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Too many house price surveys, government is told

17 December 2010
Written by rosalind renshaw

There should only be one official national house price survey, the national statistician has said.

Jil Matheson, who is chief executive of the Office for National Statistics, has reported back after being asked to investigate different figures being issued by the two current official surveys.

One is the Land Registry’s survey, and the other is that produced by Communities and Local Government.

Although these two surveys were her official remit, it is likely that Matheson’s findings may impact on the welter of other surveys which produce frequently conflicting figures.

Her key recommendation, after a consultation last summer, is that there should be one headline official house price index which meets key user needs. However, she says this single official survey should be accompanied by a report, comparing it to non-official sources and wider housing market indicators.

The Land Registry and CLG have been asked to work together on the feasibility of producing a joint statistical report containing the headline house price index and other house price indicators.

Jil Matheson said: “There is a great deal of interest in and importance placed on changes in the value of our houses by all sections of society. I want to be sure that official statistics producers are providing the right statistics on house prices to support decision making by us all.”

One report which is known to have a key influence with the Bank of England is that produced by the RICS. Another report which recently emerged as having an official influence on housing policy is the rental index produced on the website FindaProperty.

Comments

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    We estate agents would be happy to send our sale agreed prices at the end of each month to a data collection point to enable a more accurate and up to date house price report - hopefully I speak for the rst of you agents out there?

    • 18 December 2010 19:57 PM
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    Right,

    So what we need is a central point where lots of agents can contribute all managed by someone in the media that can publish the results, it needs to be national but with regional data and probably house type data, ive said before that just because the price of City centre flats have collapsed in Leeds it wont mean a 4 bed house in Ilkley has also gone down as well……………………….

    ………………who could organise such a thing Roz? – forget the 100 list this is just the thing for EAT

    Anyway, we could do no worse than some of the others out there, in fact what we should do is have it completely anecdotal and ask all the HPC lot to add their views, that would be interesting and no one can say its not balanced, sort of a ConLib coalition of house price surveys

    Jonnie

    • 17 December 2010 15:06 PM
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    The media and government by the sounds of it still havent got to grips with the (average) 4 month time lag of the land reg. data. Halifax/nationwide are more accurate as at least they are only 4 - 8 weeks old with their figures even. But for real- time accuracy Rightmove is surely the best indicator even if the don't know what price houses are selling for, its a much better snapshot of market confidence at the time of release.

    • 17 December 2010 12:40 PM
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    PeeBee: I find myself agreeing with you - again!
    However, I add the point that geographical regions are important but never seam to be considered or headlined.

    • 17 December 2010 11:47 AM
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    This is definitely the 'No sh!t, Sherlock' story of the day. Was there ever any doubt that the ONS were going to report back that actually, you can never have too much information from as many sources as possible?

    Of course not - that was not their brief. But looking at it another way, and I know we all complain about the deluge of price indices, if there WERE to be only one then it would be pretty easy to 'control' the information released, thereby having a far greater influence on the following market.

    The problem is not the QUANTITY of these indices; it is the QUALITY - and more to the point, what parts of them are being used. As I have said before, for every one percentage point that they quote, there are 99 others which form the real picture. Look at the recent Halifax jobby - prices reduced by 0.1%. ONE TENTH OF ONE PERCENT! Made headlines nationally and internationally. Had it said 'House prices hold at 99.9%' - wouldn't have even made page 22.

    There are a myriad of car price guides out there - Glass'; Parkers; etc - but the Government don't seem to want to standardise those!

    A house price will be determined by what a buyer is prepaerd to pay for it - it is that simple. Historic information is that and ONLY that. Yesterday's price has gone. It is today's price - and tomorrow's - that matter. And historic information is ONLY worth the paper it is written on if you know EXACTLY what it relates to - which in 99.9% of the time you don't.

    But, of course, it's the 0.1% that makes ALL the difference, innit? :0)

    • 17 December 2010 10:52 AM
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    John Aitken: With all due respect... what the hell are you prattling on about??

    • 17 December 2010 10:35 AM
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    Do your own survey, there many ways to do this, when we search fr clients we look at sale prices as well as for sale prices and plot the results on a graph so you can easily work out what the top price per square foot should be.

    You may need to adjust the price if there are lots of stairs for loss of space, or if there is aoutside space as that adds value where as lots of stairs deducts value and so on..

    That way you can spot 'owner' priced or overpriced propery when you are searching, and see if you are really getting a good deal.

    John Aitken

    www.HomeSearchLondon.com

    • 17 December 2010 09:49 AM
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