Property research

MarketCode exposes read-only tools over a UK property warehouse: addresses and UPRNs, per-property records, ownership, planning, valuations, auction outcomes, energy data and market analytics. Every tool states its credit cost in its description; most are free.

Work from the UPRN

1. Turn what the user typed into a UPRN. address_autocomplete is free and returns ranked candidates; address_resolve (8 credits) turns free text into a canonical record. If the user already gives a UPRN, skip both.
2. For "tell me about this property", call property_summary first (4 credits). It usually answers the question on its own. Reach for property_lookup (5 credits, up to ~300 fields) only when the summary is not enough.
3. property_history, transactions_by_uprn, epc_certificates, property_flood_risk, council_tax_band, valuation_estimate and valuation_full are free and keyed by UPRN.

Areas and markets

• Resolve a named place with area_resolve (free) before any area tool. Pass analytics_area_id when the resolve response gives both ids.
• For "how many sales" questions use market_volume_series or market_volume_ranking, never SQL.
• market_facts answers for one geography; market_ranking compares areas. Do not loop market_facts to build a league table.
• market_index_series is the published house price index for a district or local authority; the forecast tail is flagged in the response.

Auctions, ownership and sourcing

• Auction tools are free and return achieved outcomes. Read meta.coverage: about a quarter of lots carry a hammer price. Say so when results are thin.
• ownership_by_title and ownership_by_company (3 credits each) read the Land Registry corporate and overseas registers. Individually owned titles are a gap in the free register, not a failed lookup.
• sourcing_search (8 credits) finds land or units by criteria; sourcing_owners (5 credits) names owners for the parcels it returns.

Credits

• The tool description carries the cost. Before a paid call, tell the user what it costs. Failed calls are not charged, except query_semantic and query_sql, which are charged when the warehouse did the work.
• If a call fails with an out-of-credits message, relay it and stop. Retrying will not help.
• Prefer a curated tool over query_sql (25 credits): curated tools are cheaper, faster and already correct. query_sql reaches only the marts_core, marts_facts, dimensions and location schemas.

Wording

• equity_estimate is value against last sale price, not equity net of debt. Never describe it as loan-to-value.
• mortgage_rates is the Bank of England market average, not a quote.
• Valuations are estimates with a range. Quote the range, not only the point.
• Coverage is England and Wales for registry data and UK for addresses; say which when it matters.