Breakdown of house price movement

Jay1b

We keep getting news of 'house prices rised by 0.5% this month" and similar. But this really doesnt mean anything.

Prices could rise by 30% in the North and drop by 29.5% in the South. (ok the maths is wrong, but u get the idea!).

Does anyone know of a site which breaks it down a bit more?

Kent - 0.75%
Essex -0.5%
Manchester + 2.3%

For example?

Thanks...

Reaper

The most accurate figures are at the Land Registry, and they are broken down in loads of different ways. Either do searches or look at the quarterly reports. The only downside is they take a while to come out so it does not tell you what is happening today.

http://www.landreg.gov.uk/propertyprice/interactive/ppr_ualbs.asp

devils_advocate

But remember fungibilty!

(if anyone doesn't know, fungibility is where any one item is the same as another. So for example, any one share in HSBC is the same as another share in that company. There can be no difference in market value between each share.)

As houses aren't fungible, any index is going to be measuring trends. If there are enough examples, the trend is going to be more accurate. Every index will have statistical corrections built in to it, to reflect distortions in the transactions. (eg if one month, only 3 bedroom terrace places are sold, there is going to be a big increase in the raw index if the next month only 4 bed detached places are sold.) The quality of the adjustments will mean that the index falls, rises or stays the same, but we never see how these are calculated, nor indeed if they are subject to political pressures!

Chris2000

On the Halifax site, use the Quick Finder and select House Price Index to go to their HPI mini-site. There is a huge amount of information broken down by post town, house type etc.

For an alternative view of the market use the press releases at hometrack.co.uk.

ManAtHome

There's also the Law Of Economic Surveys - they are always pessimistic the week before the Bank of England rates meeting, and optimistic the week after...

Natelle_2

This Nationwide report section might be of interest.

kinesin_2

The following site uses the land reg figures and allows you to browse, by county, town etc.. and even break down the charts in to building types.

http://www.proviser.com/regional/counties/kent/property_prices/price_trend/

An Excellent site :j