What is your house actually worth?

Your house is probably the biggest number in your net worth and the one you know least precisely. There is no ticker for it, only evidence. Here is how to build an honest figure: sold prices, indexation, appraisals, a range with a date on it, and the mortgage netted off.

A number nobody actually knows

Every other line in a net worth has a source: a bank balance, a fund price, an exchange rate. A house has an opinion. Until the day it sells, its value is an estimate, and the honest response is not to leave it out, which would put a hole the size of a house in the middle of the picture, but to estimate it well and label it as an estimate.

Start with what actually sold

HM Land Registry publishes the sold price of nearly every home in England and Wales, free, searchable by street. Start there. Three or four sales of genuinely similar houses near yours in the last year put a floor and a ceiling around your own, and they are transactions rather than opinions: somebody really paid that.

Two caveats. Sold prices reach the register with a lag, often a month or two after completion, so even the freshest evidence is slightly stale. And the register will not tell you that number 43 had a loft conversion and a south-facing garden while yours has neither. Comparables need reading, not just averaging.

Indexation: let the index move your purchase price

The second method starts from the one price you know was real: what you paid. The UK House Price Index tracks average price movement by region and property type. Apply the change for your area since your purchase month to your purchase price: buy at £300,000, watch the regional index rise 20 per cent, and indexation suggests around £360,000 today.

It is a good baseline and a blunt one. Indexation drags your street along with the regional average, so it misses the new station that lifted your postcode, the extension you added, and equally the main road that got busier. Use it as a sanity check on the comparables rather than as a verdict.

Appraisals and online estimates

Estate agents will value your home free of charge, and a serious appraisal from someone who has walked through the rooms is worth having every few years. Just remember the incentive: an agent courting an instruction is tempted to flatter. Two or three opinions beat one.

The automated estimates on the property portals are indexation plus comparables done by machine at scale. For an ordinary house on an ordinary street they are often reasonable; for anything unusual they can miss badly. Note the figure, note the date, and treat it as one witness among several rather than the judge.

Hold a range, and date it

The honest output of all this is not one number but a range with a date: something like £340,000 to £370,000 as of August 2026. Carry the middle into the net worth total, keep the band visible, and record when you last reviewed it. A range does two useful jobs at once: it stops false precision, and it shows how much of your net worth is soft rather than bankable.

Do not chase the number weekly. Property is the least liquid thing you own, and a valuation that jumps around invites false comfort or false alarm in equal measure. A quarterly review is a sensible rhythm, with an extra look when something real happens: a comparable sale completes, a renovation finishes, or the market visibly turns.

Equity is the number that counts

The value of the house is not what the house contributes to your net worth: the mortgage comes off first, as a liability in its own right. A £350,000 valuation with £210,000 outstanding is £140,000 of equity, and if the valuation is honestly a range, the equity is a range too. Track the outstanding balance from your annual mortgage statement or your lender's app rather than guessing from the original loan.

This is exactly how WealthWelly holds property: a low and a high estimate with an as-of date, the middle carried into the total and clearly labelled an estimate, and the mortgage linked against the house so that equity is the number you actually watch. If you keep a spreadsheet instead, copy the same shape.

This guide is general information, not financial advice; if you are unsure what is right for your circumstances, speak to a regulated financial adviser.