A new house price tool has been released, aimed at telling home buyers how much square footage their money gets them, depending on where they are looking.
The tool, launched by housing and regeneration specialist Keepmoat, is here
While those on the property hunt in Greater London may be looking at spending an average of £1,008.36 per square foot (psf) if they want to live in Kensington and Chelsea, the new tool will show just how much less they could spend by widening their search area, even slightly.
In Ealing, for instance, price psf is £406.45, while in Hounslow it’s £337.54.
In the north-east, Newcastle upon Tyne (average price £125 psf) compares with that of Stanley (average price just £76.03 psf).
The tool utilises property price information from Halifax, and has the ability to compare the average house price psf in ten different cities in each of the 11 regions in the UK.
We’d be interested to know what agents think.
Absolutely. Should be embraced by agents who will have to then ensure accuracy of measurements; floor plans and calculations of areas (as we should, of course, do anyway). Shows professionalism and attention to detail – and may present a problem to many online agents. Another differentiator for professional estate agents.
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Sorry to pour water on the project but although this based on a sound, logical and accepted method of valuation, it isn't quite correct. Although they look identical there are actually two £/sqft/ area valuation models, from the detail provided in the story this is the basic version that doesn't have the finesse of methodology required to provide a meaningful valuation. Fine as a rule of thumb but that really is all this appears to be.
I probably didn't ought to worry whether it is right or wrong but my biggest criticism of RICS is they are allowing flawed Valuation models to exist and to be used by lenders, much to the detriment of their General Practice, residential focused members.
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Mildly interesting, but not relevant to real house values as these don't take into account views, conditions, aspect, garages, off street parking, standard of fittings (bathroom & kitchen) etc and of course the anxiety of the owner to sell. Other than that….?
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Agreed. This year we've sold houses at £350 per sq ft and £785 per sq ft all within 1 mile of one another. Too many variables to be useful and often woefully inaccurate. Would make my job incredibly easy if that were the answer.
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I can see the "Logic" behind this but unfortunately I cannot see it working in residential sector most by with hearts not heads price is secondary – Commercial I think is possible winner.
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I really can't see this being useful to anyone unless this is your first look at a housing market in an city you know nothing about.
It is not nearly as accurate as it would need to be to prove useful to anyone!!!
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The 'full fat' version of this method is incredibly accurate but still forms only the base from which to work, when the points MGR raised are factored in along with the vendor's circumstance & motivation and the applicant data base this method becomes very powerful in winning profitable, saleable instructions.
I suspect that this is a tool that will find favour with those agents trying to cover a huge geographical areas from a central location and those agents will buy into the concept for exactly the reason you have highlighted- it gives remote agents* the opportunity of appearing to understand local markets.
*I have avoided the term Online Agents because I believe there is an important differential between a local agent without premises and the passive intermediary end of property sales.
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Could not agree more. My first thoughts were that our top end stuff (here in North Yorkshire) can command £325 psf dropping down to £140 psf. The system may work better if they included more towns, villages or indeed postcodes.
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Oddly I have turned to this method over the past 3 or 4 months when visiting some of the areas higher priced property on with other agents which have remained unsold for 12/18 months and more…………………………. It has been a good way to show these owners not all 4 beds 2 bath properties are the same as so many owners just assume 4 beds is 4 beds and the sq footage exercise can be a real eye opener for these vendors I have found……. and when they listen and reduce offers come in (not rocket science, but something which some owners will get and help them understand why they are not selling). …….. I've equally used it in marketing the other way around too…… with a couple of properties which look expensive based on the total asking price, but have been actually quite cheap based on square footage…… (My most expensive property in one of my offices based on its asking price is actually one of the cheapest based on sq ftge, and yep the road is one of the best in the area too! yet it remains unsold because the asking price does look a lot, very weird, but once we shifted attention to square footage, we have had some out of area interest and namely from London, who are perhaps a touch more in tune with this) ………………..I think there is a place for it "on occasion" but cannot see it being the way the resi market will go….. to many people will always look straight to individual room measurements comparing what they have now to what the next one has………………but with EPC's on property showing the sq mtrage it is now so easy to get the sq ft "living space" and be accurate with your figures…..working out average sq ft prices…….. I have to say I have found it fascinating, having never really looked at pricing this way before….
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