Guide to Essential Money Tools

Property Tools

Property websites reveal real worth

There’s a new dinner party craze gripping the chattering classes. It’s a kind of blind man’s buff, played with post-codes. The evening starts off with each dinner guest dropping their postcode into a hat. Then each guest in turn is invited to guess the others’ house prices. While this is going on the host is at the computer, entering the postcodes into websites that will confirm (or deny) property value, likely career of owner and more. Finally, each guest is invited to match one of the computer profiles to someone in the room.

Websites such as Houseprices.co.uk, Ourproperty.co.uk, Upmystreet.com and propertypriceadvice.co.uk  allow visitors with a property’s postcode to check up on current values.

And it isn’t only property values which can be checked, www.upmystreeet.com uses data from CACI, a marketing company that grades the entire country, postcode by postcode, into wealth groups. These are known as Acorn types and they range from Affluent Mature Professional to Inner City Adversity. This data gathering began in the early 1970s and information from the 1971 census was cross-referenced against information from more recent consumer surveys to hep construct a profile of an area’s residents. The original intent was to assist political parties identify potential voters. With the advent of the internet, however, the classification system is opened to everyone. It informs visitors of a resident’s assumed income, likely profession, frequency of credit card usage, newspaper of choice and even whether the owner has a predilection for the arts.

On a more serious note, this site can be extremely useful for those buying into an area with which they have no previous association or about which they have no knowledge. The fact that the site can profile a local neighbourhood by postcode is what makes it such an invaluable purchasing tool. Useful, too, for those seeking to make a quick sale – provided, of course, that the property to be sold is situated in a desirable area.

Alternatively, if you are wondering how much a property is worth, and you know the postcode, log on to www.propertypriceadvice.co.uk  Answer a set of simple questions on the property’s location, type, age, and the range of features and facilities, submit and wait a few seconds for the reply.

This will provide you with an average valuation, plus a top price if selling in a strong market and a bottom price if the property is put on the market during a slump.

Similar information is available at the click of a mouse from www.houseprices.co.uk which, on receiving the address of a property which has been sold since 2000, will report the date the house was sold, the price, the type, the tenure and even provide a map of the location.