Start with the EPC’s total floor area and check it against measured particulars. Different measurement methods can produce different figures.
Property intelligence · Free Home Check
Check a postcode before you buy a home.
See sold house prices, calculate the home’s price per square metre, compare it with progressively wider local benchmarks and screen nearby planning designations—without pretending one number is a valuation.
01Sold prices
Individual HM Land Registry records and five-year postcode medians.
02Price per m²
Compare the home with its postcode, sector, district and local authority.
03Price context
Compare a price with matching local sales without calling it a valuation.
04Planning signals
Screen six official designation datasets near the postcode centre.
House price per square metre
Compare the home, then widen the evidence.
Price per m² = price ÷ total floor area. It controls for size better than headline price, but only when the floor areas and properties are genuinely comparable.
A flat and a detached house can have structurally different £/m² levels. Home Check keeps type-matched wider benchmarks separate.
The full postcode is closest but often thin. The sector, district and local authority provide progressively broader context and larger samples.
Read the evidence well
What sold prices can—and cannot—tell you.
A local sale is a useful fact. It becomes misleading when it is treated as a valuation without checking whether the properties are genuinely comparable.
Start with completed sales, not asking prices
HM Land Registry records the price stated on the transfer deed for registered sales in England and Wales. Asking prices describe what a seller hoped to receive; Price Paid Data records what a completed buyer paid. Registration lag means the newest part of the market is always less complete.
Match the property type and the reason for the sale
A flat, terrace and detached house should not be placed in one comparison without thought. Home Check separates property types and bases its headline summary on standard price-paid transactions. Additional-category records can include identifiable buy-to-lets, repossessions and transfers to non-private buyers, so they remain visible but do not drive the median.
Widen the area, but understand the trade-off
Some full postcodes contain only a handful of relevant sales. Home Check therefore steps out through the postcode sector, postcode district and local authority for its £/m² comparison. Sample size improves as the area widens; similarity to the actual street can deteriorate. Both facts belong in the decision.
Investigate what the dataset cannot see
Floor area, bedrooms, condition, view, lease length, service charge, cladding, extensions, structural defects and exact micro-location can dominate value. Check the EPC, particulars, lease and title; commission the right survey; and ask the conveyancer to investigate legal matters. A lender valuation protects the lender and is not a substitute for a buyer’s survey.
A practical buying sequence
Move from postcode evidence to property-specific checks.
Home Check is an early research layer. A purchase decision becomes property-specific only when the address, title, building and finance have all been examined.
Understand the local evidence
Compare sold records, property types, tenure and dates. Note how many genuinely relevant comparables exist.
Home Check · Land Registry · local marketCheck the actual property
Review the EPC, planning history, flood risk, title, lease or estate charges, searches and an appropriate survey.
Government services · conveyancer · surveyorStress-test the full purchase
Model the deposit, tax, fees, monthly mortgage, rate risk, repairs and the reserve left after completion.
Money Considered calculatorsSet conditions, not just a price
An offer can depend on survey findings, mortgage valuation, legal review and the cash needed for known work.
Evidence · affordability · riskMethod and limitations
Transparent by design.
The tool queries the official sources when you run a check. Money Considered does not maintain a shadow property database, estimate a current market value or turn an incomplete result into a green tick.
Sold-price method
Individual results come from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data. The summary uses standard sales within the full postcode across a rolling five-year window ending two months before the current month. Median and 25th–75th percentile values are unadjusted nominal prices.
Price-per-square-metre method
UCL linked Land Registry transactions to domestic EPC floor areas. Home Check keeps high-confidence one-to-one links from November 2019 to October 2024, applies the researchers’ published cleaning thresholds and adjusts each £/m² observation to June 2026 with the local-authority UK HPI for that property type. It then reports medians and middle-50% ranges only above stated sample thresholds.
Planning method
For English postcodes, the tool converts the postcode to an approximate centre and screens six Planning Data datasets intersecting a box extending about 250 metres in each direction. It does not test the property boundary, determine consent requirements or replace the local authority’s planning register.
Known data risks
Linked floor areas can be wrong or outdated, HPI adjustment cannot reproduce street-level movements, the homes sold can differ from the home being assessed and broad areas hide micro-markets. Sale registrations also arrive late. No £/m² range is an automated valuation, survey or substitute for genuinely comparable sales.
Minimum samples
A £/m² figure is published only with at least 5 high-confidence linked sales for a full postcode, 8 for a postcode sector, 20 for a postcode district and 40 for a local authority and property-type group. These are disclosure thresholds, not proof that the underlying homes are comparable.
Privacy and updates
No account is required. The postcode is sent from the browser to Postcodes.io, HM Land Registry and—where applicable—the Planning Data API to return the result; Money Considered does not store it. The bundled £/m² files contain aggregates only, not addresses or individual floor areas. Method and sources last reviewed 25 August 2026.
Primary sources
Follow the data to its origin.
Sold pricesHM Land Registry Price Paid DataMonthly data, licence and accuracy notes ↗︎DefinitionsAbout Price Paid DataCoverage, categories and registration lag ↗︎PlanningPlanning Data API documentationDatasets, queries and coverage warning ↗︎LocationPostcodes.io licencesOpen postcode-data attribution ↗︎Floor-area linkageUCL / London Datastore £ per m²2024 linked Price Paid and EPC dataset ↗︎Market adjustmentUK House Price IndexJune 2026 local-authority index data ↗︎
Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2021, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Postcode lookup contains Ordnance Survey, Royal Mail and National Statistics data under the licences stated by Postcodes.io. The UCL-linked £/m² source is made available for non-commercial use; Home Check publishes only derived aggregates and must be reassessed before any commercial reuse.
Questions
Property checker FAQs.
Short answers to the points most likely to change how the result should be used.
How do I check sold house prices by postcode?
Enter a full UK postcode. For addresses in England and Wales, Home Check retrieves HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, shows individual records and summarises standard residential sales in a mature five-year window. A sale can take time to reach the register, and some transaction types are excluded from the dataset.
Is a postcode median the value of a particular home?
No. A postcode median describes the sales returned for that postcode and period. It does not adjust for floor area, bedrooms, condition, extensions, lease length, service charges, plot, exact position or improvements. Home Check deliberately calls it local evidence rather than an automated valuation.
How do I calculate a house price per square metre?
Divide the price by the property’s total floor area in square metres. Home Check does this when you enter both figures, then compares the result with linked sold-price and EPC evidence for the full postcode, postcode sector, postcode district and local authority. Check that the floor-area measurement is genuinely comparable before relying on the result.
Why compare price per square metre with a wider area?
A full postcode can have too few recent, floor-area-linked sales to support a stable comparison. The postcode sector, district and local authority add progressively larger samples. The trade-off is relevance: a broader sample is statistically stronger but can include streets and homes that are less comparable.
Are the price-per-square-metre figures current?
The linked UCL and London Datastore transactions run from November 2019 to October 2024. Home Check adjusts each included sale to June 2026 using the official local-authority UK House Price Index for its property type. That improves time comparability but cannot recreate post-2024 street-level or property-specific changes.
Why does Home Check exclude the newest two months from its median?
HM Land Registry explains that the two most recent months of Price Paid Data are normally incomplete because the delay from sale to registration varies. Home Check can display a newer individual record when one is returned, but keeps it outside the main comparison window until the period is more mature.
What does the planning-constraints check cover?
For English postcodes, it screens Planning Data records within roughly 250 metres of the postcode centre for conservation areas, listed buildings, Article 4 directions, tree preservation zones, planning flood zones and green belt. It is an early-warning screen, not a property-specific search or legal report.
Does no planning result mean the property is clear?
No. Dataset coverage varies, a postcode centre is not a title boundary and the Planning Data API is in beta. Always search the local authority planning register, order the appropriate searches and rely on the conveyancer and surveyor for the actual property.
Does the property checker cover Scotland and Northern Ireland?
The postcode can be identified, but HM Land Registry Price Paid Data covers England and Wales and the automatic planning-designation screen covers England. Home Check therefore directs Scottish and Northern Irish users to the relevant official property services rather than presenting an empty result as evidence.