Rightmove - Market trends data

[Flemke]

Has anyone else noted that Rightmove stopped updating their Market Trends data in November? Maybe my memory doesn't serve me well, but I am almost certain it was being updated monthly through 2016, then stopped in November. It's almost as if they don't want to publicise the growing trend of decreasing sold volumes and increasing marketed properties. 

[electrogear]

44 minutes ago, Flemke said:

Has anyone else noted that Rightmove stopped updating their Market Trends data in November? Maybe my memory doesn't serve me well, but I am almost certain it was being updated monthly through 2016, then stopped in November. It's almost as if they don't want to publicise the growing trend of decreasing sold volumes and increasing marketed properties. 

I think... sold trends were always lagging by 3 months but "marketed properties" trends were always there for the previous month. I was beginning to think I must've dreamt it so I'm glad it's not just me!

[electrogear]

Looks like this has happened before...

 

 

[Sancho Panza]

They'll provide sales data in early April for Dec.It's basically to ensure that all sales have been registered.Most sales are registered in the first month but some straggling conveyancers take a little longer.

 

The market trends data is available immediately because it's their own data not the Land reg's.

[kalkal1]

Yes RM stopped updating the marketed property graph around 3 months ago.  Well that graph kind of shows a drop in their revenue? I assume the bulk of RM's money comes from the listings and that graph shows exactly that. 

[ftb_fml]

Yes. I started a price and inventory/sales volume graph for my area earlier in the year; IIRC the first data sets I entered were for Nov/Sep (inventory/sales), the next month I got Nov/Oct and the last set I updated on the 6th of March were for Nov/Nov. While the sales data has been updated every month, as you say the inventory hasn't been updated for two or three months.

I like to think that it's for the reasons you suggest Flemke (that it will show a massive stagnation in the market) however their actual reasons are anyone's guess, of course.

While we're no the subject it's worth noting a few more trends I've noticed:

Update times vary significantly - always near the end of the calender month but can lag until days into the next month

Be careful with sales data - despite lagging by three months anyway (the Nov data was released at the beginning of March) sales volumes in preceding months are often increased significantly when new data are added. For example, when the Nov. sales figures were added, compared to the figures published a month earlier, the number of sold properties in Oct also increased by around 9%, along with around 7% in Oct and Sep, and around 2% in Aug. I've noticed the odd drop too, but the general trend is for artificially low sales figures for the latest data. If you're tracking inventory/sales this can make this ratio seem optimistically high for the most recent months, only for it to come down when more data are added in successive months

I'm hoping that inventory might also change in the same way to redress the balance, although with the slow updates in this area haven't been able to check this yet, and in reality think this is probably since the inventory information is theirs and probably more easily quantifiable, while the sales figures come from the land registry and are probably more subject to change.

It's about that time again so hopefully we'll see another update and some more inventory information soon!

 

[ftb_fml]

I emailed Rightmove at the end of last month regarding this issue and after a bit of cajoling got this response from them today:

Quote

 

Good Afternoon ftb_fml,

Thank you for your email and for bringing this to our attention.

I have discussed your email with our technical team. They have informed me that this information should be showing up until January. Our developers are currently looking in to the cause of this and are looking to get this information updated as soon as possible.

If you have any further queries regarding this or there is anything else that I can help you with, please let me know.

Kind regards

 

XXXXXXXXXX
Customer Service Executive

 

So, hopefully we might see an update soon!

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, ftb_fml said:

I emailed Rightmove at the end of last month regarding this issue and after a bit of cajoling got this response from them today:

So, hopefully we might see an update soon!

I reckon they're stalling the release of high supply/low price data... Don't want to lower sentiment during the spring bounce.

[ftb_fml]

3 minutes ago, Kiwi_Muncher said:

I reckon they're stalling the release of high supply/low price data... Don't want to lower sentiment during the spring bounce.

I thought similar and generally don't trust anyone in the industry / with a vested interest.. However that quoted in my past post is evidently their official line, make of it what you will.

Assuming they have all the information already (as well as the means to implement its publication) it'll be interesting to see how long it takes them to release it into the wild!

[bluegnu]

13 minutes ago, ftb_fml said:

I thought similar and generally don't trust anyone in the industry / with a vested interest.. However that quoted in my past post is evidently their official line, make of it what you will.

Assuming they have all the information already (as well as the means to implement its publication) it'll be interesting to see how long it takes them to release it into the wild!

Hmmm...I contacted them back in February about this,

Quote

Have you stopped updating the 'Market Trends' graphs?

If I remember correctly, the 'Total Number of Properties on Rightmove' graph used to be updated about a week into the new month with the previous month's data. It seems to have stopped on November now.

Cheers

 

...and this is the response I recieved...

Quote

Thank you very much for your patience whilst I looked into this for you. 

 

It looks like we still update this data each month but it will always be about three months behind the current date. This is to keep it just ahead of the 'Sold Properties' tab of data, which will show averaged information from the month prior. The team have advised that by being a few months behind the sets of data used will be fuller and more accurate. 

 

Will Market Trends always be this way? 

It feels like we should be able to offer more up-to-date information on these pages. It also feels like there's not enough information on the page to explain what the graphs and tables are showing and why the most recent data is shown from the date it is.

 

These are factors that we'll definitely be looking to change going forwards. After all - what good is a research tool like this if it's not simple to use? We already have a long-term plan to update and improve the house prices pages and the research tools available in this section of the website so this is a welcome addition to that project. 

 

If you have any further feedback about Market Trends or any questions then please don't hesitate to get in touch with us. 

 

Kind Regards, 

XXXXXXX

Data Quality Lead Analyst

Just a load of pointless waffle really.

And yeah, I'm a little suspicious of them retaining the monthly number of properties listed just as they started reaching record levels where I live.

[Chrippie]

Unless I'm confused with what you are looking for , Home.co.uk has this information  updated to April - here's the link to the page for W8 for instance

http://www.home.co.uk/guides/house_prices_menu.htm?location=w8

 

 

[Chrippie]

What's interesting is compare asking prices (average for terraced house in April £5.4m, down 18% year on year), with selling prices ( down 27% year on year to £3.4m). Still ridiculous prices of course, but Central London is in full on collapse mode at this point.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

48 minutes ago, Chrippie said:

Unless I'm confused with what you are looking for , Home.co.uk has this information  updated to April - here's the link to the page for W8 for instance

http://www.home.co.uk/guides/house_prices_menu.htm?location=w8

 

 

Has a look at that for london, some mad price swings in some borough.

Says London prices up 6% yoy ( crazy ) but sales volumes have collapsed about 50%.

If this is the reason why May has called the election ( and It probably is ) then we all know what;s coming after....Carn(ey)age.

[electrogear]

Have a look at Rightmove's response...

"Hi Mike, my apologies for the delay in getting back to you on this, we were discussing this with our development team. They have advised us that this report will not be updated as it is shortly to be removed, due to very minimalistic usage of the report from consumers and estate agents. If you have any further questions on this please do let me know. Jess"

...interesting!!!

[Freki]

And Land registry is late to provide March data, usually it's on the 28th of the following month.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

11 minutes ago, Freki said:

And Land registry is late to provide March data, usually it's on the 28th of the following month.

It's like there is a major even on June the 8th and they're trying to keep the plates spinning till then 

 

       

[electrogear]

Not that I trust any "industry reports" anyway, but it seems like something's afoot which is delaying data from multiple sources. It's interesting to see Nationwide/Halifax revising down the previous month's figures as a course of habit now, to keep the current month's negative figure as low as possible!

[ASBEAR]

46 minutes ago, Freki said:

And Land registry is late to provide March data, usually it's on the 28th of the following month.

I've been also waiting for the Land Registry data, but they seem to hold the release. So I manually calculated the data using their recent data from 1 Feb to 28 Feb which would be the source of Land Registry's March statistics. The number of registered transaction is significantly low. I would ignore the avg price because of the lack of sample set.

 

 

 

 

[ASBEAR]

2 minutes ago, ASBEAR said:

I've been also waiting for the Land Registry data, but they seem to hold the release. So I manually calculated the data using their recent data from 1 Feb to 28 Feb which would be the source of Land Registry's March statistics. The number of registered transaction is significantly low. I would ignore the avg price because of the lack of sample set.

 

 

 

 

And you know the transaction is 2 months delayed because as far as I know the registration takes months after changing the contract? For instance in Richmond, 72 contracts were exchanged in December, not in February. Correct me if I am wrong.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

If you were the PM and you knew several of the past elections were won off the back of High house prices....would you call an election asap ?

[zugzwang]

1 hour ago, TheCountOfNowhere said:

If you were the PM and you knew several of the past elections were won off the back of High house prices....would you call an election asap ?

GE dates: 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015 (+7% approx, not shown).

Conclusions: Major ought to have lost in 1992 and won in 1997. Brown's strong showing in 2010 could have been predicted from the rebound in hpi.

Edited May 2, 2017 by zugzwang

[Pablo]

4 hours ago, ASBEAR said:

I've been also waiting for the Land Registry data, but they seem to hold the release. So I manually calculated the data using their recent data from 1 Feb to 28 Feb which would be the source of Land Registry's March statistics. The number of registered transaction is significantly low. I would ignore the avg price because of the lack of sample set.

 

 

 

 

I don't suppose you have similar data for Woking/Redhill ?

[ftb_fml]

On 20/04/2017 at 2:01 PM, bluegnu said:

Hmmm...I contacted them back in February about this,

 

...and this is the response I recieved...

Just a load of pointless waffle really.

And yeah, I'm a little suspicious of them retaining the monthly number of properties listed just as they started reaching record levels where I live.

Nice - looks like a different story every time..

 

On 20/04/2017 at 3:05 PM, Chrippie said:

Unless I'm confused with what you are looking for , Home.co.uk has this information  updated to April - here's the link to the page for W8 for instance

http://www.home.co.uk/guides/house_prices_menu.htm?location=w8

 

 

Lots of good info there, although it doesn't supply the inventory (that I can see) as RM did - which is what I was keeping an eye on to calculate inventory/sales in an effort to get a measure of demand.

 

10 hours ago, electrogear said:

Have a look at Rightmove's response...

"Hi Mike, my apologies for the delay in getting back to you on this, we were discussing this with our development team. They have advised us that this report will not be updated as it is shortly to be removed, due to very minimalistic usage of the report from consumers and estate agents. If you have any further questions on this please do let me know. Jess"

...interesting!!!

Great - that's many hours of work on my part completely wasted, then. I find their explanation extremely shakey (rightly or wrongly) - after all how much actual work does it take to gather and publish that data? I suspect it's almost 100% automated. I think I might contact them again feigning ignorance to see if I get the same response.. perhaps we should bother them en masse in an effort to change their minds!

 

8 hours ago, ASBEAR said:

I've been also waiting for the Land Registry data, but they seem to hold the release. So I manually calculated the data using their recent data from 1 Feb to 28 Feb which would be the source of Land Registry's March statistics. The number of registered transaction is significantly low. I would ignore the avg price because of the lack of sample set.

 

 

 

 

Nice work - those are some pretty damning numbers! How likely is it that the latter months are likely to be bolstered by further additions over the coming months though? I found that the RM sales data for a particular month usually increased by ballpark 5-10% per month for the two to three months after it was initially published.

[ASBEAR]

5 hours ago, ItalianV6 said:

I don't suppose you have similar data for Woking/Redhill ?

I've quickly calculated it for you. Please don't think these values are correct, it's just based on the Land Registry's current dataset so it might change later on.

Woking

Dec 468975, 141

Jan 487950, 98

Feb 584732, 46

Reigate and Banstead

Dec 463622, 194

Jan 449443, 147

Feb 476130, 82

You can download the CSV data of some other locations via the following link with modification of "district=woking". Then you can use Excel to calculate the values. First thing you will need to do is sorting the data by deed_date.

http://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ppd/ppd_data?district=woking&et[]=lrcommon%3Afreehold&et[]=lrcommon%3Aleasehold&limit=all&min_date=1+December+2016&nb[]=true&nb[]=false&ptype[]=lrcommon%3Adetached&ptype[]=lrcommon%3Asemi-detached&ptype[]=lrcommon%3Aterraced&ptype[]=lrcommon%3Aflat-maisonette&tc[]=ppd%3AstandardPricePaidTransaction&tc[]=ppd%3AadditionalPricePaidTransaction

 

[ASBEAR]

1 hour ago, ftb_fml said:

Nice - looks like a different story every time..

 

Lots of good info there, although it doesn't supply the inventory (that I can see) as RM did - which is what I was keeping an eye on to calculate inventory/sales in an effort to get a measure of demand.

 

Great - that's many hours of work on my part completely wasted, then. I find their explanation extremely shakey (rightly or wrongly) - after all how much actual work does it take to gather and publish that data? I suspect it's almost 100% automated. I think I might contact them again feigning ignorance to see if I get the same response.. perhaps we should bother them en masse in an effort to change their minds!

 

Nice work - those are some pretty damning numbers! How likely is it that the latter months are likely to be bolstered by further additions over the coming months though? I found that the RM sales data for a particular month usually increased by ballpark 5-10% per month for the two to three months after it was initially published.

I think the value would change (increase) as you pointed out. I just hope the amount of the change would be small...