Crystal Balls? House price movements can be forecast - claim

A global financial software and analytics firm says it’s launching a new PropTech tool which promises in the near future to be able to forecast house prices and rental yields.

A pre-launch statement from about the Property Analytics platform from MIAC claims it will “add further value to the services already being provided to mortgage lenders and investors, and should also be of interest to any media or other parties seeking a greater depth of understanding of current property trends.”

It says the platform will allow “instant granular visual breakdown” of house price data it has gathered for MIAC’s existing private clients, by geographical area at different levels such as London boroughs, counties or nationally. 

It also allows the selection of properties by type and number of bedrooms, both owner-occupied and rented, and includes highlights of spikes and trends.

Another claim is that its proprietary technology is currently being developed “to incorporate an element of predictive analytics to extrapolate future trends as well as current and past ones. This development is nearing completion.”

A spokesman for the manufacturers of the tool says it is aimed at lenders to enable to review how their portfolio is performing in real-time but it could also be used by agents - for example to enable them to benchmark rental pricing for every region or track the performance of property pricing across the UK.

Dr Darrel Welch, managing director of MIAC Analytics, says: “We believe that our residential house price and rental indices are the most robust and least volatile in the industry, providing our client partners with unrivalled insight into the relative risk and value of the properties in which they have an interest.

“Other House Price Indices may be limited either by the fact that their data does not reflect the entire UK market, or that their analytics and tools are not quick and user-friendly enough to give a clear and up-to-date picture of what the data means."

He continues: “Finally, our users benefit from access to our team of experts as well as the technology and the indices – giving them a truly bespoke understanding of the information they need.”

MIAC’s UK data is gathered from a combination of sources including Land Registry, the Registers of Scotland and Zoopla, and goes back as far as 1995.