How to find out what a house sold for

What the record contains

HM Land Registry Price Paid Data lists the sale price, the date of the transfer, the address, whether the property is a detached, semi-detached, terraced house or a flat, whether it was newly built, and whether it was sold freehold or leasehold. Records begin in 1995.

Why the price sometimes looks wrong

• The sale was between family members or a transfer of part of a property, so the figure is not an open market price.
• The home was bought off plan, so the price reflects a contract signed a year or more before completion.
• It was a repossession or a probate sale, both of which often complete below the market.
• The address changed. New builds and converted buildings frequently appear under an earlier address or plot number.
• The sale is recent and has not been published yet. Registration lags completion, sometimes by a couple of months.

Turning sold prices into a view on the asking price

Two adjustments matter. First, time: a sale from three years ago needs to be moved forward using a price index for the local authority and property type rather than a national figure. Second, type: compare like with like. A terraced sale tells you very little about a detached house on the same road.

1. 1Collect the last five to ten sales on the street, ignoring anything more than five years old if you can.
2. 2Strip out the obvious outliers, especially plot sales and transfers at unusually low values.
3. 3Take the median rather than the average, so one big house does not distort the picture.
4. 4Adjust for the time since each sale using the local index for that property type.
5. 5Then compare with the asking price and ask what justifies the gap.

What sold prices do not tell you

The register records the price, not the condition. A house that sold cheaply may have had a failing roof, and one that sold high may have arrived fully renovated. The energy certificate, the planning history and the photographs from the previous listing fill in most of that gap.

Using it as a seller

The same data works in reverse. If you are pricing your own home, the honest test is what similar homes on your street actually completed at, not what similar homes are currently listed at. Asking prices include hope. Sold prices do not.