How much is your house worth?
Well, it depends who you ask... Graham Norwood picks through the maze of price indices that can leave homeowners in the dark
This week yet another set of house-price figures were issued: this time by the Halifax. They will fuel yet more dinner-party conversations -are we worth even less than last month? - and yards of newspaper print.
But do we set too much store by a single set of figures from any one of the 15 different price indices produced by mortgage lenders, estate agents, newspapers, property institutions, business consultancies and government departments?
Each gets a ripple of publicity, turning into a torrent if wider concern over the market soars, as in late 2007. But to a casual observer these indices appear confusing or even contradictory. In early January, for example, Land Registry data showed house prices rising just as the Halifax bank and Nationwide building society pointed to falls.
Fionnuala Earley, chief economist at the Nationwide, says two points must be noted.
"First, check where an index is in the 'purchasing cycle'. For example, Rightmove looks at asking prices at the start of a cycle. Halifax and ourselves then look at prices agreed after a buyer's survey and when a mortgage offer is made. The Land Registry releases data only when the purchase is completed, so lags behind a bit," she says.
This means that the Land Registry data released in the new year was actually based on prices agreed back in October and November, before the market dipped.
There are other factors to bear in mind when deciphering the statistics in a property index.
A few compilers "modify'' data to remove eccentricities such as unusually high prices for trophy homes or low prices for former council flats.
This tinkering is done to smooth out irregularities, but because no two indices do exactly the same, it is difficult directly to compare figures from different sources.
Comparison of supposedly average house prices for the whole country are hard, too, as some indices cover the UK while others only cover Britain (so "low-cost'' Scotland brings down the average without being balanced by "high-cost'' Northern Ireland). Others just cover England and Wales.
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