How Are House Price Indices Useful To Me?

 

Let’s clear up any confusion straight away.

House price indices won’t tell you how much your home is worth.

There are too many things that make your house unique – here are a few examples:

• Its exact location – how desirable is your town, village or street?

• Is your home newly redecorated or in need of some updating?

• Do you have sea views, a garage, a garden or anything else that none of your neighbours have?

The list is endless and the figures in house price indices are deliberately massaged to remove the effects of these variations and provide a reasonable average.

The problem is that everybody’s home is slightly different – not average.

But House Price Indices Are Still Useful

House price indices are useful for helping you understand what’s going on in the market.

Looked at over several months, they usually show what direction the market is moving in and how fast it’s going.

They show you the bigger picture.

To find out how your property fits into that picture, you need to do a little research yourself.

Look in the windows of local estate agents, or at properties for sale in your area on Rightmove.

Consider getting your property valued by a few local estate agents – and ask them for sale prices of similar properties they’ve sold recently.

Combining this approach with information from the house price indices will tell you something about the real value of your house and how the housing market is moving.

Where Can I Get House Price Indices?

Most of the monthly house price index publications are freely available to anyone who
wants them from the relevant website. For
example, Land Registry house price index press releases can be downloaded from here