MARKET COMMENT
Fool Launches House Price Tracking Service

By Stuart Watson (TMFTiger)
April 1, 2004

This was our April Fool article for this year.

Following recent additions to the quotes & data area of our website (such as unit trust prices and company fundamentals/forecasts), we're very pleased to announce a brand new data service. Yes, you can now track the value of your house in our portfolio system.

We've tried to make the process as simple as possible. As you may know, you can already track shares by their EPIC code. To track the price of your house all you need to know is your Postcode. (If you don't know your Postcode you can search for it at the Post Office web site).

First of all, click on 'Add a stock to your portfolio' near the top left of the My Portfolio page and when it reloads enter your Postcode details and click 'Update'. Then:

• set the number of shares bought to the number of bedrooms in your home;
• enter your original purchase price in the 'Trade Price' box;
• put the stamp duty you paid in the 'Commission' box; and
• click on 'Finish' near the bottom of the page.

Our portfolio system will then calculate the current price of your house based on the latest available house price data. Prices in the database are updated several times a month when each new house price survey is released, so check back regularly to see if there has been any change.

If you want to get really sophisticated, you could even set up a negative cash balance in your portfolio to represent your outstanding mortgage. The portfolio system will then reflect the equity you have in your home, rather than its total worth. Of course, you can also track multiple properties, if you're one of the growing band of buy-to-let investors.  

In the next few months, we hope to make further additions to this service. We're in the final stages of setting up an e-mail alert system that will notify you of any house sales, and the prices paid, within your postcode area.

More: The Fool's homeowning centre