How can agents work with property price data and indices?

Staying on top of the numbers and figures in a constantly changing industry can be stressful. Changing property prices can be impacted by so many moving parts, and the last thing anyone wants is to have to test a wait and see approach.

We’ve collected some great resources at reallymoving that we think can help any professional in the moving industry to stay up to date and track changing data on property prices, market intent and user choices. Whether they are for your team to work out an approach, or to give to your clients to justify decisions, having everyone on the same page makes home selling just that bit easier.

We all know that there are plenty of reports on the housing market, but what’s worth reading and when do you need to make time to do it?

Monthly reports on ‘what’s happened’ to prices and transactions

The media will cover most of the property price reports every month, normally headlining price and movement, however there is often much more interesting data when you read the reports themselves.

Here are our ones to watch:

Rightmove – great indicator for how confident (or not!) sellers are about the market, but also really good data on average time to secure a buyer. Usually published third week of the month.

Nationwide – this often includes some extra research on what’s happening on a regional basis (quarterly) but may have extra research on first-time buyers or the ‘north/south divide’. Usually published first week in the month.

Halifax – their price rises can be a little higher or lower than other indices. Usually published first week in the month.

Hometrack – this covers data by city, so more relevant than regional data and they also do plenty of research on first-time buyers, transactions, so always a useful read. Usually published last week in the month.

Land Registry – this is great for ‘what has happened’ and for looking at volumes. It’s worth digging deeper into your area for first-time buyers vs home movers data and cash vs mortgage purchases.

Propertymark has really good data on the number of buyers/tenants and properties per branch both historically and currently and gives data on how many deals are done per branch. The Index of Private Housing Rental Prices is a great index for each country and region on the current and historic movement of rents. It shows far from rents ‘sky rocketing’ they have been remarkably stable over the last decade and in many cases not increased in line with inflation. Usually published mid-month.

If you work in the auction market, another great source of data is Essential Information Group which as well as an index on auction sales has some very useful data to help with Capital Gains calculations going back to 1982 (although this is charged for) but they also have some free calculators to help with property yields and even one to translate feet into meters! This is usually published mid-month.

Property forecasts
These tend to be first reported October/November for the following year and then revised mid-year.

Reallymoving’s House Price Forecast 
The reallymoving HPF was designed for consumers, but that doesn’t mean it can’t benefit industry experts too. The forecast works differently because it takes data from our conveyancing quote forms. As users tend to get quotes 12 weeks before completion, we can accurately predict what property prices will look like a few months ahead. This allows you to look at prices by region, based on real user data. So if you think prices are going up in a certain area, you can verify that. We update it monthly. We also track our findings against the Land Registry to verify that the forecasts align with property sales information.

Savills forecasts
Twice a year they publish a great report which covers price, rent and transaction forecasts for the next five years and as well as explaining what they think will happen, they explain why too. The data covers both the prime and mainstream residential market.

Knight Frank
They produce reports similar to Savills, but include a ‘risk monitor’ too, which explains how things like Brexit and interest rate movements could influence their forecasts.

The English Housing Survey 
Covering information such as tenure and home condition, the English Housing Survey has some good trends about home movers, housing stock, and buying and renting affordability. A summary is produced in February, followed by a more detailed report in July.

Your own data and expertise
With property prices and transactions varying so much on a street-by-street basis, your own data is invaluable. Seeing why one property sold or was let more quickly than another is vital to home movers.

Regional and national data rarely reflects what’s happening in your local market, so anything you can share on the number of buyers/tenants looking for a particular property type, what’s increasing in demand and what’s currently over-supplied, as well as the time it takes to sell is really useful to local people and helps establish you as a local property market expert.