Where do the valueres get there figures from

[much_to_do]

We have had our house valued at £5,000 less than we are marketing it for.

I thought the market value of houses was what the buyer was prepared to pay for it. Other similar houses in adjacent streets have gone in excess of the £50,000 we are asking for though no houses have been sold down our street within the last 2 years. Do the valuers have some sort of database they consult as two different companies have now valued the property at exactly the same figure which to me is a bit suspicious. Once one has done the valuation do they post it somewhere so the other subsequent valuations are in the same ball park. ( I sense a massive conspiracy in the valuation field or am I just being paranoid).

There were a couple of inconsistancies with the last report as he said it was a 4 bedroom instead of a 3 bedroomed. Should the bank be concerned about this inaccuracy? I think the bloke really didn't know what he was doing. He got the postcode wrong plus the date the house was built. Should the bankk be commisioning another report due to these errors? He also said he has no evidence that supported my figure (dispite houses selling for this price in adjacent streets within weeks) and then he said that there was high demand for houses in this area.

What does every one think about this?

[Andy Dingley]

I'm curious - where in the urban UK are houses still going at 50K ?

[Nick Read]

From last weeks property guide;

Rough 2 bed terrace £5k Decent 2 bed terrace £25k Large 4 bed terrace £50k Large 3 bed 1930's semi £90k

[Alan J. Wylie]

Odd you should mention that - I have only just looked in the window of one of my local estate agents, and seen a perfectly good three bedroomed house for that price, with two bedroomed terraced houses going for a bit more than 30K. There are plenty of reasonably priced houses in the Manchester-Leeds area along the M62 and around the M60, provided you stay out of Leeds and Manchester city centres.

See, for example

area, the cheapest house, in Bradford, has been sold at GBP 17,950

'm not sure I should be telling you all this, though - we don't want all the southerners migrating up t'North.

[much_to_do]

Trouble is unless the buyer pays cash, they'll need a mortgage from a bank who relies upon an independant valuation, and therein lies my problem. I have a buyer willing to pay the asking price in fact I have had more than one interested party but the valuer just doesn't seem to get that there is demand for this property.

Good guess to the previous poster it is in fact Hull. I would encourage everyone to buy in Hull and thus drive up prices especially in my street.

[Peter Crosland]

Other similar houses in adjacent streets have gone in excess of the

Have you actually checked what price the properties changed hands for with an authoritative source? The asking prices and what is paid are often different.

[tony sayer]

In article , Nick Read writes

GASP!....

A bl**dy two up two down hovel in Cambridge now costs about some 200K..

[Alan]

In message , Nick Read wrote

Wasn't Hull on Humberside recently voted the worst place in the country to live?

[Alan]

In message , much_to_do wrote

HM Government Land Registry ??

[Martin Angove]

'spose it depends what you define as "urban", and what kind of work you may be willing to take on. There are still plenty of properties available at around that level (and below) in South Wales, but the further from Cardiff the better. East to West, Abertillery (3-bed mid-terrace there for 32k on Rightmove at the moment), Ebbw Vale, Tredegar, New Tredegar, Deri, some parts of the Cynon Valley (around Aberdare and Mountain Ash), practically anywhere in the Rhondda(s) north of Porth, even in the Pontypridd area if you're willing to take on a wrecked ex-student hovel, and the Swansea/Neath valley area is also a good bet.

Now, I'd count most of those places as "urban" as there are large numbers of houses in small amounts of space, but others may disagree, claiming that the villages are just semi-rural paradises these days, now that the coal mines have all gone.

Closer to Cardiff, it's surprising what a difference a mile or two can make: you could pay twice the amount for a similar-sized and -aged house in Caerphilly itself as in the adjacent/adjoining towns of Abertridwr, Senghenydd, Llanbradach, Ystrad Mynach etc., though the gap is rapidly narrowing.

We're in the process of buying a bit of a dump (with potential) in Abertridwr for loads more money than we anticipated when we started looking a couple of months ago.

Hwyl!

M.

[Nick Read]

It was, but unfairly in my opinion. I've moved around quite a lot and there are many much worse places than Hull - I've lived in quite a few of them.

ps Its not 'Humberside' any more either ;-)

[Gary Cavie]

Something to do with the MP?

[Andy Dingley]

Makes sense. I was a student there 20 years ago. Good place to be a student, bad place to live afterwards.

As it happens I was also looking at prices in Pontypridd a few weeks ago, and certainly didn't see anything below 50K. Now you could probably buy half of Cwm for that money, or a sizeable piece of Cwmcarn, but then you'd have to live there....

[dg]

Valuers follow guidance published by the RICS, and use other sources and local knowledge to formulate a value.

Whilst it is true that the value may be what a person is prepared to pay for the property, this may not be representive of what the wider buying market would pay.

So, considering two similar properties valuation can be affected by things such as additions and extensions (or potential for), decor, internal fit out, age and condition of services etc, suitability for families, local housing need, even the condition of the property next door.

Estates Gazette is the publication for the profession.

Valuations are merely opinion based on experience and knowledge. My valuation may well be differnt to another persons, but it will not make mine "wrong". You tend to find that valuations to the residential market can be widely different and are more approximate rather than accurate - this is because ther are only required to be used as a general indication.

Accuracy of the valuation tends to increase with property value, so someone is going to take more care in valuing a £250k house than they would in valuing your £50k house.

dg

[Martin Angove]

As I think I mentioned here fairly recently, the difference can be even more marked than that - with estate agents if not mortgage valuers. To put figures to it, we had two "sets" of valuations done - the first in February when we thought we were ready to go and the second in July when we really *were* ready to go. In March we had valuations ranging from

95k to 130k, though the 95k lady eventually agreed that we should at least try it at 100k first [1]. In July we had 105k (from March's 95k lady), 120k (they suggested 110k in March) and 125k (a company we hadn't asked in March). We discarded the 130k March company as being too obviously desperate for the business!

To be honest, I don't think any of them had a clue, despite the fact that nearly all the similar houses (half a dozen or so) in this row have changed hands in the last five or six years.

So they're certainly not singing from the same song sheet here in S25.

Hwyl!

M.

[1] The 95k lady sold next door for 95k in December and had obviously assumed that our house was identical. In fact, our plot is substantially larger than next door, we have a full-height bay at the front where they don't, we have two garages and parking for a total of five cars, we have a conservatory twice the size of theirs and a kitchen extension which a: makes our dining room rather large and b: makes a very nice kitchen. To be fair, they do have an extension at the front which has increased the size of the small bedroom and added a downstairs loo, but we really didn't feel that putting the house on the market for the same price would have been doing the property justice. The feeling we got was that this lady was more interested in a quick and easy sale than getting us the best price.

[Andy Dingley]

You aren't joking ! We had bricks through the windows a couple of times - those orange curtains and blue doors were just too obvious a target !

It was probably envy, of us rich students waving our huge grants around. That was a lot of money in 'ull

[Conrad Edwards]

The valuers should also know what prices local properties have sold for....but here is a case for a flat I sold in Bradford

Usually these types of flat were offered for £27950 Most sell for £20-27k depending on how quick you want a sale and the level of fittings included.

Estate agent 1 suggested valuation of £22k, sell for whatever offer we get above £18k

Estate agent suggested valuation of £25k, but agreed to market at £27950 to gauge level of interest.

Sold for £26k, bank valuer had no problem agreeing valuation.

If the buyer defaulted, then any shortfall if the property was auctioned would become the buyers liability anyway, not the banks, unless the buyer went bankrupt. I would say a few £k here or there is nothing for a valuation..these things are flexible.

[tim]

This is a strange use of the word 'ideal'. people commute because they don't have a sensible alternative choice. I can't see anyone choosing to buy in Stoke and driviing 80 miles a day to save 10k on the price of a house.

Tim

[Dan delaMare-Lyon]

And you think Tony - I couldn't afford Cambridge so went to Newmarket. Paid 82k 3 years ago for literally an ex-council house 2-up-2-down. Moving the mortgage this week and it has been valued at 155k!!!!

What's worse, the insurance for rebuild costs have gone up from 58k 3 years ago to 95k! Either labour rates are *way* out of control - or materials costs are rocketing - and my money's not on materials....

Cheers Dan.

[tony sayer]

Ever tried to get anyone to do anything hereabouts these days?..