In the fast-moving online world of instant access and gratification, the government is once again bringing up the rear by working on house price statistics that are months out of date.
The Communities and Local Government Department (CLG) ceremoniously releases house price statistics every month - but they are out of date.
The CLG has announced that the average UK home was worth £205,565 - in March.
Since then, the world has moved on. With a royal wedding, another Japanese earthquake, Manchester United winning a record 19th league title and another round of local government elections.
The CLG figures are based on Land Registry data - and the Land Registry releases its own house price index and average home price figures. Those for March - the same period as the CLG data - were released on May 5.
In fact, the Land Registry crows that its index is the most accurate and provides data sets to Acadametrics, another housing index, which released yet another set of figures based on the same information last week.
Granted these figures are only for England and Wales, when the CLG data covers the UK.
The next question is why does the interpretation of the data differ between the Land Registry - a government agency - and the CLG - a government department?
The CLG says average house prices UK house prices increased by 0.9% over the year and increased by 1.2% over the month.
The Land Registry says they went down by 1.1% from February to March and down 2.3% year-on-year.
The CLG average home price is £205,565 but £160,996 according to the Land Registry.
Banks and building societies - the Nationwide and Halifax- have already revealed their house price survey results for April.
With such wide margins and non-comparable sample data, as the lender’s information is based on their approved mortgage figures each month to customers - it’s obvious none of the studies are reliable.
No one lives in an ‘average’ home anyway, so the data provides no worthwhile information to anyone buying or selling a home.
