If you are putting your house onto the market, you want to ask a reasonable price for it - neither so high that buyers are put off, or so low that you lose money.

You can, of course, have the property valued (somebody’s else’s subjective opinion!) but if you know how much the house next door sold for last month, you can put a more accurate value on your own property.

If you are searching for a new home, you can look at asking prices to help you decide what you can afford and which area you can move to.

However, the asking price is not always the price for which a house sells. Those in sought-after areas often sell for much more than the asking price, while those in less desirable areas often go for way under the asking price.

When you know exactly how much houses in a certain areas have sold for, you will have a more accurate picture of the value of any house you are interested in, as well as the area. That’s where englishouseprices.com and welshhouseprices.com come in.

For a small fee, searches can be made by road name, by town or by post code and the results will show the address of any house sold that matches the search criteria, along with the date in was sold.