Online Valuations

Sammy_Girl

I have been using the free online valuation sites that Martin recommends in his articles, and am aware that these are to be taken with an extremely large pinch of salt! I just wanted to know of MSE'ers experience of how the online valuation compared with the valuation made by a surveyor when remortagaging. Is there a huge difference, or are they within say £10k??

I'm just interested as we will be remortagaging next year and I have absolutely no idea what my house is worth!

Many thanks

Locoblade

Have you tried the Nationwide one? Seeing as it's supplied by a lender Id think that's most likely to give a realistic estimate.

Sammy_Girl

Thanks, just tried it.

Althoygh, i'm not convinced that my house has gone up in value by £4k since March 2007 though! I am most definitely preparing for a drop!

minimike2

IF its the propety price advice site its useless - i dont know where they get thier figures from but for my clients it consistently DOUBLES the value of the house.

Locoblade

There was one site I tried that did that, can't remember which one but you filled in how many reception/bedrooms etc you had, and for mine it came out with a figure of around £375k when its actually worth about £220k!!

The Nationwide one is pretty close though, in fact it was identical to the figure they used as the basis of offering me a remortgage, so if you're already with Nationwide and plan to remortgage with them (ie with noactual valuation done by a surveyor), then it should be spot on.

Sammy_Girl

The Nationwide tool was the one that showed the value at £209k. And another one that Martin recommends, shows a valuation of £216k. I bought the house for £205k in May 2007. I can't even compare to similar properties, as our house was the most recent one that sold on our street, plus all of the other houses are larger. Also, there is no comparable house to ours within our area to check the prices that way.

Unfortunately i am not currently with Nationwide

Locoblade

If you're not remortgaging until next year then it probably doesn't really matter how accurate they are at the moment anyway, because its highly likely to have changed by that time, most likely down unfortunately.

How much desposit did you put down when you bought, therefore how much room for manouvre have you got before you start looking at negative equity if house prices keep dropping?

Sammy_Girl

We put down £30,750 deposit, so took out an 85% mortgage. I've been putting money by for when we remortgage as I'm expecting the value to drop. Ideally we don't want to lend 90% plus as this will greatly reduce our choice of mortgage. We'll just have to wait and see

shell1000

i used one of the recommended ones and it said 175 in a poor market, my house got valued on friday at 180k so i dont think its far out!