Land Registry releases its House Price Index as open data

Meanwhile its latest report shows a big drop in home repossessions

Land Registry's data tables are based on over 17 million cash and mortgage sales and from today onwards are now being made available as open data.

The aggregated House Price Index (HPI) tables date back to 1995 and can be downloaded in CSV and Excel free.

"The release of this data demonstrates our commitment to greater transparency and the open data agenda," said Andrew Trigg, Head of Data Programme, Land Registry. "Our HPI was first published online in October 2006 and since then entrepreneurs and organisations have reused the data to support business decision making and develop innovative applications and services. By making the archive data widely available, we hope it will unlock further potential, contributing to business innovation and economic growth."

He suggested that the data could be used to develop a range of applications and services that analyse trends and patterns in the housing market.

The tables contain average house prices and sales volumes dating back to 1995 for England and Wales at regional, county/unitary authority, metropolitan district and London borough level.

Meanwhile, the Land Registry's latest figures show that April house prices have risen 0.4 per cent since March while repossessions fell by 28 per cent in February 2013 to 1,293 compared with 1,788 in February 2012. All regions saw repossessions drop between February 2012 and February 2013, the greatest fall being in the West Midlands.

Paul Munford, CEO of property finance specialists MCIFA said: "The relentless march of the London property market continues apace. The capital is consistently out-performing other areas of the UK because it is asset-driven rather than income-driven, international rather than national.

"The rest of England and Wales is much more sensitive to the domestic economy, which, while improving, is still relatively weak. Nowhere is this more pronounced than the North East, where prices are really struggling. Overall, the UK market, driven by the Funding for Lending Scheme, has definitely picked up.

"We can only hope that, as the economy strengthens and unemployment falls, some of the harder hit regional property markets will start to recover. It's certainly encouraging to see that all areas of England and Wales have seen repossessions fall."