Postcode district
A postcode district is the first half of a UK postcode, such as N7 or SY1. It is the level House Price Monitor uses for its sold price pages.
A postcode district is the whole first half of a postcode, before the space. In N7 6PA the district is N7. This first half is also called the outward code, because it was used to send mail out to the right delivery office.
There are around 3,100 postcode districts in the UK. Each one sits inside a postcode area and is split into postcode sectors.
What a district looks like
The outward code is between two and four characters long. It starts with the area letters and ends with a number, and sometimes a letter after that. N7, LS6, SW1A and EC1V are all postcode districts.
A district usually covers several thousand homes. In a city it may be a single neighbourhood. In the countryside it can stretch across a market town and many villages around it.
Why prices are shown by district
A district records enough sales each year for a typical price to be steady. One very expensive or very cheap sale cannot pull a median price far when there are dozens or hundreds of other sales around it.
Smaller levels, such as sectors, units and single streets, are more local but have far fewer sales. Their figures can jump about from month to month simply because of which homes happened to sell. A district gives a steadier view, with street figures read against it.
House Price Monitor reports sold prices for every postcode district in England and Wales on its free postcode pages, with a page for each street that has at least three registered sales.
Reading a district figure
A district is often mixed. It can hold a high street of flats, roads of family houses and a new development, all in one place. The district median sits somewhere among them and may not describe any single street well.
The kind of homes that sold also moves the figure. A month with more flats than usual will pull the median down, even if prices have not changed. Comparing the same property type helps, as does looking at how many sales sit behind each figure. Our guide to comparing streets and postcodes covers this in more detail.
| Part of the postcode | The first half, before the space |
| Also called | Outward code |
| Example | N7 in N7 6PA |
| Number in the UK | Around 3,100 |
| Splits into | Postcode sectors |
Related terms
Postcode area · Postcode sector · Postcode unit · Median price · Property type · Comparables