Sold prices vs asking prices

An asking price is a hypothesis. A sold price is a completed transfer. UK house-price decisions go wrong when those two are treated as the same number.

What each figure is

Asking prices come from listings: what an agent or seller hopes the market will bear. Sold prices in Pryce come from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, the public record of registered residential completions in England and Wales.

Listing sites are useful for what is on the market. They are a weak source for what a street actually transacts at, because the visible number is the ask, and the sold comp is often a secondary tab. Pryce inverts that: completed sales are the map.

If you are looking at a portal listing, search the same street on Pryce and read the neighbouring transfers. One comparison is enough; the listing URL does not need to live here. For a sense of how portals present sold prices, see Rightmove's house prices section, then come back to the Land Registry record on the map.

Why they diverge

• Sellers test a high number; the eventual transfer is lower.
• Registration lags completion, so last month's sold prices are still arriving.
• New-build list prices and second-hand terraces on the same postcode are not comparable without the map.
• A long days-on-market stretch is a signal the ask was not the market.

How to use Pryce

Open the map, search the street, and click buildings. Compare the last completions on that road with the ask you were given. Methodology and coverage sit on the coverage page.