Geodemographic Data
Geodemographic data attempts to classify every postcode into one of around just 50 classifications. These are then used by marketing people to target goods and services and by others to site out of town shopping centres, or supermarkets. It is also used in credit scorecards to give a measure of risk, especially if other information is not available from anywhere else. The impact of geodemographic data on your Credit Score is relatively small compared to other things, such as your age or your residential status.
When putting together geodemographic data, statisticians use census based information, together with information derived from consumer questionnaires (for example, the ones that offer shopping vouchers in return), and data from Credit Reference Agencies. The full census only happens once every 10 years and consumers are increasingly giving less accurate responses to questionnaires, so it is inevitable that some postcodes will be classified incorrectly because of out of date census information or poor quality responses from questionnaires.
We think it's very important that this data should be easy to access and interpret, so that if there is any error or anomaly, this can be passed back to the people who own the data, so that the classification can be re-evaluated.
Over 20,000 people check postcodes on checkmyfile every day.
It's important to remember the limitations of trying to describe every area in the UK within the constraints of just 50 types. The general description is usually correct, but some of the detail may be very different.
Remember, we don't own the data so we can't amend it ourselves, but we can feed information back to the people who can.
Cameo
Cameo™ is owned by Eurodirect Marketing and is one of a handful of geodemographic databases that are commercially available in the UK. Another is Censation, which you can compare directly on checkmyfile.
Cameo™ classes every postcode into one of around 50 postcode classifications, which in turn are based on information from many sources including insolvency and court information, questionnaires and census data. Geodemographic data can often be one of the components of the calculation of some Credit Scores, can dictate the amount and type of junk mail you receive and is also used by retail stores and supermarkets to help locate new shops in areas mostly likely to suit their customers.
Please note that the same postcode can be classified quite differently by different geodemographic companies.
Censation
Censation™, owned by AFD Software, classifies every UK postcode using the latest and most comprehensive data about where people live, how affluent or deprived they are and what 'life stage' they are in. Information about housing, employment, qualifications - over 600 variables from the latest UK Census - are analysed together with residential and commercial data and then validated further using a life-style database.
There are several similar databases. You can compare how this postcode is rated in the Cameo database. Please note that classifications can and do differ on different databases.
Postcode Classifications
There are around 50 or so 'model' classifications for all postcodes in the UK. They are a general view of various aspects of a postcode, and rarely do all parts of the description of a postcode classification match every aspect of the actual postcode itself.
Because they are generalisations, they help marketing people to identify postcode areas that contain people with similar, but not exact, lifestyles across the UK.
House Prices
House price data is taken from HM Land Registry and reflects the actual prices paid, rather than the advertised sale prices. Don't forget that average prices can vary depending on the mix of type of houses sold in any year.
Your Region Compared To The UK
When comparing prices, don't forget that the UK figure is calculated from hundreds of thousands of prices, so is much more reliable than the average price for your region, which is usually based on data from a small handful of house transactions.