Pricing
How to value your house accurately
A good valuation is arithmetic, not intuition: take what comparable homes actually sold for, adjust for the differences, index it forward to today, then set an asking price around that figure.
Last reviewed 4 August 2026
The short answer
- Use sold prices from HM Land Registry, not asking prices from portals — asking prices include the optimism that never got paid.
- Index older comparables forward using the UK House Price Index for your local authority.
- Adjust for floor area, condition, extensions, parking, garden and tenure — not for what you spent on the kitchen.
- Price at or just under a search-band threshold so you appear in more buyer searches.
Step 1 — Find true comparables
A comparable is a property that a buyer would have considered instead of yours. Same area, same type — terraced, semi, detached, flat — similar bedroom count and similar floor area. Aim for at least three, sold within the last twelve months, ideally within half a mile.
HM Land Registry Price Paid Data records the actual sale price of nearly every property sold in England and Wales, and the register is searchable by postcode. Scotland's Registers of Scotland and Northern Ireland's Land & Property Services publish equivalent data.
Step 2 — Index them to today
A sale from eighteen months ago is not a value today. The UK House Price Index publishes average price movements down to local authority level, so you can uplift or reduce an older comparable to a present-day equivalent.
Apply the local index, not the national headline. Regional divergence in the UK market is large enough that a national figure can be several percentage points wrong for your street.
Step 3 — Adjust for the differences
- Floor area. Work out a price per square metre from your comparables and apply it to your own measured area — this is the single most reliable adjustment.
- Condition. A modernised home commands a premium over one needing full refurbishment; a buyer will discount by their estimate of the works plus a margin for the hassle.
- Extensions and conversions. Only count them if they have building regulations sign-off. Unsigned work is a discount, not a premium.
- Parking. Off-street parking or a garage carries a real premium in areas where street parking is contested.
- Garden and outlook. Size, aspect and privacy all move the number.
- Tenure. Leasehold with a short lease, a high ground rent or a high service charge reduces value materially. Under roughly 80 years remaining, the cost of extending starts to bite.
- Energy performance and running costs, which buyers increasingly price in.
Step 4 — Sanity-check against the live market
Look at what is currently for sale nearby and be honest about where yours sits in that line-up. Then check what has been reduced or is still on the market after three months — that tells you where the ceiling actually is.
If you want a third-party view, ask two or three local agents for a valuation. Treat the highest one with suspicion: over-valuing to win an instruction is a known practice, and the price gets 'reviewed' six weeks later.
Step 5 — Turn the valuation into an asking price
Buyers search in bands. Pricing at £250,000 rather than £252,500 puts you in every search capped at a quarter of a million; pricing at £260,000 excludes you from all of them. Round down to the threshold when you are close.
Leave a modest negotiating margin, but not a large one. Overpricing costs you the first two weeks — the period when a new listing gets its biggest audience — and homes that linger sell for less than homes priced right on day one.
What a mortgage valuation does differently
Your buyer's lender will instruct its own valuation. That is a risk assessment for the lender, based on the same comparable evidence, and it can come in below the agreed price — a 'down valuation'. If it does, the buyer either finds the shortfall in cash or asks you to reduce.
Pricing from real sold evidence in the first place is the best protection against this, because your figure and the surveyor's figure are then built from the same data.
Frequently asked questions
- How can I value my house for free?
- Use HM Land Registry sold prices for comparable homes in your postcode, index them forward with the UK House Price Index for your local authority, then adjust for floor area, condition and features. HausMart's free valuation tool runs that method against Land Registry data for you.
- Are online valuation tools accurate?
- Automated estimates work from averages and can be well out on any individual property, because they cannot see condition, layout or outlook. Use them as a starting range, then verify against specific comparable sales.
- Should I price above what I expect to get?
- Only slightly. A small negotiating margin is normal; a large one costs you the first two weeks of exposure, which is when most serious enquiries arrive. Homes that sit unsold attract lower offers.
- Does a new kitchen add its cost to the value?
- Rarely pound for pound. Improvements affect how quickly a home sells and how it compares with rivals in the same bracket more than they lift the ceiling price for the street.
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