Has My House Price Gone Up or Down? How to Find Out What Your Home Is Really Worth
Has My House Price Gone Up or Down? How to Find Out What Your Home Is Really Worth
It’s the million dollar question: has my home’s value increased or dropped? It’s hard to know exactly as the press headlines tend to focus on UK averages. The trouble is, house prices do not behave the same in every village, town and city.
You have to scratch away at the surface to uncover the regional and local variations and even then, the most accurate picture resides with a small group of professionals. In this article we look at generalised house price trends in different regions and reveal how to find out what’s happening to your own home’s value.
Asking prices
Rightmove is a property behemoth and its monthly house price index regularly makes the news. Its latest, issued in December, makes for interesting reading but you should note it only reflects the asking prices advertised on its portal. Rarely does the asking price match the final sales price but Rightmove’s stats are good for trend watchers.
The average price of a new-to-market property dropped 1.8% between 9th November 2025 and 6th December 2025 but this is a UK snapshot. The granular detail tell a different story. Asking prices in the North West of England increased by 0.1% (the only UK region where there was a month-on-month increase) and they dropped -5.1% in the North East. There was no change in London (0.0%).
Even the London-centred statistics can be broken down to reveal variances between boroughs. While Barnet, Brent, Bexley, Haringey and Wandsworth saw asking prices decrease by more than 2%, Tower Hamlets, Hounslow, Southwark and Kensington & Chelsea saw asking prices increase by more than 1%.
Sold house prices
Zoopla’s house price index differs as it uses final sold prices, mortgage valuations and data for agreed sales to appraise the market. Its latest monitoring period revealed a stark North-South divide when looking at annual house price trends. Values have increased between 0.6% and 2.9% in Scotland, Wales, the North East, the North West, Yorkshire & the Humber, both Midlands regions, and the East of England. House prices have fallen in London (-0.1%), the South East (-0.1%) and the South West (-0.2%).
Zoopla also provides an overview of house prices in cities – urban locations that often have their own microclimates. Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester maintain the North-South divide, taking the top appreciation slots. Year-on-year, house prices have risen 3.3%, 2.6%, 2.4% and 2.4%, respectively. Conversely, city house prices have decreased in Portsmouth, Southampton, Aberdeen, Cambridge and Bournemouth.
Still, we are dealing with regional or city-based house price averages and we know values can differ from street to street and even house to house. So how do home movers find out hyper-localised values? A good place to start is the Land Registry’s own data bank, which reflects all transactions, including those sold at auction and to cash buyers, as well as those completed on the open market. The filter will let you search down to borough level and by property type.
PrimeLocation and NetHousePrices are great for the curious among us, especially if you want to find out what properties have sold for in any given road. You can type in a postcode and see the sold value history, although neither will tell you what a property is valued at now.
Nothing beats agent knowledge
Estate agents are the custodians of real-time property values due to the vast amounts of historical and live data at their fingertips. They’re processing offers and delivering valuations on a daily basis, gauging what people are prepared (and able) to pay in the moment.
Agents also have a host of powerful industry-specific insight tools at their fingertips that consumers simply don’t have access to. Many are AI powered, allowing agents to crunch huge datasets to forecast markets and provide guidance when valuing homes. Some of the most useful are offered by Spectre, TwentyEA, PriceHubble and Street.
Local for a reason
An estate agent will also have its finger on the pulse in terms of influential factors that house price indexes just can’t measure. Local school just received an outstanding Ofsted report? The homes within catchment will potentially soar in value. Property successfully extended, remodelled and renovated? It’ll be worth more than its neighbour. Agents will also factor in the negatives too, such as that electricity pylon that’s just been erected or the planning application for an Amazon warehouse at the bottom of someone’s garden.
So if you really want to know how your area is doing, you can start with the general house price indexes to get a flavour for what’s happening across the UK, before spending some time online inputting postcodes for a more local intel. But if you really want to know if house prices are going up, down or flatlining where you live, local estate agents are the ultimate source of knowledge.
Be curious
Why not contact an agent today and ask for a current valuation? They are generally free and offered with no obligation to sell. What’s more, agents will be thrilled to share their information about house prices in your area, backed up by bespoke reports and recently sold values that put their valuation figure into context. The results just might inspire you to move.
