Recent threads on Rightmove's press release claiming average asking prices had increased to 200K raised issues concerning how this average was calculated. Of particular concern to me was how portfolios are treated in their calculations. With so many portfolios on their site one can imagine the figures would be seriously skewed if, for example, portfolios valued at £1M were treated as one property.

I emailed raising the issue.




Their reply:




My reply:

Sent: 22 February 2006 12:08
To: talk-to-us
Subject: Re: Sale of Portfolios





Their reply:




There's an equivocal admission portfolios are treated as one property, but the writer is probbaly not certain. I'll keep you posted. The 'team that produces the index' will no doubt extricate Rightmove from this.

This is, IMHO, an excellent piece of research. Will you be raising this to the attention of journalists who have discussed the average asking price figures from Rightmove so that they can (sarcasm) quickly publish corrections to their previous articles?

Billy Shears

Yes. Andrew Verity is the obvious candidate.

But I shall wait for a reply from the 'team producing the index' before doing so. I'm not taking the writer's admission as proof because I suspect he is not sure how portfolios are treated: he was making assumptions before checking his facts and, worse still, committing them to writing. I'll cut him some slack until we have an official statement from those who really know.

Baz63

Please also ask why they don't include reductions in asking price within their calculations of their average.

Their calculation consists of properties added to their web site within the previous month. If the asking price of these properties is reduced within the same month, and the property is not delisted and relisted under a new number (few are), they use the initial asking price within their calculation, not the revised price.

If a property sits on their site for a few months and the asking price is reduced one or more times, this reduction is not accounted for within their figures either.

Reduction of asking prices due to lack of interest/affordability/whatever is a perfectly valid trend and I believe they should account for them.

Edit : I emailed Andrew Verity on this subject a few days ago, but not heard back.

Jon

The words '****' and 'elbow' spring to mind.

I strikes me that Rightmove don't really have the faintest idea what is on their website at anytime, yet are quite happy to produce reports based on what is effectively unverified data.

It's a classic case of 'garbage in, garbage out'.

I would send this to the BBC pointing out that their news report on the "Surge" in property prices is highly suspect. Watchdog might be interested if the BBC won't touch it which is likely.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-865...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

The recent government figures suggest Rightmove's data was incorrect and without any foundation:

http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/newsAr...IN-PROPERTY.xml

LONDON (Reuters) - The number of property transactions in England and Wales slipped to its lowest in five months in January, tax authority data showed on Tuesday.

HM Revenue and Customs said the number of property transactions fell to 133,000 in January in seasonally-adjusted terms from 154,000 in December, revised from an originally reported 153,000.

That was the lowest level since August 2005 when the Bank of England cut interest rates to 4.5 percent, a move that many analysts said gave a boost to the housing market at the end of last

How can Rightmove's houses be "flying off the shelves" if the number of transactions fell? How can prices be rising if the number one government official's house dropped 625k? (Tony's place).


I have just emailed Rightmove with this:


Re: http://uk.us.biz.yahoo.com/ft/060220/fto02...17891.html?.v=1

We refer to your recent press release concerning the surge in house prices. Some of your properties are listed as portfolios and we wonder if these figures may have skewed the averages? For example:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-865...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

If this property appeared as a single house rather than a number of houses the average house price will be raised. Our research shows that Rightmove has listed a substantial number of properties that comprise a portfolio together with single properties that appear to be erroneous prices up to 99 million pounds for a small semi etc.

Further, Government data recently released shows that the number of transactions fell sharply in the New Year which seems to refute your data showing a surge in activity:

http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/newsAr...IN-PROPERTY.xml

"LONDON (Reuters) - The number of property transactions in England and Wales slipped to its lowest in five months in January, tax authority data showed on Tuesday.

HM Revenue and Customs said the number of property transactions fell to 133,000 in January in seasonally-adjusted terms from 154,000 in December, revised from an originally reported 153,000.

That was the lowest level since August 2005 when the Bank of England cut interest rates to 4.5 percent, a move that many analysts said gave a boost to the housing market at the end of last year."

As we look at the market with a view to purchasing it is important to know what data can be relied upon as accurate. Are you able to comment on the above and especially the government data which clearly shows transactions are slowing dramatically.



Regards

Further to my last email, here are some more Rightmove listings showing erroneous prices that may have skewed averages:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-589...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-592...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-974...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-974...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-974...pa_n=5&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-595...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-588...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

The above are a sample of a number of listings that may well have been included to show prices "surging."

Regards

Anyone hazard a guess as to how many multi-million pound terraces Rightmove have listed? How on earth can their data be relied upon.

I've listed lots of suspicious properties in the pinned Right Move thread too...

Does anyone have any idea how many suspicious listings Rightmove have up on their website? Can you imagine the damage to their credibility if it could be shown that their "errors" skewed the data and that BBC reported it as "news."

HPC field day.

What happens with multiple listings for the same property? Either through a mistake or multi agents?

ATTENTION ALL

£201,6000 average asking price? 628,000 homes?

so 201,600 * 628,000 = £126,604,800,000 in total

To get back under £200,000 we need to wipe off 0.8% or £1,012,838,400 of portfolios.

So if we can find just over a billion quid of portfolios on this site the average price would be under £200,000. If we do this and then contact the BBC stating they are reporting erroneous headlines based on missinformation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4724858.stm
(this being the culpable story)

it may force the BBC to be a little more cautious.
I hav no idea how long finding £1billion quids worth of portfolios would take, is it feasible?

One house was listed for £130 million, another ten of those would more than do it.

Edit: Post removed as duplicate

I saw one for 99 million. I do not think we are talking about many examples here. If we can show that the increase was illusory it will be BIG news. BBC will have to report it. VI credibility gone in one swoop. Maybe I should not have emailed Rightmove to explain as they might do a quick removal of the billion pound semis?

Don't forget that the report is on properties added in the month being reported on. So it's an average of a much smaller number of properties than the total 628,000.

T&T

Noen of these links work--someone removed them---quick????

They're in Realistbears post, try those.

I've had the same banter with Rightmove too..

Firstly, they have changed which data they use. They previously excluded 'atypical' (expensive) properties, there is now no reference to this and rightmove won't give me a straight answer. (see my original thread on this).



I also emailed the BBC with a complaint and they replied with "prove your serious alligations". Of which I did, no reply from them.




Jon,



I also asked Rightmove several months ago why do they use the initial price rather than the average price at any one time. Basically, they don't want to change their index.

Also, would you concur with Rightmove's figures Jon (as you have a super tool thingy)?

While we are on Rightmove... I also asked about "Reduction" tags. I was told they were removed because of technical difficulties. In hindsight Zorn probably told the big cheese it was a bad idea. However, they did say they will be bringing this feature back! - Of which I very much doubt.

They worked a few minutes ago. Did anyone take a copy?

Don't think that would have much of an effect.... unless the property was either at the top or the bottom of the price range.

They're also still in the original pinned Rightmove thread. Must be something in the way I c+p'd them

A story this "HOT" will not be touched by the BBC--The Telegraph might be interested as they know HPI is the only thing keeping Gordon going. The Tabloids would love it but their credibility may not be as strong.

The thing is that Right move had shown negative monthly figures for 16 months or something and then suddenly showed a massive increase this could be because it really jumped or because they have changed the way they calculate the data. As Teddyboy pointed out in another thread one region showed a 6.7% leap in a month - annualised this would mean house prices doubling in a year

I don't think portfolios etc are the reason for this sudden change it must be something more fundamental.

Like a stock market floatation?

I think this might be another one...........

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-933...pa_n=2&tr_t=buy

There could be hundreds of these 10 million pound semis. One of the Daily Tabloids might print the story?

No, don't wait. Why not go for a good spin? Everybody else does!

Rightmove may well be slewing the figures with its useless calculations, but hasn't it been doing this month after month? It may well prove that the average house price is lower than suggested, but it doesn't take away from the fact that they are still heading upwards again.

Top work Baz.

Rightmove will be the Arthur Anderson of the property world when things turn sour.

If there are a large number of properties that have skewed the data could the result show a healthier property market than actually exists? Could this influence the price of the stock??

Hang on, the data is calculated from a mere 154,000 properties a quarter of my original quoted sample.

So just £255,000,000 of erroneous property posted on rightmove this month would carry them back below the £200,000 average price.

That could be just two dodgy posts the $99million and £150million semis alone!

Rightmove is complete cock! and open to MASSIVE abuse. They keep their data in a piss poor state.


http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-102...pa_n=3&tr_t=buy

Another one

It would underpin their "flying off the shelves" nonsense though, one property sold via three agents could appear as three separate sales. The official stats recorded a six month low in transactions for January, another bounce that didn't occur, Rightmove are creating a false market and fooling themselves and 90% of the media with dodgy stats.

Another portfolio http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-825...pa_n=8&tr_t=buy

surely rightmove would ignore the top and bottom 5% when doing there stats?

Rightmove should "open" as wikipedia: A collaborative effort where we can help them set their prices, and provide them with a peer-review service, free of charge.

Why wait? - if you can get a journalist on the case - let them get to the bottom of it - a good journalist wont wait for RM - they'll ask them - give them a chance to reply, and if they dont - run the story without RM's confirmation - their letter so far is probably enough for them to go on

Is pretty obvious why they "don't want to change their index". They know that by only including the most recently added properties that the average asking price will appear more than it really is. It takes no account at all of unsold stock with reduced asking prices.

In my analysis of 40,000 properties in my 20 mile radius from mid-November 2005 to now, the mean average price has fallen £3,500 in that time. This is before excluding any of the million pound plus properties that skew the figures. The median price has also fallen £1,000. The number of properties in the 20 mile radius has gone up 4,000 in the same time period, and there have been 7,500 separate reductions in asking prices in this sample. If you want to see some of them, have a play with this which allows you to see which properties haven been reduced in my area.

Given that they are due for a flotation soon, they are expected to give open and correct data that relates directly to the value of the company. If I was a potential investor, I'd be asking very searching questions.

Jon

Like: Should I invest any money whatsoever in glorified liars?

"In my analysis of 40,000 properties in my 20 mile radius from mid-November 2005 to now, the mean average price has fallen £3,500 in that time. This is before excluding any of the million pound plus properties that skew the figures. The median price has also fallen £1,000. The number of properties in the 20 mile radius has gone up 4,000 in the same time period, and there have been 7,500 separate reductions in asking prices in this sample. If you want to see some of them, have a play with this which allows you to see which properties haven been reduced in my area."

I reckon you should rough that up with some hard figs and send to ITV. They can catch the beeb with their publicly-funded pants down and smear rightmove's lieas ALL over their faces.

It worked with the "inside crap" flotation, so why not with this crock???

So whats the difference in average house prices between the RM index and the ODPM(factoring the delay in odpm stats)? and how does this vary over time?
If the graphs run fairly parallel, then the RM index is a good indicator.
It would be interesting to see the comparison!

Funny you should say. I'm currently trying to enlist the aid of a qualified statistician (I have A-level maths myself, but it was a long time ago ), to assist me in correctly analysing the average price data that I have. If there is someone on the forum who is qualified in this area, please PM me. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the numbers ...

Who should I email at ITV ... any suggestions ?

I thought they ignored properties which were 2 standard deviations outside the mean? I'm sure I read that on here.

I'm outraged by this cynical device by Rightmove and the negligent journalism by the BBC and media in general. People are ignorantly making financial decisions that will affect them for the next 3 decades on this, so called 'information'. Surely this is fraud? I guess Rightmove will play the 'innocent mistake' card, blaming an underling for incorrect data input into their website, but the people that release these figures have NO excuse, and the BBC are being wilfully negligent in publishing this information. I'm absolutely disgusted by this.

Are there any legally-minded people in this forum who can say whether this is against the law in some way - my sense of morality says that it surely must be...

I've found quite a few properties listed as POA and a few at £0. Maybe you could find out if the POA are included in the figures (they are listed in the less than £20 000 section). Here is a selection:
rightmove
rightmove
rightmove

Yeah, isnt this false advertising?

I have posted this before. Your point was my concern so I emailed them last year. The reply is below.

Hello

To answer your question, the index is carried out on properties that have come onto our site within the last month. If there are properties on there that are 3 s.d out of the mean then they will not be included. This is the case for every postcode area and property type, so that property you are referring to is likely to be excluded as it is out of the mean for the type of property and postcode.

kind regards

Charlotte Wheeler
Market Intelligence Executive


However there is still no way of knowing if they follow this methodology. My view is that the stats are rubbish and anyone buying using this data should take a class action if the market collapses.

Charlotte Wheeler
Market Intelligence Executive

Is that a contradiction in terms?

Quite right Wifeling-smi. I'm sure you'll find a disclaimer somewhere in their report. Aren't things like disclaimers/waivers not worth the paper they're written on?

Scumbags.

'House prices booming' my arsss