Knowle and Dorridge, the B93 postcode district on Solihull's southern fringe, had a 2025 median sale price of £557,000 — 2.7 times the £209,500 median in Chelmsley Wood (B37), the cheapest corner of the same local authority, and £227,000 above Solihull's own borough-wide median of £330,000. It is comfortably the most expensive postcode district in England's wealthiest West Midlands borough, built overwhelmingly on detached family housing with almost no new construction in the last decade. But the price ladder and the energy-efficiency ladder don't move together: Knowle and Dorridge rates no greener on its Energy Performance Certificates than the Solihull average, while Chelmsley Wood — the cheapest district — is the greenest of all.
The Solihull price ladder
Solihull is already the priciest of the seven West Midlands metropolitan boroughs to buy in (Solihull's borough-wide 2025 picture). Inside the borough, the gap between postcode districts is wide. Ranking the five Solihull-majority postcode districts by 2025 median sale price (HM Land Registry, standard residential sales, calendar year 2025):
| Postcode district | Area | 2025 median | Sales (n) |
|---|---|---|---|
| B93 | Knowle, Dorridge | £557,000 | 298 |
| B91 | Solihull town, Olton | £458,000 | 485 |
| B90 | Dickens Heath, Shirley | £342,000 | 835 |
| B92 | Elmdon, Solihull Lode | £310,000 | 550 |
| B37 | Chelmsley Wood, Marston Green | £209,500 | 310 |
Three further postcode districts touch Solihull but are left out of this ranking because Solihull doesn't hold a majority of their postcodes: B36 (Castle Bromwich) splits roughly two-thirds Solihull, one-third Birmingham; B94 (Earlswood, Hockley Heath) and CV7 (Meriden, Balsall Common) are each split three or more ways between Solihull, Stratford-on-Avon, Bromsgrove, Warwick, Coventry and Rugby, with Solihull itself in the minority in both. Presenting a partial-authority slice of those three as "the" price for the area would overstate how much of each one is actually governed, and taxed, as Solihull.
What's selling in Knowle and Dorridge
B93's price level is a housing-stock story. Detached houses made up 47.3% of its 298 standard sales in 2025 (median £711,000) against 25.6% detached borough-wide. Semi-detached homes took a 26.5% share (median £470,000), flats 15.8% (£231,000) and terraced houses 10.4% (£356,000). The district's homes are also the largest on record in the borough: a median floor area of 118 square metres against 92 sqm borough-wide and just 82 sqm in Chelmsley Wood, B37 (HM Land Registry; Energy Performance Certificate register, latest certificate per address).
Only one of the 298 B93 sales in 2025 was flagged as a new build — this is a settled, long-held market, not one being reshaped by recent development. Just over a fifth of sales (21.5%) were leasehold, roughly tracking the district's flat share.
Price and energy efficiency point in different directions
Ranking the same five districts by the share of homes rated C-or-above on their most recent Energy Performance Certificate (latest certificate per address, so each property counts once) scrambles the price order completely:
| District | 2025 median | EPC C-or-above | Rated homes (n) | Median floor area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B93 Knowle, Dorridge | £557,000 | 38.2% | 4,043 | 118 sqm |
| B91 Solihull town, Olton | £458,000 | 35.6% | 6,926 | 114 sqm |
| B90 Dickens Heath, Shirley | £342,000 | 43.2% | 11,212 | 89 sqm |
| B92 Elmdon, Solihull Lode | £310,000 | 26.0% | 7,487 | 88 sqm |
| B37 Chelmsley Wood, Marston Green | £209,500 | 50.1% | 5,408 | 82 sqm |
| Solihull borough-wide | £330,000 | 38.4% | 41,875 | 92 sqm |
Knowle and Dorridge's EPC C-or-above share, 38.2% of 4,043 rated homes, sits within a percentage point of the borough-wide figure (38.4%) despite being the most expensive district by a wide margin. Chelmsley Wood, the cheapest district, is the greenest in the borough at 50.1%. The coldest district, Elmdon and Solihull Lode, sits in the middle of the price ladder at £310,000 — not at either price extreme.
The pattern tracks the age of each district's housing stock rather than its price. Chelmsley Wood's certificates are dominated by a single construction era: 39.4% of its rated homes date from 1967-75, the post-war estate-building period, built to a consistent specification. Elmdon and Solihull Lode has the oldest stock of the five districts — 35.9% of its rated homes pre-date 1949, when insulation standards were not yet part of the Building Regulations (gov.uk: Approved Document L, conservation of fuel and power). Knowle and Dorridge sits in between on build-era mix, which lines up with its EPC share landing close to the borough average rather than at either extreme.
An Energy Performance Certificate is a modelled, point-in-time rating of a building's fabric and heating system at the time of inspection — not a verified bill, and not a judgement on current owners. Properties can be re-rated after work such as insulation or a boiler upgrade.
What it costs to buy at each district's median
At Solihull's 2026-27 Band D council tax rate of £2,197.26 and the Bank of England's quoted 5-year fixed rate for a 75% loan-to-value mortgage (4.32% as of April 2026), buying at each district's 2025 median works out as follows over a 25-year repayment term:
| District | Median price | Deposit (25%) | SDLT, home-mover | SDLT, first-time buyer | Mortgage (75% LTV) | + Band D | All-in per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B93 Knowle, Dorridge | £557,000 | £139,250 | £17,850 | £17,850 | £2,280/mo | £183/mo | £2,463/mo |
| B91 Solihull town, Olton | £458,000 | £114,500 | £12,900 | £7,900 | £1,874/mo | £183/mo | £2,057/mo |
| B90 Dickens Heath, Shirley | £342,000 | £85,500 | £7,100 | £2,100 | £1,400/mo | £183/mo | £1,583/mo |
| B92 Elmdon, Solihull Lode | £310,000 | £77,500 | £5,500 | £500 | £1,269/mo | £183/mo | £1,452/mo |
| B37 Chelmsley Wood, Marston Green | £209,500 | £52,375 | £1,690 | £0 | £857/mo | £183/mo | £1,040/mo |
Knowle and Dorridge is the one district on this ladder where first-time buyer relief makes no difference at all: relief tapers to a flat £5,000 between £300,000 and £500,000, then is withdrawn completely above £500,000, so a first-time buyer at the B93 median pays exactly the same £17,850 in Stamp Duty Land Tax as a home-mover (HMRC: Stamp Duty Land Tax residential rates; Finance Act 2003, Schedule 6ZA). At the other end of the ladder, a first-time buyer in Chelmsley Wood pays no Stamp Duty Land Tax at all. An additional-property purchase at the B93 median carries a further 5% surcharge on top, taking the total Stamp Duty Land Tax bill to £45,700 — a calculation worth checking against your own circumstances with a conveyancer rather than assuming it applies.
Council tax is a flat £183 a month in every row of that table, because Band D is set once for the whole borough regardless of postcode. It is the mortgage, not the council tax, that does almost all of the work separating a £1,040-a-month home in Chelmsley Wood from a £2,463-a-month home in Knowle and Dorridge.
Try it on a real address
Look up the true cost of a property on Warwick Road, B93 to see the postcode tool's full breakdown for an address in Knowle and Dorridge, including its own Energy Performance Certificate rating. For the borough-wide picture, see Solihull's 2025 house prices and council tax, and for how the borough compares with its West Midlands neighbours, see Birmingham vs Solihull vs the Black Country: buying and running costs and Birmingham vs Solihull: a 25-year council tax comparison. More regional price guides are on the Homecost regional prices blog.
This is general information based on published data, not financial, tax or legal advice. Speak to a qualified mortgage adviser and a conveyancer before acting on any of the figures above.