National Statistician's Review of Housing Market Statistics

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 report of the first stage of the review, on house prices, was published in December 2010 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, published in September 2012, builds on the first stage review by examining the wider official housing market statistics currently available. The 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.

The publication of the report will be followed by a user event on 8 October jointly held with the Housing Statistics Network (HSN). This will focus on gaining user input in order to take the recommendations forward. Registration for this event is now open and available on the HSN website (http://housingstatisticsnetwork.org/node/187).

Both stages of the review on house price and housing market statistics can be found under the 'Related links' section on the right of this page.

The National Statistician continues to welcome comments on official housing market statistics.

For further information on the review or to provide comments please:

Email: ns.housing.market.review@statistics.gov.uk

Or write to us at:

Housing Market Statistics Review
National Statistician's Office
Room 1.015
Government Buildings
Cardiff Road
Newport
NP10 8XG