Thursday, Jun 04, 2009
Regional variation in Rightmove asking prices
Patrick Craig: UK House Price Graph 2008 onwards
At the end of 2007, I set up a Rightmove scraper to get daily house prices for two regions I was interested in, Hemel Hempstead and Braintree. I have generated a graph for the data I have so far (see link). This seems to show a very strange pattern. If you average the data for both regions there is a general downward trend, but it seems that any variation from this average is always upwards for Hemel Hempstead and is matched by an equivalent downward variation for Braintree. This effect is more pronounced the more bedrooms the property has. It is difficult to explain in words, but should be apparent from the graph. Any ideas what is going on?
Posted by patchnpuki @ 11:31 AM (989 views) Add Comment
13 Comments
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1. Bojo said...
I think this means you need to enjoy the sunshine a bit more :-)
Seriously, I'm suprised that prices haven't fallen more over that period.
2. Bookbinder said...
You'll get no comments on here from a post like that. People here want to read how everything is Gordon Browns fault and how we will not get a sustainable house price rise until David Cameron has been in power for a couple of years.
3. Bearnaked said...
Could this be explained by applying some kind of time lag?
4. Liamspalmer said...
Patrick,
Sorry...but "should be apparant from the graph" renders me speechless. You have put in small samples data across a short timeframe for an OTC asset and think you see patterns? Go watch "A beautiful mind" and then go get some sleep...and professional help.
If you must draw graphs, and not sure why you would, stick to the land registry for your data source and simple line charts. When the line , on an annual basis, stops going down and starts going sideways then its time to wake up. All else is folly.
5. debtfree said...
I'll tell you whats going on.
looking at it from a sub zero perspective mixed with some hyper multi dimensional paragrah coloured idiology, we can see that the different sizes of bedrooms plotted against the colours on a random scale means the downward path plotted against a background time frame is not looking good.
6. Patchnpuki said...
Bojo @ 1
It took me a while to set up initially, but now it runs automatically and I only have to update it when Rightmove change their web site. Remember these are Rightmove asking prices which are only 6% down from their peak in May 08.
Liamspalmer @ 4
All I said was there appeared to be a pattern in the data and asked for comments. The concensus seems to be that it is random noise.
7. george monsoon said...
The graph looks like a 6.4 on the richter scale.
Not very clear at all, more akin to my 6 year olds attempts at signing a birthday card.
8. debtfree said...
It's the sort of thing you might see at the Tate.
Give em a call, you might have a Turner Prize winner on your hands.
9. will said...
In the early 1990's crash, I noticed that it wasn't until the last year of the correction ( after 4 years of index falls) that most properties that were advertised finally fell in line with the indexes. In other words, people didn't believe that the falls applied to them for several years.
I live in Devon now, where it currently appears that prices have moved down only 5-10% and not 25% according to the indexes. Patience is a virtue.
10. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.
11. stillthinking said...
We need more people like you here and less of the common ilk.
12. refusetobuy said...
Very pretty, but I think you are trying to represent too many dimensions on a single graph.
Friday, June 5, 2009 01:34AM
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My advice is to ignore graphs completely. You're looking for Multivariate Analysis, which is some maths that helps find patterns and relationships in related data series. For some free software, check out the
13. refusetobuy said...
Oops, sorry