The National Statistician has carried out a review of official housing market statistics to ensure that users’ needs are met as effectively as possible. The first stage of the review (on house prices) was published in December 2010 and concluded that there should be one headline official house price index which meets key user needs. This should be accompanied by a regular official statistics report, presenting and analysing the official house price measures and their relationship to non-official sources and the wider housing market indicators.

The second stage of the review builds on the first stage by examining the wider official housing market statistics currently available. This review into the wider official housing market statistics concluded that:

  • There is a need to ensure that housing market statistics are more easily accessible and better placed in the context of related statistics. There should be an (at least) annual article of key trends in the UK housing market to aid this.
  • In some instances, local area statistics are not available or are not timely enough to be of use. In these cases, the ability to make local area statistics available or timelier should be investigated further.
  • A gap exists in official private rental statistics. Official private rental statistics and a private rental price index should be developed for the UK.

Related Links

House Price Index transfer to ONS (50.1 KB PDF )

House Prices Review: news release (58.8 KB PDF)