Good spotting Catflap!!
We'll have to wait till March to see what they go for (I aim to be on holiday by then, so I trust you'll fill me in on the results when I get back!) It's the TOPS auction next week, and they post the results the week after - it's been a while since they had an auction, and the last one was disappointingly above asking price for most properties - so we'll get an indication of the state of play from that.
I think there are 2 main benchmarks - the traditional Victorian Terrace, and the 1950's post war council house - again they are plentiful, and popular (maybe not with FTBs, but with families for sure... and increasingly, with student lets

) Its encouraging to see terraces below 120k - I hope this is a long term trend I can pick up in my tallies!
I saw an old episode of relocation, relocation at the weekend - its not normally something I watch - I gave that up a long time ago - but I caught them saying that they had 190K to invest in the 2 houses - 130K for their main residence, and 60K for a BTL (he had lost all his money in stocks, never wanted to risk losing it all again, so thought he would go all out on BTL...) Obviously this was "up North", but I was amazed at what you could get for your money... In the end they settled for a lovely 3 bed semi with garden and parking (they could have had a beautiful period 4 bedder, but with no garden...) and they found them a house that they could let out to students for 60K....
So I take it all back! Having seen that, and knowing that wages here really aren't astounding (maybe a little higher than Hull and Manchester where the properties were) and that they could get a house for 122K that round here would probably cost 200K+, I revise the percentages of properties that I'm looking for in each of my tally bands - 40%
should be below 120K, 35% 120K - 160K, 20% 160K - 250K, 5% 250K plus. The graph by Bandwagon is something I'd missed before, and very enlightening.
I'm currently reading "Rent Boy" by Pete May (How one man spent 20 years falling off the property ladder) - it's not dodgy - honest!! Each chapter is about each rented property, and at the end of each chapter is the average house price for greater London at that time - for someone who wasn't really old enough to know about the slump/crash last time around, it's interesting reading.
The surveyor came round (fortunately sans camera - otherwise I'd be complaining) and did his thing, he also repeated that it was to invest in more property, not to sell, but I won't hold my breath! I'm starting to wonder how responsible the surveyors have to be, and who they have to bear allegiance (!?!) to - the bank or the property owner - obviously it's in the banks best interest to overvalue the property, so that more money can be taken out on it, but it's probably in the house owners interests to get a real, sensible valuation on it, as it's their finances at stake... - The surveyor gave a rough guess at about 25k over what I thought the value of this property might be... I've been keeping track of the renting forum - fortunately someone else had a similar query a while back, so I'm keeping up to speed through that - thanks for the mention though (fortunately the renting forum is quite friendly too - it's just a few certain characters on the main forum who seem a bit cantankerous/downright rude...)
As for the miniature house/flat - that bath is narrower than the sink! I also suspect that Communal gardens front and rear mean that you can have a BBQ in the LLs garden if you're brave enough! And the tally - It takes me just over an hour - in front of the TV - I go through and tally each page, making scribbles at the bottom of each page (it amazes me that they can fit up to 40 properties on a page!), then put it on a spreadsheet to add it all up - so it's not tiresome, and quite quick for just little ol' me!
I saw Christopher Hall bleating too - Personally if its run well, I'm in favour of HIPs - if you put an offer in on a house, have to get it surveyed, then find a prob you're not willing to deal with, you've lost money upfront. I would have thought that anything that reduces cost for buyers is a good thing - I would have thought that BTLers would be for it - because it must save them a bit of time and money, and house buyers would be for it, as you have more information up front to make a more informed decision. So apart from the fact that you might be expected to put your house on the market for a more genuine and realistic figure, I really think its a positive move for all concerned (and surely better to say - X needs doing so we'll put the house on for Y, than put the house on for Y + a bit, and then have to renegotiate the price post survey?) But I'm starting to waffle, so I'd better finish!