Nationwide/Countrywide undervaluing in survey

Morninglight

Hi

Am wondering if anyone has experience of this or can help?

We have an existing mortgage with Nationwide and are moving house. We have found a new house we have put an offer on but the Nationwide valuation survey has come back and valued in £65 below the asking price (£40k below what we were prepared to pay for it). The house is obviously worth more than that – we have looked on all the site such as nethouseprice, Zoopla etc before we put an offer in and compared it with other similar houses nearby and what they are going for.

Both our financial advisor and the estate agent mortgage advisor say that this is typical of Nationwide (who only use Countrywide to do valuation surveys) and that it’s because it’s a new build house and they see it as a risk (as they don’t hold their value the same). If that’s the case, if this house doesn’t work out, will they do the same on every other new build we would want to buy?

Surely a house is worth what it’s worth now and it’s a surveyor’s job to state that rather than what the mortgage company think its worth with whatever risk attached or in however many years time. My husband and I have both had mortgages for over 5 years and paid on time every month and both have good steady jobs.

We have found out that two of the other (same) houses in the estate have valued at more than what we were willing to pay and also that new builds that are up for resale (a year or two old) of the same size/type nearby are pretty much keeping their prices.

Is there anything we can do about this? We are getting the info together about the other houses etc mentioned above to pass to them, but the signs are that they won’t budge on the valuation.

We are tied to Nationwide as we have a huge buy out from them with our current mortgage if we don’t stay with them and also they are the only ones who will give 90% mortgage on a new build.

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks

yelf

if you're tied in then you dont have much choice.

bingibongi

Are you comparing it with other asking prices on these various sites ? Just because vendors are putting similar porperties on the maket for £x doesnt mean they will sell at that price.

& yes, generally speaking new builds are not good value for money.

Mrs_Bumble

If it is a new build then Nationwide's instruction/policy is for the valuation to be judged on the resale value of the property.

So bit like the new car, you pay XYZ and drive it out of the showroom and it suddenly is worth ZYX.

geoffky

i would be thanking them as they have stopped you from losing money..

beecher

I'd walk away and look at houses which aren't new build - Nationwide are bound to be strict on this if they are the only lender offering 90% LTV.

clairey22

I have experience of nationwide valuing low on a newbuild.

I was a first time buyer last year with a 25% deposit, I agreed to buy the house from the developer for 225 or 215K (after a developer "discount") and then nationwide valued it at 200K!! We were unsure what to do but after much arguing back and forth, we managed to get the price of the house down to 205K in the end as we told the developers we didnt want to pay more than the mortgage company had valued it for.

This was odd as we had gone through a broker who was suggested by the developers!! the manager at the developers went mad and was saying "why did the broker recommend nationwide as they have a reputation for valuing low on new builds"

A year later and the house a few doors down (same number of beds but slightly different configuration) has just sold for 189K on nethouseprices (this is the land registry figure which is inflated by atleast a 10K "developer discount") so maybe Nationwide were right to value it at 200K after all? - the developer originally wanted 270 then 240K for it!!!

Clairey

maninthestreet

Morninglight wrote: »

Hi

Am wondering if anyone has experience of this or can help?

We have an existing mortgage with Nationwide and are moving house. We have found a new house we have put an offer on but the Nationwide valuation survey has come back and valued in £65 below the asking price (£40k below what we were prepared to pay for it). The house is obviously worth more than that – we have looked on all the site such as nethouseprice, Zoopla etc before we put an offer in and compared it with other similar houses nearby and what they are going for.

Both our financial advisor and the estate agent mortgage advisor say that this is typical of Nationwide (who only use Countrywide to do valuation surveys) and that it’s because it’s a new build house and they see it as a risk (as they don’t hold their value the same). If that’s the case, if this house doesn’t work out, will they do the same on every other new build we would want to buy?

Surely a house is worth what it’s worth now and it’s a surveyor’s job to state that rather than what the mortgage company think its worth with whatever risk attached or in however many years time. My husband and I have both had mortgages for over 5 years and paid on time every month and both have good steady jobs.

We have found out that two of the other (same) houses in the estate have valued at more than what we were willing to pay and also that new builds that are up for resale (a year or two old) of the same size/type nearby are pretty much keeping their prices.

Is there anything we can do about this? We are getting the info together about the other houses etc mentioned above to pass to them, but the signs are that they won’t budge on the valuation.

We are tied to Nationwide as we have a huge buy out from them with our current mortgage if we don’t stay with them and also they are the only ones who will give 90% mortgage on a new build.

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks

Tell the builder the house isn't worth the money they want for it.
If they feel it is, then they should have no problem finding a buyer whose lender agrees with them on their valuation.

belfastgirl23

Yep the good old nationwide have probably done you a favour - go back and negotiate with the seller...if you could find £2k extra down the back of the sofa as a negotiating tactic you might be able to close on that...