So: did the decent thing and went to mouseprice.com to get a valuation on my house (though it doesn’t tell you until the end that you have to pay £20 for this – very naughty). Apparently they use the same system that estate agents use.
Based on an initial purchase price of £22,500 in March 2001, and with £10,000-worth of improvements (it’s probably more, actually), they came up with an estimated valuation on £70,967…
… with a standard deviation of 19.6%.
That means the house is valued between £57,057 and £84,877. That’s a big price variation! And therefore a pretty useless report. A 10% variation would be more helpful, but in these times I suppose 19.6% is the best I can hope for.
Interestingly, I discovered last night that the house opposite, which has two bedrooms compared to my one, has been reduced in price from £70k to £63k. Now, I know it needs some work doing to it, but even so that’s a bit of a bargain – and means I’ll be hanging on to mine until at least the New Year.