Prices and indices
Hedonic index
A price index that prices the attributes of each property (type, bedrooms, size, location) so that a change in what is on the market does not read as a change in prices; the method behind the asking indices.
Also called: hedonic regression, asking price index method.
Definition
Hedonic index, as the data uses it
Listings do not repeat the way sales do, so an asking-price index cannot be a repeat-sales index. A hedonic index instead fits a regression that explains each asking price by the property's attributes and a term for the period, and reads the period terms as the index. If the market is suddenly full of large houses, the size term absorbs that and the period term does not move.
MarketCode's asking-price and asking-rent indices are hedonic, published for postcode districts, local authorities and Great Britain with 2022M01 = 100, 80% bands and a posterior standard error on every period's move. Each area is assigned a publication frequency: monthly where the standard error of the monthly move is a percentage point or less, quarterly otherwise. The level of a hedonic index is an index, never a price or a rent.
Tools
Tools that return it
Asking-price index (portal listings)
asking_price_index_series()Hedonic ASKING-PRICE index for one postcode district, local authority or Great Britain, from portal listings (Rightmove ~95%), 2022M01 = 100, with 80% bands and posterior standard errors, smoothed toward the parent geography.
Asking-rent index (portal listings, ONS-validated)
asking_rent_index_series()Hedonic ASKING-RENT index for one postcode district, local authority or Great Britain, from portal lettings, 2022M01 = 100, with bands and SEs. This is the residential rent index; commercial_rent_index_series is the VOA one for commercial property.
See also
Related terms
- Repeat-sales index: A price index built from pairs of sales of the same property, so it measures price change without being pulled by which properties happened to sell; the method behind MarketCode's sold-price and commercial capital indices.
- Asking price and asking-to-sold ratio: The price a property is marketed at, as against the price it sells for; asking leads sold by months and includes what never sells, and the ratio between them is a temperature gauge.
FAQ
Questions about hedonic index
What does Hedonic index mean?
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A price index that prices the attributes of each property (type, bedrooms, size, location) so that a change in what is on the market does not read as a change in prices; the method behind the asking indices.
Which MarketCode tools return hedonic index?
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Asking-price index (portal listings), Asking-rent index (portal listings, ONS-validated). Each runs as an MCP tool in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor and as a REST endpoint with an API key, at the same price.
Is asking price index method the same thing?
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Yes. hedonic regression, asking price index method are other names for what this entry defines; MarketCode uses "Hedonic index" in its tool descriptions and responses.
See it on a real address.
Thirty minutes, your property or area, every figure sourced.