UK house price indices are making major misinterpretations of data, it has been claimed, with unsold, over-priced houses skewing statistics and inflating a false property bubble.
The claims come from the trio behind a new property app – estate agency trainer Richard Rawlings, his colleague Tim Hammond, and statistics analyst Dr Brad Payne.
All three are founders of property firm Agent Analytics, who have worked with IT business Roambi on the new tool.
Called House Price Analytics, it exposes what it calls are myth-busting facts about existing house price figures.
The free-to-download House Price Analytics app brings together data from Rightmove, Zoopla, Halifax, Nationwide and LSL plus 18 years of house price data from HM Land Registry, although not the ONS.
The founders say their aim is to reveal the real reasons why some portals suggest the average asking price for a home in the UK is £252,418 when other indices state the average price of properties sold is £167,063.
They also claim portals substantially over-estimate London values because they use a mean average, thereby allowing the most expensive property listed at £68m to unduly influence figures.
There are over 1,283 properties with an average price of more than £5m listed in London. However, a random sample of ten valued at over £20m reveals that all are listed with more than one estate agency, and some with as many as six. As the house price portals take a mean average of all listings, the result is a massively over-inflated valuation figure, suggesting that the London ‘property bubble’ is smaller than reported.
In addition to exposing major property market misinterpretations, House Price Analytics empowers users to understand everything from seasonal fluctuations to average speed of sale with the wave of a finger.
Visuals also enable users to interact with charts of asking price / sold price movements between different time periods, based on the index chosen.
Rawlings said: “The use of data analytics to reveal misinterpretations in the reporting of house prices will prove to be an invaluable tool in the great UK property price debate.
“For most consumers, purchasing a home represents the biggest single financial investment of a lifetime, so we are delighted to launch a tool that helps them obtain an accurate, and most importantly, intelligent, view of the property market.”
www.housepriceanalytics.com
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Comments
Multi listing what a curse, particularly with the london weighting skewing the figures even further! Great idea, however, I use land registry data, local knowledge and a bit of common sense.
Just checked no Android version? I don't own a single Apple product that isn't in a fruit bowl, crumble or cake!
@RR
Get an iPad out in a valuation? Tackorama.
Woody Allen gets locked in a sweat box with an insurance salesman. 8 min 27 secs. Says sit all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kKzO1mfaK8
Nothing planned for PC as far as I know as you can't take your PC with you on an appointment. I know Android is in development for next year. But it works beautifully on an iPad! Beg, borrow or steal one!
@RR
I've got wi-fi, haven't got an iThingy though.
PC option to come?
Hi Blakey - this is an app powered by Roambi - the global leader in data visualisation - and they are passionate about bringing boring desktop spreadsheets to life anywhere - hence it being an iPad app. However, you don't need WiFi to use it. It updates when you are in a WiFi zone but is then stand-alone, so you can use it with a client at their house, in management meetings or play with it in bed, as I do! It's pretty addictive and is ruining my love life. Regards.
@RR
Is there a desktop version?
Thank you , at last we have a team which understands the fact we have a fragmented housing market ! , great work 10
Wow - amazing national and international media coverage of House Price Analytics covering our launch yesterday and agents as well as the public are of course welcome to download the app free, although the dedicated agents' version (Agent Analytics) goes live on 6th December. A quick clarification to the article above: the headline suggests the portals lie about house prices. We don't go so far as to say that - it's just a matter of how the indices are interpreted and compared. Secondly we do indeed include ONS figures and provide comparisons with other indices using the interactive visual on the third page of the report - which is automatically updated with the latest figures and observations issued on 1st of each month.
Sounds very interesting. For a long time I have felt that the monthly roll out of house price statistics have been at best misinterpreted, at worse, damn lies!
I have always wondered what the correction factor all these surveys must use to iron out the differences between all the different style of properties. As yet I have not seen this factor published by any of the surveys. When we were get front page headlines saying house price had dropped by 0.75%, I was always suspicious this was just with in the margin of error for the data, rather than an actual drop.
Our delightful media have never thought to question the facts that they are spoon fed!