What Your Wimbledon Home Is Worth: The Evidence We Use

"What is my house worth?" is one of the questions I have been asked most often in thirty-six years. It sounds simple. The honest answer is that a home is worth what a buyer will pay for it, on the day, in the market as it is. Everything a good valuer does is an attempt to estimate that figure from evidence, before the market tests it for real.

I would rather show you how that works than ask you to take a number on trust. Here is the evidence I use, in the order I use it, and the traps I try to avoid.

Start with what buyers actually paid

The foundation of any valuation is completed sales of comparable homes. In England and Wales, those are recorded by HM Land Registry and published as Price Paid Data, which anyone can search on GOV.UK.

It is the best evidence there is, because it records what a buyer actually paid rather than what a seller hoped for. But it has limits you should know about:

• It lags. HM Land Registry says the gap between a sale and its registration typically ranges from two weeks to two months, so the most recent two months of data are incomplete. The market you are selling into may have moved since the last sale on your road.
• It only covers sales for value lodged for registration. Gifts, transfers on divorce, Right to Buy discounts and some other transfers are excluded.
• It tells you the price, not the property. The record will not tell you whether the house had been extended, needed a new roof or had a garden twice the size of yours. That is where local knowledge comes in.

So the starting point is a set of genuinely similar homes, sold recently, close by. Not one sale: a picture. Ideally the same road or the roads around it, similar size and layout, similar tenure, and sold within the last year or so.

Asking prices are hopes, sold prices are evidence

The portals are full of asking prices, and sellers naturally notice the highest one near them. Asking prices are useful. They tell you what you will be competing with, and what buyers are being offered this week.

But an asking price has not yet been tested by a buyer. Some are well supported by evidence. Some are optimistic. Some are deliberately set to attract attention. The gap between where homes are listed and where they actually sell can be wide, and it changes as the market changes.

I give completed sales far more weight than asking prices. I also look at what is under offer, and at what has been on the market a long time without selling, because that tells you where buyers have drawn a line.

Adjust honestly, both ways

No two homes are identical, so every comparable needs adjusting. The usual questions:

• Size and layout. Floor area, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and how well the space works.
• Condition. A recently renovated house and one needing a full refurbishment are different products, even on the same road.
• Outside space and parking. A garden, its size and aspect, off-street parking.
• Position. Which part of the road, what is next door, how close to the station, schools and the high street.
• Tenure and lease length for flats, plus service charges and ground rent.
• Potential. Room to extend, or existing planning permission. Potential adds value, but a buyer will not pay today for the whole of tomorrow's home; they still have to fund the work and carry the risk.

The trap here is adjusting only in your own favour: adding for your new kitchen but not taking off for the smaller garden. An honest valuation adjusts both ways.

Price per square foot: a diagnostic, not a formula

Price per square foot is a helpful check. Floor areas for many homes are on their Energy Performance Certificate, which can be searched on GOV.UK, so you can compare like with like across a group of sales.

What it should not be is the answer. Price per square foot falls as homes get bigger, varies with condition and position, and is easily distorted by a single unusual sale or an inaccurate floor area. I use it to ask "why is this one so different?" rather than to multiply out a price. It is a useful servant and a terrible master.

Then let the market speak

However careful the valuation, it is still an estimate until the home is on the market. Once it is properly exposed to buyers for a few weeks, the property starts producing its own evidence:

• How often it appears in portal searches, and how many people click through.
• How many enquiries and viewings follow.
• What buyers say after viewing, and whether anyone makes an offer.

Plenty of views but few enquiries usually points to the listing or the price. Plenty of viewings but no offers usually means buyers like the home but are choosing something else at that price. That response is the most honest valuation evidence there is, and good advice should change when it changes.

What I will not do

I will not give you a figure plucked high to win your instruction. An inflated asking price usually costs a seller time, and time on the market has a cost of its own.

And I will not predict where prices are going. Nobody knows. A valuation is a reading of today's market, based on today's evidence. That is what you can plan around.

How to prepare for a valuation

1. Find your floor area (your EPC is a good start) and any plans.
2. List the work you have done, with dates: roof, boiler, windows, extension, rewiring.
3. Have your lease details and service charge to hand if it is a flat.
4. Look up recent sold prices on your road yourself, so we can talk about the same evidence.
5. Write down why you are selling and by when. Timing shapes the strategy as much as price does.

This is general information, not financial advice. Every valuation depends on the individual property and the market at the time.