Finally moving house - new home undervalued by £15k! Advice/experience sought

cardsharps

Gorgeestwo wrote: »

I don't understand why people pay what they pay for lots of things, but ultimately its what something is worth to you, the buyer that matters and we were able to as buyers buy what we wanted.
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This only applies if you're using your own money to purchase. If you're using someone else's money then it doesn't and you can't pay what you want for it.

Gorgeestwo

cardsharps wrote: »

This only applies if you're using your own money to purchase. If you're using someone else's money then it doesn't and you can't pay what you want for it.

And as I've already said we were in the lucky situation of being able to use our own money to make up the difference, We were able to take a smaller mortgage and make up the difference, not everyone is able to do that I know, but just because we were able to doesn't make us wrong for doing it and paying what the house was worth to us.

Milliewilly

cardsharps wrote: »

This only applies if you're using your own money to purchase. If you're using someone else's money then it doesn't and you can't pay what you want for it.

Depends on your deposit / LTV / savings etc a lower valuation than offered / asking doesn't necessarily mean the sale is off.

Unless you are developing a property and look at things in a purely business sense then the desirability, suitability uniqueness etc of the house you want to buy has a value in its own right to you. You may personally want to pay more for that. If you can afford it why not?

1echidna

Gorgeestwo wrote: »

I don't understand why people go out and buy a brand new car or that tv but they do, those things are going to devalue straight away, its personal choice and if you can afford it then why not.

The seller was fully aware of how much it was valued at, but they wouldn't accept that and I don't blame them as there were other houses not as nice as this one that had sold recently for more, but like I've explained above we have found a house that is our home that fits our needs and trust me there aren't many of those around.
Its great if you maybe don't have many specific 'wants' in a house then maybe, yes walk away, but sometimes its not just that cut and dry.

I don't understand why people pay what they pay for lots of things, but ultimately its what something is worth to you, the buyer that matters and we were able to as buyers buy what we wanted.

And I'm not sure how you think I'm getting excited about it, if that was directed at me, but I'm excited to have found a house that we love and are happy in Nothing wrong with being happy.

Some people concentrate on the financial aspects whilst others on finding a home that suits a particular set of wants and needs and this can be quite difficult. In our case restrictions on location and the particular problems of having my wife's dad live with us plus access to buses and wanting a good potential garden very much limited our choice. Once we found our property after quite a lot of searching we weren't going to go overboard on screwing our vendor down on every little item for fear of losing the property.

cardsharps

Gorgeestwo wrote: »

And as I've already said we were in the lucky situation of being able to use our own money to make up the difference, We were able to take a smaller mortgage and make up the difference, not everyone is able to do that I know, but just because we were able to doesn't make us wrong for doing it and paying what the house was worth to us.

The OP isn't using his/her own money to purchase. He/she is using someone's elses. It's very easy to be cavalier with money and pay however much it takes when it isn't your own money you're doing it with.

Welshwoofs

GDB2222 wrote: »

Peculiar, that. How do you 'know' the professional valuer is wrong? And if you think there's a conspiracy, why do you think that is?

Sometimes they can be wrong. When I bought my place I got a big undervaluation from the surveyor (at height of market) and on doing research it was absolutely clear that he'd based his valuation on similar sized houses in the village, but had taken no account of anything other than bricks and mortar. All the houses of the same size in the same location had small courtyards and no parking, whereas the one I was purchasing had a double garage and half an acre of land! I queried the valuation, as did my mortgage advisor at the bank, and the surveyor got back in touch saying his valuation was based on the house, not surrounding land. To me that was total madness because if you have 2 identical houses, one with no garden/parking and the other with a double garage and 1/2 an acre you'd expect to pay more for the one with parking and land

In my case, after the query the same surveyor then revalued for the agreed sale price

cardsharps

It's far more likely that the vendor is overvaluing their property rather than the surveyor undervaluing it.

1echidna

cardsharps wrote: »

It's far more likely that the vendor is overvaluing their property rather than the surveyor undervaluing it.

Why? It may well be that surveyors either do not do their homework properly or are conservative to cover their backsides as a number are facing legal action over valuations at the height of the market two to three years ago.

Gorgeestwo

cardsharps wrote: »

The OP isn't using his/her own money to purchase. He/she is using someone's elses. It's very easy to be cavalier with money and pay however much it takes when it isn't your own money you're doing it with.

Like Milliewilly said its all dependant on your LTV etc, if there is room for manouvre within that and you can afford it then thats for you and the bank to decide, the bank are fully aware of what we paid for this house, they were perfectly happy to offer us more money if we needed it. So they were being pretty cavalier with their own money then ? Thats where it comes down to, as 1echidna says, buying for a particular set of wants and needs rather than just being able to buy for the financial aspect or having a wide choice of properties available. And of course being able to afford it, either larger repayments on a mortgage or putting down the cash in the first place, neither choice should be taken lightly, but if its something that is right then I'd rather spend my hard earned money on a home that me and my family are happy in than anything else.

GDB2222

Gorgeestwo wrote: »

And as I've already said we were in the lucky situation of being able to use our own money to make up the difference, We were able to take a smaller mortgage and make up the difference, not everyone is able to do that I know, but just because we were able to doesn't make us wrong for doing it and paying what the house was worth to us.

I think you were absolutely right - especially when you mentioned that the extra you paid was £2k. My darling MIL spends quite a bit more than that each year poisoning her health with cigarettes.

You are saying that you knew what the open market value was but the house had an extra value for you. That's brilliant, IMHO. It's not the same as saying 'the surveyor was wrong blah blah blah'.

Incidentally, taking Welshwoof's example, the valuer might be in some difficulty over his higher valuation, if he ever has to justify it in court, given the lack of comparable properties. I can see why he played safe.