The house-price measures compiled by the Halifax bank and the Nationwide building society are designed to avoid distortions caused by variation in the type of property being sold.
He said the variation was due to the type of limestone the fossils were excavated from, which can reduce the level of detail - or resolution - of the specimens.
The researchers cautioned that the study was done in only one type of cancer, and that more research is needed to see how much genetic variation there is in other types of tumors.