds; there were none in the sample. Denton Rail Station gives you a direct line into the city, which matters if you commute, and with a median age of 42.7 — a couple of years above the national figure — this reads as a town of settled households rather than young professionals fresh off the train. Schools are the one place the picture gets uneven: Russell Scott Primary and Greswell Primary both hold Good ratings, but Denton Community Academy, one of the larger secondaries, is rated Inadequate, and the area's overall schools grade lags well behind its other marks. If you have secondary-age children, that's worth sitting with before you commit to a street.