Auction Price Index (API)

That is why, working in partnership with zoopla.co.uk, the UK’s leading house price resource, Fathom Financial Consulting has constructed an Auction Price Index, or API. In our view, the auction market represents the closest we can get to a genuine ‘over the counter’ market for housing in the UK. If auctioned properties are selling at an unusually large discount to the conventional market, then one might conclude that property investors are anticipating sizeable reductions in the prices of properties sold on the conventional market. Alternatively, if auctioned properties are selling at an unusually large premium to the conventional market, the one might conclude that property investors are anticipating sizeable increases in the prices of properties sold on the conventional market.

 

The Fathom / Zoopla API is a time series estimate of the relative price of auctioned property. Specifically, using a database of properties sold at auction in the UK, we have compared, on a month-by-month basis, the prices achieved by properties sold at auction with an estimate of what that same property might have fetched if it had been sold through an estate agent on the conventional market. That estimate, provided by zoopla.co.uk, is based on a sophisticated, proprietary algorithm. It compares relationships between historic transaction prices from the land registry, economic trends and property characteristics in given geographic areas.