"BEING A STATISTICIAN MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY

YOU’RE CERTAIN"

Graham Norwood

THE SALES MARKET FIGURES

Office for National Statistics: £242,000 Up 3.1%

Land Registry: £164,098 Up 0.8%

Halifax/Bank of Scotland: £170,733 Up 6.2%

Nationwide: £172,127 Up 5.0%

Rightmove: £245,495 Up 4.5%

LSL Property Services: £233,776 Up 3.2%

AND I DIDN’T MENTION...

Hometrack.... RICS.... Mouseprice.... Knight Frank.... Savills.... Nethouseprice... the Zed-Index....

...or Sentiment Indices, Confidence Indices or Market Barometers...

...or ‘the nations’ and regions.

Surely the Lettings market is more rational......

THE LETTINGS MARKET FIGURES

LSL Property Services: £743 Up 1.3%

Move With Us: £970 Up 0.36%

Office for National Statistics: Up 1.3%

And then there are the RICS, ARLA, Homelet, Zoopla Rent v Buy Index, Spareroom.co.uk Room Index, Savills, Knight Frank, CML Buy-To-Let Mortgage Index...

THE QUESTIONS TO ASK

What Geography?

Rightmove is UK but Hometrack only England & Wales

ONS is Britain but Land Registry only England & Wales

Generally, excluding Scotland/Wales skews prices up

And what about the regions, sub-regions, cities, parishes...?

THE QUESTIONS TO ASK

Who Contributes?

Estate agents only? (Hometrack)

Surveyors? (RICS)

Buyers? (ONS, Land Registry) or Sellers? (Rightmove)

Lettings Agents (ARLA) or Landlords? (Move With Us)

THE QUESTIONS TO ASK

What Point In The Cycle?

Halifax and Nationwide - mortgage offer

Rightmove - asking price

ONS/Land Registry - completions

THE QUESTIONS TO ASK

What Is The Sample?

What geographical area?

Are there exclusions (eg, ex-LA or very high value)?

Mortgage applicants only or cash buyers too?

Will London/SE skew overall result?

THE QUESTIONS TO ASK

How Timely Is The Index Released?

Monthly Or Quarterly?

Completions ‘Slow’ But Asking Price/Rent ‘Fast’

Is There Historical Data? (Halifax, Land Registry)

THE QUESTIONS TO ASK

Why Does The Index Exist?

To Inform Public And/Or Industry? (RICS, for example)

Policy-making? (ONS, Halifax for example)

To Sell Something? (Rightmove, Hometrack for example)

THE QUESTIONS TO ASK

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF INFLATION?

The forgotten element, missing from every index

THE ONES I LIKE...

RICS because it is accountable...

Halifax/Nationwide because they have regional data...

LSL because its lettings data is approachable...

Land Registry because it breaks it down to LA level...

...but for what it’s worth...

MY VIEW

Ask a proven, trusted professional...

...on the ground

...working day to day

...dealing with landlords and tenants, buyers and sellers

...and keep the indices ‘direction of travel’ as a broad guide.

AND PLEASE REMEMBER

3.5 statisticians out of 7 over-complicate things