Land Registry releases its house price index as open data

From today, 30 May 2013, Land Registry’s data tables based on over 17 million cash and mortgage sales, are being made available as open data. The aggregated House Price Index (HPI) tables dating back to 1995 can be downloaded in CSV and Excel formats free of charge and, from July, they will be available in machine-readable linked data format. Land Registry’s HPI for England and Wales is widely regarded as the most comprehensive property index available.

Andrew Trigg, Head of Data Programme, Land Registry said:

“The release of this data demonstrates our commitment to greater transparency and the open data agenda. It also supports our plan to release all our licensable data by 2018.

“Our HPI was first published online in October 2006 and since then entrepreneurs and organisations have re-used 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.

“By publishing the full dataset in a more usable format which incorporates the raw and smoothed aggregated data, we hope to encourage the development of applications and services which benefit both industry and the public.”

– applications that analyse trends and patterns in the housing market

– development of valuation software and price estimations

– housing and social policy projections.