The thread where you tell my husband to get real!

feesh

Currently having an email argument with hubbie, when I should be working....who's right?

By rights, it should be him as he works in the banking industry and is immersed in it all.....but then I think he is wrong because I'm a woman, therefore always right

We bought our house in October 2006, for £220,000, in a Herts commuter town.

A couple of houses sold in our street about a year later for more than this - however since then, nothing has sold (2 houses have been taken off the market after a year of not selling). A neighbour's house has just gone on the market for £230k, which I think is wildly optimistic.

So, we're about to re-mortgage and hubbie and I are arguing about how much our house is worth! We owe about £186k.

Personally, I don't think the house will be valued at anything over £200k, but hubbie is convinced that we should apply for mortgages on the basis that the house is worth £230k.

His latest email said "OK, lets forget even trying to remortgage then. You need to go in high and if they value it at less, then fine we walk away and stick with current mortgage. I’m not going to make a mortgage application and tell them it’s worth 200k as that’s asking to borrow 90+%. It won’t happen, similarly if they value it at that."

Aaargh this is doing my head in! Personally I think we need to be pretty upfront with lenders about what we think the house is worth (without talking its value down) otherwise we could get an offer and later find they withdraw it.

What would your tactics be?

(BTW we don't have any trouble paying the mortgage - our joint income is over £86k so it's not too much of a stretch for us at the moment),

ldavies_3

You need to be honest about what you "think" the valuation may be as the lender will certainly be looking at the LTV. As long as there is enough equity to play with and your not actually selling, the real value doesnt really matter.

tattoed_bum

most lenders now send a valuer out if remortgaging so i think you will have to be quite honest about it

opinions4u

I'd take your best estimate and knock 10%-15% off. Using hubby's logic, I'd say that's £191k-£207k. I'd back your figure, but different localities will have housing markets working in different ways.

A site like zoopla can give you a guide. Looking at the sold prices for the area on Right Move can also give you a guide, although not much selling at the moment, so not easy to judge.

The only "true" value is that put on it by a lender's surveyor - this would be the best guide but would incur a fee. At least you'd then know what direction your remortgage is going in. Problem is, lenders surveyors are twitchy and playing it safe - low valuations.

My gut reaction would be to go with a £230k value on application, pay the valuers' fee to the lender (or find a deal with free valuation) and see what happens. I reckon he'll knock off 10% and you'd just scrape a remortgage of 90% ltv.

There is a huge risk that it will down value and you'll end up with no remortgage, but that would apply whatever valuation you estimated. But at least you'd know.

Prices will have increased 5%-10% from the original £220k until 2007 - but they will also have fallen since! Hubby's in a timewarp.

ad9898_3

feesh wrote: »

Currently having an email argument with hubbie, when I should be working....who's right?

By rights, it should be him as he works in the banking industry and is immersed in it all.....but then I think he is wrong because I'm a woman, therefore always right

We bought our house in October 2006, for £220,000, in a Herts commuter town.

A couple of houses sold in our street about a year later for more than this - however since then, nothing has sold (2 houses have been taken off the market after a year of not selling). A neighbour's house has just gone on the market for £230k, which I think is wildly optimistic.

So, we're about to re-mortgage and hubbie and I are arguing about how much our house is worth! We owe about £186k.

Personally, I don't think the house will be valued at anything over £200k, but hubbie is convinced that we should apply for mortgages on the basis that the house is worth £230k.

His latest email said "OK, lets forget even trying to remortgage then. You need to go in high and if they value it at less, then fine we walk away and stick with current mortgage. I’m not going to make a mortgage application and tell them it’s worth 200k as that’s asking to borrow 90+%. It won’t happen, similarly if they value it at that."

Aaargh this is doing my head in! Personally I think we need to be pretty upfront with lenders about what we think the house is worth (without talking its value down) otherwise we could get an offer and later find they withdraw it.

What would your tactics be?

(BTW we don't have any trouble paying the mortgage - our joint income is over £86k so it's not too much of a stretch for us at the moment),

Your husband is wrong, your house almost certainly will be worth less than 200k, as far as the re-mortgage goes if you are changing lenders they will send a valuer out, which will prove you right and hubby wrong.

The problem is if you owe 186k, depending on what the value comes out at, you may not be able to remortgage with the LTV

Conrad

Going in a little higher is a resonable stratergy, but as you say if it's down valued that could put the product out of reach.

Keep in mind rates are expected to fall, so if it were me I'd wait and see what trackers are on offer following the MPC meeting.
You are correct to assume the valuation will probably put you in line for 90% deals only.
Your existing lender may well be the place to go when you renew, assuming they are reasonably competetive that is.

I liove in Herts also, and as a general rule places such as Hertford have seen price drops of about 15 - 20% since mid 2007 according to local agents.

silvercar

Valuers are playing it safe. In certain Herts areas there may be nothing that has sold in your price range so valuers will be putting a finger in the air and guessing.

One way may be to go with a deal that offers a free valuation and arrangement fees added to the mortgage or payable on completion, that way you haven't spent a penny if you can't get the mortgage.

If your feel you can be open on a public forum, post a link to similar houses on the market and people can make a judgement on its value. I'm in south Herts, if that helps.

Trollfever

Give us the first four numbers of the postcode and the type of property and the Property-Bee fans will contribute.

feesh

Just rang current lenders - they can offer us 6.19% with no fees, either on a 3 year or 5 year fix.

Have to call them back in mid-November which is the earliest they can transfer us onto the new deal, to see if their offers have changed.

Anyway the neighbour's house is this one: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-19861267.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true

Ours is recently renovated so a bit nicer (modern, fresh, lots of character) than theirs Also the whole street has right of access round the side of their house (i.e through their yard, right past their kitchen window!) to get into our back gardens, which might put some buyers off.

duchy

Why not just ask 3 estate agents to value your house -priced for a quick sale. They all do free valuations and you don't need to tell them the real reason-just say you are considering a work relocation (hence the quick bit of the sale).

feesh

duchy wrote: »

Why not just ask 3 estate agents to value your house -priced for a quick sale. They all do free valuations and you don't need to tell them the real reason-just say you are considering a work relocation (hence the quick bit of the sale).

Because what an estate agent values at bears no resemblance to the real world (they are still putting houses on the market round here at ridiculous prices) and it is very far removed from how a bank will value it.