🇬🇧 UK edition
Blog
Grounded answers on the six things that decide a UK property — risks, value, building, planning, area, and energy.
Risks
Risks when buying a house: the ones that actually cost you
Flood, subsidence, radon, knotweed, cladding, tenure and buried legal liabilities — a plain-English map of the property risks worth checking before you exchange.
We put 69,671 sold homes on the flood map — here's what flooding does to the price
Does flood risk actually knock money off a house? We joined tens of thousands of real Land Registry sales to the Environment Agency flood map and measured it. The honest answer is bigger than most buyers assume — but only once you stop comparing the wrong houses.
Value
One in five flats now sells for less than it cost
We matched 13.6m repeat sales in England and Wales. Since 2024, 19.8% of flats resold at a loss against 4.2% of houses. Flats did worse in all 258 districts.
Do new builds lose value? Three in four fall behind
We compared 890,471 new builds with second-hand neighbours at first resale. Like-for-like, they sold for 8.3% less than if they had kept pace.
You're about to spend £300,000 with less research than you'd put into a £300 phone
Buyers pour hours into choosing a phone and minutes into choosing a house. The information exists — sellers and agents already hold it. This is the asymmetry we built AskHouse to close.
The 25-year cost of a leasehold
Ground rent, service charges and the 80-year cliff add up. A transparent 25-year model of what a leasehold flat actually costs you over a freehold — and when leasehold is still fine.
The postcode average is a lie
Property portals train you to think in postcode averages. We ran every recorded sale in England and Wales — inside a single postcode district, two streets can be £1.1m apart. Here's the number, and why it exists.
What a home is actually worth (and why the headline number lies)
The estimate on a property portal is a summary of a summary. Here's how to read what a UK home is genuinely worth — sold prices, street-level variance, tenure, energy and what the map decides — using the public record instead of the sticker.
Building
The building itself: what homes in England and Wales are actually made of
The listing sells you a lifestyle. The building is brick, age, damp and tenure. Here's what 22.5 million EPC certificates say about the homes England and Wales actually live in — and how to read the one you're about to buy.
What actually kills a house sale
Buyers lose sleep over knotweed and subsidence. But agreed sales more often collapse over the slow, unphotographable stuff — leasehold paperwork, EWS1 delays, down-valuations and broken chains. Here's what really breaks a deal, and what to check before you offer.
Planning
Planning permission, explained: what it controls, what gets refused, and how long it takes
A grounded guide to UK planning permission for buyers, sellers and owners — permitted development, conservation areas, refusal rates and decision times, built from our live planning dataset.
Which councils refuse the most extensions?
We ranked 46 UK planning authorities by how often they refuse extension applications. The spread is enormous — from under 1% to over 23% — and it says the council decides your odds far more than the extension does. Based on published council planning records.
Area
Are investors buying up cheap homes? Companies now buy nearly a fifth
Since 2023, companies bought 8.0% of homes sold in England and Wales and 18.8% of the cheapest tenth. Home for home, they paid a little less than other buyers.
Conservation areas: the tax you pay for prettiness
Do conservation-area homes cost more, and do they grow in value faster? We placed 118,542 sold homes onto England's conservation-area map. Like-for-like they cost about 14% more — but the idea that they appreciate faster turns out to be a statistical mirage.
The area is half the price of a house. Here's how to actually read it.
A postcode average can hide an £800k spread. Here's what the area really tells you about a home — and how to read it before you offer.
Energy
Home energy ratings, honestly: what the EPC record shows and how to read yours
Most British homes are rated D — yet 8 in 10 below a C could reach one. What EPC bands actually measure, what they quietly miss, and how to read the energy record for a single home.
New build vs. 1930s semi: we ran the numbers on both
New-build discourse is tribal. So we put the two archetypes head-to-head on our own EPC and sold-price data — energy, running costs, the real size of the premium — and reached a verdict.
Investigations
Guides
How to Measure a Roof Without Climbing It
Learn how to measure a roof remotely using satellite imagery and modern technology. Save time and stay safe with these proven methods.
Google Earth vs AskHouse: Which Is Better for Roof Assessment?
A detailed comparison of Google Earth and AskHouse for roofing professionals. Learn which tool is better for quoting jobs remotely.