Selly Park

Terraced Victorian and Edwardian streets dominate here, punctuated by student houses and the odd converted semi — a look that tells you Birmingham's universities are close even before anyone mentions them. The median age of 23 is the giveaway: this is a suburb shaped by students and young renters as much as by anyone settling in for the long haul, and the streetscape has that particular mix of kept-up family homes next to houses with five doorbells.

For commuters, Selly Oak Rail Station gives you a way into the city without needing a car, though the area's C-grade transport score suggests the wider public transport picture is more patchy than that one line implies — this isn't a place with transport links radiating in every direction. Schools follow a similar pattern of solid-but-uneven: Selly Park Girls' School holds a Good rating with a respectable progress 8 score of 0.55, and St Edward's Catholic Primary is also Good, but the overall schools grade lands at a middling B, and not every local school has a published Ofsted outcome. On the housing side, terraced freeholds are what you'll mostly find on a For Sale board — 34 of the 65 recent sales were terraces, the vast majority freehold rather than leasehold, and at a median of £300,000 you're paying above the national terrace average of £230,000 for the privilege, reflecting Selly Park's position inside Birmingham's more established inner suburbs. House prices here sit 30% above the Birmingham average, and the five-year direction is improving rather than volatile, even if any single year's movement (2.36%) looks modest on its own.