Free House Price Valuations Tons of tools to investigate a property

Check how much houses in any street sold for

Our three top picks all take their data from the Land Registry and the Registers of Scotland, so the results are much of a muchness. It's still worth trying a few, as some info gets missed and they update at different times. Newly sold houses appear in searches two to three months after the deal is done.

Nethouseprices

Simply enter a postcode or street into Nethouseprices to see what properties sold and for what and narrow the search by house age and style and see a map.

Houseprices

Works in a similar way to the above, Houseprices gives cloured-coded Google maps highlight the streets that fetch the most.

Ourproperty – goes back further.

Most sites only go back as far as 2000-ish, but Ourproperty stretches to 1995 for England and Wales (though 2000 for Scotland). You need to register, but it's free.

Match sold prices to old property ads

Frustratingly, sold-house sites just list a price and if it was a flat or house. The entry could refer to a derelict bedsit or an immaculate three-bedder with an Aga, walnut floors and landscaped garden. A few neat tricks will help:

Zoopla

Zoopla's launched a powerful tool that matches up sold prices with old property ads, including pics, asking prices, descriptions and floor plans. Go to Zoopla's Home Values section, search for an area and click the red H's for historic listings.

So far the tool covers 2 million records nationwide and is growing. It's patchy, but even just one archived record on your street is fascinating.

Rightmove

Search for a price comparison report on Rightmove to see sold prices, and, occasionally, a pic and details of how many bedrooms. You may be able to unearth the full listing by googling the road name, eg, 'Hillside Crescent house sale', as many sites scrape Rightmove's data and leave it up for years.

Track property price trends

Now it's time to get an overview of the market. These figures help show how many properties are changing hands in your area and how much for.

Land Registry

The Land Registry collects official data on real sales, recording virtually every residence sold. Its House Price Index Index gives average house prices by country and region, breaking them down into different property types. The problem is that they are a little out of date, usually by around three months.

Registers of Scotland

For those north of the border, Registers of Scotland's data shows sale volumes and average house prices by district. There are graphs plotting monthly average prices. Again, there's is usually a a three-month time lag.

Halifax house prices

Stats geeks will enjoy Halifax's housing research, which features its official house price index, a regional house price map and average prices by postcode. This updates faster than the Land Registry, though is based on mortgage approvals, not all of which result in completed deals.

Nationwide

For another take on the state of the housing market, see Nationwide's similar index. You can download national and regional house price data, as well as more detailed analysis.

Get a quick bespoke valuation

The first to try is Zoopla. Type in a postcode and it will give you a rough indication of sales prices for that area. You can then select a home in that street and get a bespoke online valuation based on previous sale prices and market climate.

You can even get predicted rental yields and compare it to the area's average. MoneySavers report Zoopla a worth looking at for a (very wide) ballpark, but has a tendency to under value properties, as it's based on last sale prices and doesn't take into account renovations.

Get a more detailed second opinion

For a second opinion on how much to hope for, try Propertypriceadvice. It's slightly quicker and easier to work through, though asks fewer questions and requires an email address.

You get an upper and lower value for the gaff, as well the option to download a PDF guide which includes local schools and doctors. MoneySavers say Propertypriceadvice is more likely to over value properties.

Get an estimated price range

For another free basic valuation, try Mouseprice.com. It simply asks for your postcode and the number of bedrooms, so is hardly a conclusive study. You get a broad price range, eg, we tapped in the postcode for a two-bed London flat and it was valued between £296,550 and £362,450.

A nice addition is a Google Earth snap of the property. There is the option to get a full, detailed valuation for £20, yet, as the accuracy of online valuations is still highly questionable, if you want one, stick with the freebies.

Find out a home's value based on its sale price

The Nationwide House Price Calculator is designed for people to put in their gaff's price when they bought it and work out what it's worth now.

If you don't know the last sale price, find the most recent price for similar property on the street and enter this. The tool is crude: it doesn't take into account home improvements or even pinpoint exact areas, but it can give an idea of how house price fluctuations affect value.

See housing market forecasts

If you do want to see what the pundits predict, a useful place to do that is Housepricecrash. It's a website with a pro-property price crash agenda, but don't be put off by this. It collects statistics from places like the Land Registry, the Financial Times and Hometrack to number crunch house price trends.

On top of this, the site tracks house price predictions from different experts to give an idea of what the future may hold.

No one can tell you what's going to happen to house prices, though many will try.

Find local asking prices

Gone are the days when peering into estate agents' windows was the only way to see asking prices for local places. There are a plethora of property search sites, though do remember figures are often wildly optimistic, showing what the seller wants for their crib, not what they'll get.

If you're househunting, remember that some homes are sold before they appear on the sites. Get pally with a local estate agent, so they call as soon as a place hits their books. For belt and braces, monitor a few sites, as not all estate agents list their properties on Rightmove.

Rightmove

The Mac Daddy of home search sites, Rightmove is the best place to compare homes on the market. As well as a dizzying number of properties up for grabs, it plots listings on a Google map for ease.

For the best results, turbo charge it with the ingenious Property-bee Firefox add-on to see how sellers have altered listings and dropped prices. As an aside, sellers should always ensure an agent will advertise their home on Rightmove – it's the only site many househunters check.

Globrix

While Rightmove's reach is hard to rival, also worth a look is Globrix. This is a good option if you're looking for a particular type of home, as it allows you to narrow searches by type, eg, New Build or Victorian, as well as detailed criteria such as wooden floors, balconies, garden size or swimming pools.

It includes an interactive Google search map that plots where pads are for sale, so you can hone in on your favourite roads.

Home.co.uk

MoneySavers also rate Home.co.uk. The site can be clunky, but includes reams of data alongside the listings, including how the asking price compares with others in the town and postcode.

Another useful function is that you can click on homes' 'price histories' to see how the asking price has shifted. Other home search sites worth a peep are Zoopla, PrimeLocation and Findaproperty.

Monitor house prices on the go

The free Rightmove iPhone app uses GPS technology to pinpoint pads for sale near where you're standing. Just download the app, click ‘get my current location' and it shows a list of gaffs up for grabs.

For those with a smartphone, such as a Blackberry, Rightmove Mobile does the same thing. Read Free Top Mobile Apps for a full guide to mobile apps and how they work.

Uncover Rightmove ads' secret histories

One MoneySaver describes Property-bee as 'probably the most fun you'll have online'. A free add-on for web browser Firefox, it works with property listing site Rightmove to show you how sellers alter their listings, including, crucially, price cuts.

You can see when the seller put the property up for sale; each time they cut the price and by how much; and if it was taken off the market and put back on. These are all useful bargaining chips in purchase negotiations. Whether you're buying or not, the results are fascinating.

The best way is to try it. Installing is incredibly simple: if you don't already have FireFox, head to mozilla.org and follow the prompts to install. Then go Property-bee and hit the ‘download' button on the left. Follow the prompts and restart Firefox. Go to Rightmove, do a search and sellers' alterations will magically appear.

Monitor dropped asking prices

Another website, Propertysnake, shows which properties in an area have recently dropped their asking prices, and by how much. Type in a postcode to see who's having trouble offloading their house and what percentage they've trimmed the price by.

MoneySavers report that this is less accurate than Property-Bee, but worth a gander.

Look for repossessed properties

It's possible to pick up repossessed or distressed-sale properties at up to 30% below market price. For those willing to put work in on research and repairs, these can represent some of the best buys on the market.

For a full guide to how it works and how to find bargains, read Buying Repossessions.

Check for flood risk and air pollution

The Environment Agency (England and Wales) and Environment Protection Agency's (Scotland) flood info provides detailed reports on whether and why an area's at risk.

The likelihood is described as one of three categories: low, moderate or significant, as used by insurers.

There's also an air quality map showing nearby pollution dangers like sewage works.

Check for flood and subsidence risks

A ten-second search on Homecheck could save you thousands of quid. It's an amazing resource, collating data from bodies like the Environment Agency and the British Geological Survey.

Just type in a postcode and it swiftly analyses the risk of flooding, subsidence and other environmental problems. It lets you check for all sorts of nasties you've never contemplated, such as landfill waste and radon gas levels.

Examine crime rates

Steel yourself and take a look at the new Police.uk crime mapping website for England and Wales. It breaks down recorded crimes by street, eg, burglary, robbery and anti-social behaviour (gulp!), all of which mean dearer insurance premiums.

Alternatively, discover how much crime there is in your area compared to the national average, by simply plugging your postcode into Upmystreet.com.

Find out what's being built in your area

Will that sea view be replaced by a high rise in a couple of months? The government's Planning Portal helps avoid nasty surprises by displaying planning applications made in your area.

You can search by postcode and area for England and Wales. The list is not definitive, so it's worth checking your local council's website too.

Check & challenge your council tax band

Council tax bands in England and Scotland were decided in 1991, but often it was done by an estate agent just driving past. It's possible to quickly check your band and if it's wrong challenge and possibly get a rebate of £1000s. Read the full Council Tax Reclaiming article.

Get the right mortgage

Remortgaging is the single, biggest MoneySaving activity possible: the financial equivalent of liposuction. For every 1% you cut on a £100,000 outstanding mortgage you save £80 a month.

To see if you can sever the cost of your mortgage, read either the Cheap Mortgages or Cheap Remortgages Guide.

Cut the cost of home insurance

It's easy to slice home insurance costs by £100s, by using websites that compare for you, then grabbing hidden cashback. Many people have been paid to take out home insurance, because the cashback is more than the insurance costs. For the full system, read the Cheap Home Insurance guide.

Browse local schools

A must for any mums and dads, see the Department for Education's School League Tables.

Also check out inspection reports for schools in a particular postcode on the Ofsted website, which lets you read local primary and secondary school reports.

Get the lowdown on your neighbours

Especially useful if you're moving somewhere new, find out what kind of people live up your road in Upmystreet.com's local area section.

Just plug in a postcode and it generates a neighbourhood profile, listing everything from average incomes to whether they are more likely to read The Sun or The Guardian. Results are based on data from marketing company CACI's Acorn database, which divides the population into distinct groups.

Click on 'transport services' to see the distance to the nearest bus, tube or rail station or hit 'schools' to see local school performance.

Inspect neighbourhood statistics

For serious number-crunching on everything from poverty to access to services, look at the government's Neighbourhood Statistics site.

While the government-speak can be hard to penetrate, if you want to find out average life expectancies, how many people went bankrupt or how many house fires there were, you've come to the right place.

Look for transport links

New transport links can mean an area is on the up. Use the Highways Agency's road project search to look for new roads at Highways.gov.uk.

For London commuters, CommuteFrom shows which towns are the quickest hop from their office. Just plug in a tube station, pick a maximum journey length, eg, no more than 45 minutes, and it throws up the best commuter routes.

Check for noise

For certain English cities only, noisemapping.org is part of a government project to track road traffic noise.

Input your postcode and house number and it'll come up with a colour coded 'noise viewer map', showing how many decibels of noise there are at that spot.

Find yourself on Google Earth

Get a dizzyingly good view of your whole area using Google Earth, a free service that uses mapping technology to give aerial views from space.

To find out whether your next-door neighbour likes to sunbathe naked, go to the homepage and download its special software, type an area into the 'Fly To' box and hit Search.

Alternatively, search for 360-degree snaps of your house with Google Street View or check out Geograph, where users submit photos with the aim of capturing every square grid in the UK.

Check how close you are to amenities or work

There's also a very useful tool called Gmaps Pedometer, which automatically works out how far you're walking and the calories you'll burn. It's a little tricky to work out how to use at first, but once done it's great for measuring the walking distance between places.

Find out how close you'll be to work or shops using Google Maps. Type in a postcode or even a complex search such as “dry cleaners in Leeds” and a special map will pop up with all the relevant info highlighted.