What is My House Worth?

In a country where we’re all keen to be property owners as soon as possible, people are always asking themselves “what is my house worth?” Today it’s an even more difficult question to answer, as over the last ten years or so the housing market has slumped, then picked up again. With all of the current uncertainty over property values, this makes finding quick house buyers even more difficult than usual.

But the recovery wasn’t consistent. Some areas of the UK have hardly recovered at all while others have surged ahead. This has increased the disparity of house prices between regions, counties and even in the same towns and cities. This makes it harder to estimate any property price, which in turn makes it harder to sell your house quickly.

Economic uncertainties

Besides that there are considerable uncertainties in the UK at the moment. Companies and institutions don’t know exactly what’s going to happen in the run up to Brexit and there’s associated political uncertainty.

The result is that companies are less keen to risk expansion and create more jobs. People are only moving home if it’s absolutely necessary, so the number of property transactions is low. This means fewer transactions to base property values on, which makes estimating any property price harder.

What is my house worth? Where can I check?

Having said that there are numerous places where you can check prices of houses in your area. How accurate they will be is open to question.

You can, of course, get an accurate valuation for your property from UK Property Cash Buyers. A quote is free and there’s no obligation to follow through. It’s a free service, whether you just get a valuation or end up selling through us. Let’s take a look at some other options before going into the UK PCB service in more detail.

Land Registry

Looking at the Land Registry will also give you an idea of the value of your house in England or Wales. The figures will be 100% accurate, but only in the sense that it shows real sold house prices. Unfortunately, it’s only any use if properties in your area that are comparable to yours have been sold recently. Land Registry figures will also be little out of date as the online registry is only updated monthly.

The Land Registry’s online form looks fairly heavyweight. But you don’t need to fill in all of the form, just the minimum number of fields to get you the area you need. It’s a good idea to put just the first group of figures of a postcode instead of the whole code. So rather than typing for example, “RX1 1AX”, you can just enter “RG1” and that will search through all the properties in central Reading.

Nationwide house price calculators

There are a number of nationwide house price calculators, most run by mortgage lenders, so they only use data from their own transactions. The figures will therefore differ but if you check out prices on enough of them you ought to be able to find average figures. They will usually only drill down to town or region rather than a smaller area. They won’t take into account the value of any home improvements that you’ve made either. The lenders also use the calculators to advertise add-ons like home insurance and removal companies, to help you with moving home, which can be annoying.

These other sites will be more useful in Scotland, where the Registers of Scotland operation holds the land register for Scottish properties. But the figures aren’t freely available in the same way that the Land Registry makes them for England and Wales.

Some calculators take figures from the Land Registry or Registers of Scotland, then adjust them for inflation. This again is unlikely to deliver an accurate valuation unless there is a large number of properties similar to yours in the area.

Estate agents’ estimates

Another way to find out what your house is worth is to get estimates from estate agents. There are a few issues with this though. The first is that when estate agents do free estimates they are touting for business. They can get a bit difficult if they sense that you’re just trying to find out what your house is worth. You could also be plagued with phone calls afterwards until they work out that you’re not interested.

The second problem is that many estate agents give valuations designed to make you think you should sell through them. They often over-estimate instead of giving an accurate valuation, to make you think about the money you can make. If you sign up with them, they will advertise the property at that valuation. When it doesn’t sell, they’ll ask you to lower your asking price. So a more accurate property price estimate is that lower figure, not the initial one.

UK Property Cash Buyers

Neither of those two problems occurs when speaking to UK Property Cash Buyers. All our consultations are completely without obligation, there are no high-pressure sales tactics and we’re regulated by the financial conduct authority. This makes asking “what is my house worth?” an easy question to answer!

Once we’ve made the introduction, we don’t stand back then either; we’re here every step of the way. You can always contact us if you encounter any problems or simply if you want reassurance that everything is going ahead smoothly. Most of our transactions are completed very quickly, but rest assured that completion of your house sale will happen according to your timetable. And if all you want is an answer to that question: “What is my house worth?” then that’s fine too.