Sold prices and asking prices: comparing the evidence

Two prices describe different events

An asking price is an amount sought in a listing. A recorded sale price describes a completed transaction within the scope of the source dataset. Neither is automatically the present value of a different home. This page explains how to keep event, date and property group visible when comparing evidence. It provides no asking-price feed and makes no claim that a listing disappearing means a sale occurred. The area pages use HM Land Registry records rather than advertisements, and their medians describe the transactions included in a stated window, not every home in the outcode.

Reference: Price Paid downloads · checked 6 November 2026.

A transaction date is not the release date

A sale can appear in published data after the transaction occurred. A download date therefore does not mean the file contains every sale completed by that day. Recent months can be revised as registrations arrive and records are corrected. In a comparison note, keep the transaction period, source release and date of your check separately. When a later build changes a count, examine those dates before calling the difference a change in market activity. The database used for our area pages applies transaction-ID updates and deletions before aggregation, so an amended record is not intentionally counted as a second sale.

Reference: Price Paid guidance · checked 6 November 2026.

Define the group before calculating a median

A median is the middle of an ordered set of observations. To understand it, the reader needs to know which records entered the set. Our pages state the outcode, window, category and property types, and suppress small type groups. They calculate the median from transaction prices, rather than taking a median of already aggregated sector medians. The count is a count of transactions; a property can sell more than once. A larger count can improve the description of the included records, but it does not prove that they represent every home or all types of transaction in the area.

Reference: UK HPI reports · checked 6 November 2026.

Property mix can change the result

Detached houses and flats often belong to different price distributions, but the direction and size of their difference should come from the records, not a stock sentence. If the mix of property types or new-build transactions changes, a combined median can move without showing how the same home changed in value. Compare type-level counts and dates before interpreting an aggregate difference. Our pages show observed new-build and existing-home transaction counts for context. They do not infer a causal effect from those counts or treat a changing sample median as a repeat-sales index.

Reference: Price Paid downloads · checked 6 November 2026.

Read a range as a distribution, not a promise

The middle fifty percent range on an area page runs from the first to the third quartile of the included transaction prices. It does not mean that half of future purchases will fall inside it, or that a particular home should be priced there. Condition, size, tenure and other characteristics can differ within a type group. We do not remove a high price simply because it is inconvenient; the stated positive-price and category filters define this build. These transparent limits are more useful than presenting a narrow-looking range without explaining which observations produced it.

Reference: Price Paid guidance · checked 6 November 2026.

Use HPI for its own statistical purpose

The UK House Price Index is a separate official statistical product with its own methodology, geography and release schedule. An outcode sale-price median is not a local HPI value. If an area page has no imported index series, it says so rather than displaying median differences under an HPI label. A comparison should preserve the index's published area and period, even if a broader authority is the closest available geography. This site does not manufacture an outcode trend by distributing a council-level change among smaller places. The absence of a series is a data gap, not zero growth.

Reference: UK HPI reports · checked 6 November 2026.

A useful comparison stays descriptive

Open the postcode map to inspect the available recorded-sale context and source dates. Keep any asking-price observation in a separate record with its listing date and status. Do not add sold and asking figures to one sample as though they measured the same event. The output can help organise factual questions about the evidence, but it does not recommend an offer, predict a selling price or provide financial advice. An individual property's condition and transaction circumstances need their own assessment. Every published number should remain traceable to its source, period and stated calculation.

Reference: Price Paid downloads · checked 6 November 2026.

Official source record

• Price Paid downloads · checked 6 November 2026
• Price Paid guidance · checked 6 November 2026
• UK HPI reports · checked 6 November 2026

Source publication and effective dates may differ from the date checked. Follow the current official page for updates.