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What's your property worth?

John Fitzsimons
by Lovemoney Staff John Fitzsimons on 29 August 2012  |  Comments 12 comments

A number of websites promise to give you an accurate estimate of what your home is worth. How accurate are they?

What's your property worth?

Land Registry

The Land Registry tracks the price paid in each housing transaction. It’s a useful tool for doing research, but doesn’t pretend to tell you how the value of the property may have changed since it was sold.

So when I put in my postcode I can see that I bought my home for £142,500 in February of 2009, as well as all previous transactions.

That tells me what my home was worth. But what’s it worth now?

Zoopla

Zoopla uses a valuation algorithm – or, as it also calls it, a ‘secret formula’ – to estimate the market value of a property. It takes a number of things into consideration, including:

  • Previous sold prices for the specific property and nearby recent transactions.
  • Changes in market values of similar properties in the local area.
  • Characteristics of the property in question and those around it.
  • Current asking prices for properties in the local area.
  • Size of the property compared to those around it.
  • Current values of comparable properties.

It gets its data from a number of different sources, including its own users, surveyors, estate agents and the Land Registry.

Each estimate that Zoopla provides has a related ‘confidence level’ and ‘value range’. The more Zoopla knows about the specific home and homes in that area, the higher the confidence level . The value range indicates the lower and upper values of a home based on its data. Again, this will be more accurate if Zoopla knows lots about the area.

What’s my property worth?

Zoopla reckons my house is worth about £160,000, and has full confidence in that valuation.

Nationwide house price index calculator

A far less scientific model, this one. Put in what your property was last valued at (and when) and the region where you live. Nationwide will then use its house price index to give an estimate of what the property may be worth today.

What’s my property worth?

Nationwide reckons my home is now worth £168,685.

Findaproperty.com

Findaproperty.com boasts a similar tool to Zoopla’s, offering an ‘estimated value’ which it calculates using data it already has on recent transactions and the property’s features, as well as information from estate agents, its users and Government agencies.

What’s my property worth?

According to Findaproperty.com’s valuation model my home is worth £163,500. However, its value range is pretty broad – it admits my home could be worth anything from £130,800 to £196,200.

Talk about hedging your bets!

Propertypriceadvice.co.uk

Propertypriceadvice.co.uk relies on you providing information on the property itself, things like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, whether it is freehold or leasehold, the age of the property, that sort of thing.

It then providers a lower, average and upper valuation, so that you have an idea of what your property might fetch depending on what the market in the area is like. It also provides a judgement of how confident it is with this valuation.

What’s my property worth?

With a ‘fair’ level of confidence, its system reckons my home is worth something between £75,000 and £105,000. That’s miles lower than any of the other sites I’ve tested so far.

Mouseprice

I really like the Mouseprice house price valuation system. As with the other sites, Mouseprice has its own statistical model which it uses to put together an estimate, based on information in the local market. The estimated are updated monthly.

However, what I really like is the sheer amount of information you are provided with. Mouseprice highlights similar properties in the area also on the market, as well as recent transactions in the area.

And then there’s plenty of information provided on the area itself, from the make up of homes on the street in question (592 of the 748 homes on my street are flats or maisonettes) but also some of the local amenities such as schools, bank and building society branches, petrol garages and supermarkets.

What’s my property worth?

Mouseprice reckons my home is worth £167,800, with a value range of anything from £138,000 to £198,000.

So what’s my home worth?

The fact is that despite all of these valuations I still don’t really know what my home is worth. A home is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. And while all of these sites suggest my home is worth something like £160,000, that’s irrelevant if no buyer is happy to pay that much.

It has given me a starting point should I want to sell up in the near future though.

I would really recommend reading Neil Faulkner’s piece on working out the ‘right’ price for your home though. It worked so well one estate agent has now adopted it!

This is a classic lovemoney article that has been updated

More on property

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Manchester Building Society launches 25-year fixed rate mortgage

Scotland launches new matchmaker service for empty homes

Should councils sell off their best homes to build cheaper ones?

The lessons I've learned since becoming a buy-to-let landlord

 

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Comments (12)

  • Vincenzo30
    Love rating 0
    Vincenzo30 said

    I have just checked the price of two semi-detached houses on my road (attached to each other). They are identical in every way (save for decoration) and Zoopla values one at £348,000 and the other at £403,000. I suspect the discrepancy is in a large part due to when each of them was last sold. Zoopla must apply the area's average increase/decrease since that date. A case in point about how useful housing market statistics are when taken to the micro level.

    Report on 29 August 2008  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • judfos
    Love rating 0
    judfos said

    I tried Zoopla the other day - on my own house and my Mum's house. I thought both values were conservative (lowish). However it was interesting to experiment with hypothetical home improvements eg put in double glazing and see how much difference it makes. The terms and conditions of Zoopla require honesty, but I think it's OK to do this as long as you don't leave any misinformation on the site at the end of the day.

    Report on 31 August 2008  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Jocktamson
    Love rating 0
    Jocktamson said

    Beware!
    My central Edinburgh property is estimated by Zoopla to be worth £91,548. Two years ago it was valued for equity release at £450,000, and property in this specific area is continuing to rise in value.

    Report on 31 August 2008  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • malcommirt
    Love rating 0
    malcommirt said

    Just tested my house price estimate and it is (bit depressing) but very accurate.

    Sounds like there must be an error on your property jocktamson (probably a mistake in the Registrars of Scotland data) - you should contact Zoopla and get them to sort it out.

    Mortgage appraisals do tend to overvalue property - don't know why - and don't think it is unreasonable to have a range of values for "identical" properties - they never are identical anyway - which way they face, views, security, decor etc.

    Report on 31 August 2008  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • RosemaryPettit
    Love rating 0
    RosemaryPettit said

    I tested Zoopla for my house. It was quite easy to fill in the form and all went well until they asked me for my estimate of its value. I thought the idea was that they told me their estimate? (The site is in beta mode and not yet fully developed.)

    So I gave an estimate which I think was too high in retrospect. The problem may be that the other side of my street has bigger houses which are worth more than my side, and that may have confused them as it is the same postal code as mine.

    So bear that in mind if you're using it. In other respects the site is nice and brings a lot of info together. I particularly like the birds' eye views.

    Report on 31 August 2008  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Dread1977
    Love rating 0
    Dread1977 said

    I purchased my current house 4 months ago at 210,400. Now due to seperation/divorce it looks like i will be selling it sometime in the near future, Zoopla estimates it at between 202,000 and 212,000. So i can only figure from this that its going to be the lesser of the 2 as house prices have fallen, but with a bit of luck i could still sell it and walk out debt free once all the solicitors and estate agents are done. Fingers crossed for the future!!!!

    Report on 02 September 2008  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • deanrobinson78
    Love rating 13
    deanrobinson78 said

    "Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it".......when you want to sell it.

    I've used most of the sites below and the problem with them all is that they are unable to factor in local differences in houses. Your house may be bigger, have a new bathroom, an extension.

    What concerned me 2 years ago was when I had mine valued. Contrywide did the valuation for my mortgage company and the valuer made no effort to inspect or undertsand the local differences in property. He valued it based on the last sale price in the area (which was for a house 30% smaller needing renovation). I just had it valued agian for HSBC who sent a propoer valuer who measured rooms and considered the local area etc. His valuation was £40,000 more (and accurate).

    I propose one of 2 methods to determine property worth.

    a) You look at the local papers to see what people are asking for houses you consider to be the same size and standard. Your property is worth 95% of their asking price.

    b) You look at the local papers and see what the rental value of your property is. Give or take your house is worth the (annual rental value / 0.055)

    Of course these are my views :o)

    Report on 30 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  2 loves
  • Steviebaby1959
    Love rating 28
    Steviebaby1959 said

    Yes, well stated DeanRobinson78, also, go to your local Estate Agents websites, there's quite a few in every town and city, they're all on t'internet these days. They will know the last properties on your street that were sold, and those currently up for sale / to be valued, they have surveyed current house alterations and other landscape features already, some go back to over 40 years ago, depending on the information being available. In fact one of my local estate agents had our house valuation on his site, as he was selling next door's property, don't know how they did that as nobody came here to enquire, mind you, it's slightly more than next door, so, I'm happy.....lol

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Meanmachine2
    Love rating 37
    Meanmachine2 said

    I checked on one of the sites the valuation of my property which is a detached house standing in a large garden. I then found that the small bungalow next door had a supposed higher valuation. Not exactly impressive.

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • mym1nd
    Love rating 0
    mym1nd said

    Well it's interesting which sites this article doesn't give quotes from.

    I have just put my recently sold place in to zoopla (that always thought I lived in a pokey 2 bed flat despite massive alterations and loft conversions about 40 years ago) and it came in at least £50k below ANY estate agent and what it has gone for.

    Now it isn't even showing up as sold so I really think you should go more with your feeling than any sites badly informed database.

    Report on 03 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Perry525
    Love rating 25
    Perry525 said

    This article is rubbish!

    Things are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them...even scrap value depends on the other persons valuation.

    There are a lot of aspects that need to fit the buyers requirements,

    I have continued down the road, just on seeing the location.

    Report on 04 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • fedupandpennyless
    Love rating 0
    fedupandpennyless said

    I looked at Zoopla too! They priced my house at £70000 lower than the other properties on my Road. Our houses were all built in 2000. Apart from one of the houses, all had one less bedroom. I reduced my bedrooms accordingly and hey presto, I had increased the value of my property by £84000 at the push of a button!

    I wrote to Zoopla, after correcting the bedroom count, and asked why my property was valued at so much less than the others on my road. The answer? I don't know, I'm still waiting for one six months later.

    Report on 04 February 2013  |  Love thisLove  0 loves

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