The housing market is a difficult beast to pin down. Try finding out the average house price in London?
According to Hometrack, as of Sept '06 - the average house price in London was £285K.
According to the Land Registry report for 3Q06 - the average house price in London was £330K.
According to Right Move for Dec'06 - the average house price in London was £355K (though this is asking price).
Hmmm, which one is right though?
Interestingly the Sept '06 report for the Land registry has a Sales Volume against Price for London in July'06 (page 12).
If you look at the figures three things stand out :-
- 30% of properties in London sold for less than £200K in Jul'06.
- 55% of properties in London sold for less than £250K in Jul'06.
- 67% of properties in London sold for less than £300K in Jul'06.
This the old problem of mean, median and mode. The mean is distorted by the high value properties.
For example the results for Jul'06 (taken from housepricecrash.co.uk) are :-
- Home track London House price - £280K
- Land Registry Q2 London House price - £317K
- RightMove house price index - £324K
Whilst the land registry figures show the median is below £250K. You can be more generous and take the 2nd & 3rd quartile average, this bumps up the figure to £251K.
So the average figure for a house price in London?
Well somewhere between £250K - £350K, depending upon who you ask and which average you are after.
