Can I trust online valuation websites?

Using property websites to assess your home’s value

When you want a quick guide to your home’s value, property websites can be very inviting. They offer a free way to get a fast projection of what your house or flight might be worth, and you can get these estimates in seconds. That compares to the lengthier process of contacting an estate agent to arrange for them to visit your home and give you a more in-depth valuation.

Companies like Zoopla and rightmove have very user-friendly options for getting an estimate on the price of your house or flat, no matter where in the UK it is located. Typically all you have to do is enter your address and the sites will give you a projected price for the property, letting you see the value not only of your home but also other properties on your street and nearby locations.

Depending on which site you use, the price you’ll be given might be the value at which the home last sold, or it might be a projected range for what price you could get if you sold now. This can be very useful information to help you determine whether or not you want to sell your home soon, or wait until a later date when your home might potentially increase in value.

But you should be cautious about making a final decision to sell using only the estimates you get from valuation websites. That’s because they calculate their home values by analysing a lot of data, including past sale prices and information about your neighbourhood, in determining the projected value of your house or flat. And the data that they use can sometimes be out of date, sometimes by several years, meaning your valuation might not be very accurate.

For example, these websites are unable to track very recent changes in your area that might significantly affect your house price, making the estimates inaccurate and not very useful when trying to get an idea of the price you might be able to ask when you sell your property.

These websites also can’t factor into their estimates any work you might recently have done to increase the value of your home, such as tidying the garden or installing new bathroom or kitchen equipment. Taking these simple steps can help to boost the sale price that you can seek for your home, yet you won’t get a good idea of how much such changes are worth through a valuation website.