The asking price on a Rightmove listing is not a market value. It's a seller's opening position — set by an estate agent whose job is to win the listing and achieve the best possible outcome for their client, not for you.
So how do you find out what a property is actually worth? The answer is the same data source that professional valuers use: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, which records every residential sale in England and Wales at the price it actually transacted.
Why asking prices diverge from market value
Estate agents compete for instructions. When two agents pitch to a vendor, the one who gives the higher valuation tends to win the business — even if that valuation is optimistic. The result is a structural incentive to overprice at launch.
The property then sits on the market, accumulates viewing history without offers, and eventually sells below the original asking price — often after one or more reductions. By the time it transacts, buyers who anchored to the original asking price have already overpaid mentally.
How to check using Land Registry data
The Land Registry Price Paid dataset is free and publicly searchable at gov.uk/search-house-prices. You can search by postcode to see every sale in a given area, with price, date, property type, and whether it was new-build or existing.
To use it effectively, you need to:
- Find properties of the same type (terrace, semi, flat, detached) in the same postcode or adjacent streets
- Look at sales within the last 12–18 months — older sales need market adjustment
- Filter to similar sizes if floor area data is available via the EPC register
- Adjust for condition — a renovated comparable will sell higher than a dated one
Once you have 3–6 comparable sales, you can calculate a price per square metre and apply it to the subject property. That's the basis of a fair value estimate.
Where the gaps tend to be largest
Properties with fewer recent comparables are hardest to anchor correctly — detached homes in rural areas, unusual property types, and properties that haven't sold in a decade. In these cases, sellers and agents have more latitude to set aspirational prices, and buyers have less data to push back with.
Slower markets also widen the gap. When transaction volumes are low, asking prices lag the correction. Sellers price based on what their neighbour got 18 months ago; actual buyers negotiate based on what's transacted in the last six months.
What to do with the gap
If your comparable analysis shows the asking price is materially above fair value, that gap is your negotiating room. An offer backed by specific comparable evidence — street names, sale dates, prices per square metre — is far harder for an agent to dismiss than a low offer with no reasoning.
This is exactly what OfferHound produces: a fair value calculated from Land Registry comparables, adjusted for size and condition, with a specific offer range and the negotiation reasoning to support it.