House valuation from sold prices: comparing homes in Alton, Southsea and Prescot

An owner looking up a house valuation in Alton can find a town median of £425,000 in Home.ai's registered-sales bundle. The freehold terraced-house median in the same bundle is £350,000. Both describe genuine groups of completed sales. Choosing which group resembles the home is the first task, before treating either figure as a possible asking price.

The same check is useful in Southsea and Prescot. A town combines flats, terraces, semis and detached houses. Its mix of sales can differ from the homes an owner considers comparable. A terraced house with a particular size, layout and condition needs a narrower set of evidence.

Start with the property type and tenure

The table uses the same source window for every row: 2023-01-01 to 2026-09-30. It compares the town-wide registered-sale median with one specified group, freehold terraced homes. Counts show how much evidence remains after that restriction.

For a freehold terrace in Alton, the terrace column is a more relevant starting population than the town-wide column. It still includes houses of different sizes, streets and conditions, and transactions spread over several years. It supplies a comparison group, rather than a valuation of the house being sold.

These medians come from their respective transaction groups. We have not averaged the medians of flats, detached houses and terraces to manufacture a town figure. The narrower median can sit above or below the town median as the actual groups differ. Their gap cannot measure a discount for the subject property.

HM Land Registry defines the transfer date as the completion date on the deed. Its property-type categories distinguish detached, semi-detached, terraced and flats or maisonettes. Tenure is a separate field. The register does not identify every characteristic needed to match two homes, and this public bundle has no floor area.

Build a shortlist that can be checked

Write down the home's street, property type, tenure and approximate size before opening a price list. Retain those filters when collecting examples. For each candidate, record its address, completion date, achieved price and why it belongs in the comparison. Investigate extensions, condition and lease details separately from the sale record.

A town page helps locate a price band and inspect the type and tenure split. For address-level evidence, follow the source records and check that the examples refer to individual homes of the appropriate type. A nearby flat should not quietly enter a terrace comparison because its price happens to support the desired asking price.

Keep rejected examples and the reason for rejecting them. If the closest available sale is older, larger or on a different street, show that difference alongside it. Ask an agent or valuer to explain any adjustment using evidence about the property, rather than applying a fixed percentage to the town median.

Check which stage of the market the figure describes

The bundle includes active Category A records for England. HM Land Registry's published categories and exclusions define that population; it is not every transfer of property. A registered completed sale and a current asking price describe different events. This calculation has no matched asking-price history, so it cannot estimate the discount a seller will accept.

Recent completed sales may also reach the register later. The latest year in this bundle remains partial. A low recent count therefore needs a registration-coverage check before it is used to describe buyer demand. Comparing a partial year with a complete year's sales volume would combine unequal observation periods.

The UK House Price Index addresses another question: price change across periods after allowing for differences in the properties sold. A raw town median has no equivalent mix adjustment. Multiplying a past local median by a national index movement does not, by itself, establish a current value for one home.