United Kingdom - House Price Index

The U.K. House Price Index ("UK HPI") measures the changes in price of residential properties throughout the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Sales include both cash and mortgage.

Data dimensions:

• Transaction types: All, first-type buyer, cash sale, mortgage sale
• Property age: New and existing, new, existing
• Property types: All residential, detached, semi-detached, flat, terraced
• Metrics: Average price, volume of sales

Geo coverage is country, regions, and (via an areacode system) counties, local authorities (LAs), and London boroughs. (Seasonally adjusted data are provided only the uppermost geo levels, country and region; these are not extracted to Data Buffet.)

For Northern Ireland, all data are quarterly. Regional data include only average price, index, and volume of sales (total). Data for the whole of Northern Ireland covers all categories except for type of building.

Active:

• Measurements:
  • British pounds (GBP)
  • Unitary count (#)
  • Fixed-base index relative to January 2023 (Index Jan2023=100)
• Adjustments:
  • Seasonally adjusted (SA)
  • Not seasonally adjusted (NSA)
• Native frequency: Monthly
• Start date: As early as 1968m4
• Geo coverage:
  • Country (IGBR)
  • Great Britain excl. Northern Ireland (IGBR_X)
  • Region (8x IGBR_^^^^)
  • Areacode (IGBR_a nn nnnnnn)
• All concept-geo pairs exist: No

Predecessor(s):

• 2015=100 - 1968m4 to 2024m11 ("_15")
• Quarterly (Northern Ireland and areas thereof) - 1968Q2 or 2005Q1 to 2024Q3 ("_15")

Raw data are provided by the Land Registry department for England and Wales ("HM Land Registry"), Registers of Scotland, and Land and Property Services Northern Ireland. Results are calculated by the Office of National Statistics.

The source writes:

The index applies a statistical method, called a hedonic regression model, to the various sources of data on property price and attributes to produce estimates of the change in house prices each period.

The geometric mean reduces the weighting given to high value properties when compared to the arithmetic mean and is typically lower, usually closer to that of the median. For the UK HPI, the standard average house price is calculated by taking the average (geometric mean) price in January 2015 and then recalculating it in accordance with the index change back in time and forward to the present day. A 3 month moving average has been applied to estimates below the regional level. For example, at the local authority level, the published estimate for March is a simple average of the calculated estimates for January, February and March. This helps remove some of the volatility in the series at this level. Volatility still remains in estimates for local authorities with fewer transactions, such as Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles. Northern Ireland estimates are unaffected by this as they are only available on a quarterly basis.

The two most recent months are subject to revision, because there is a lag of up to two months between the sale of a property and registration thereof.

Further reading

At the source:

• About the UK HPI
• Quality and methodology
• Development of a single Official House Price Index (Feb 2016, pdf)

• Oct 2016 - Initial version.
• Mar 2017 - Addendum of SA supplement for Northern Ireland.
• Apr 2022 - Change in geos.
• 13 Mar 2025, Phillip Thorne - Rebased to 2023: Properties.