Who needs experts? AI tool accurately predicts house price growth

The artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Bard, correctly guessed what the UK’s average house price would be in the Land Registry’s monthly House Price Index last month, it has been revealed.

Bard, powered by Google, said the price for June, the period reported in the release, would rise up to £288,000 and it did exactly that.

The research was carried out by the personal finance comparison site finder.com.

When the figure is released today, Bard believes it will show average house prices have fallen down to £287,000.

Not only that, but it predicts an even bigger fall for next month’s release, which looks at August’s house prices. For this release it predicts that prices will fall by £2,000 from its July prediction, meaning that house prices could go as low as £285,000. 

If the predictions prove to be true, it would mirror Halifax’s data, released in September, that suggested the UK had seen the sharpest decline in house prices for 14 years. 

There could be further bad news on the way for homeowners as Bard believes that UK house prices won’t start to rise again until “late 2024 or early 2025”. As with all of its answers, Bard gave a disclaimer that “The actual timing of the bottom point and the recovery will depend on a number of factors, and it is impossible to say for sure what will happen.”

Kate Anderson, deputy editor at finder.com, said: “There seems to be a sense of inevitability in the market that house prices will continue to drop for the next few months, so Bard’s prediction may end up being correct, or close to being correct, again.

“While I would personally expect house prices to rebound sooner than Bard’s prediction of late 2024 onwards, it is a sign of how far AI has come that it can even give remotely sensible predictions.

“We are still very much in the early stages of AI, and Bard is often riddled with errors when asked simple questions, so this release is more of a conceptual experiment than a serious prediction piece. 

“However it won’t be long before it makes a meaningful impact on the real estate industry and smart firms will already be exploring how it can help them get ahead. Similarly, it won’t be long before potential buyers or sellers can use AI to help them make an informed decision.”