Zoopla..anything better

[Brown and Boris]

I am a fan of this house pricing web site but it does bizarre things. And how does it calculate a current value?

For example my father in law lives in a street of pretty similar 4 bed detached houses. It is good at showing the values based on recent sales and taking into account the % rise/fall in prices in the area since then, but only for a period of about 2 years. Because one house hasn't been sold since the street was built in 1997 for some reason that house is valued at only about two thirds of other houses in the street. I would have thought that it would know the % increases since 1997, or does it just have a 'ground-zero'-date?

My own house is shown as having increased in value by £41K in the last 5 years, but the price it gives is £100K more than the sale price 5 years ago??? Surely if it just applied a % for that location from the purchase price it should be a closer figure?

Any better sites you know of which extend back beyond the 5 years of Zoopla and don't have those odd behaviours?

[EdJ]

I also like the theory behind the website, but in practice it doesn't work at all. There are so many cases where the valuation is way off, usualyl where a house has not been sold for 10 years or so.

[spikeyhead]

I live on a street of identi-houses, little boxes on the hillside and they all made out of....

yet Zoopla finds a 30% spread in pricing.

Have a look at houseprice dot wotsit to see what's sold recently in the area. Adjust for values depending on house size. Hardly rocket science. It won't give you an exact figure, the only way to do that is to sell it and find out the price on completion.