Under-valuded or over-priced?

princessamy86

Milliewilly wrote: »

Where did I say 'NO' EA's are getting it right?

There are enough posts on here to say there many who aren't and not because of essential works that couldn't be known about by the EA prior to marketing.

If as you say the EA's generally don't market the property if the vendor want too much for it why are we seeing nearly a post a day about valuations being lower than the (reduced from asking) offer? We never see posts saying buyers have grabbed a bargain because the valuer has valued the property for ££££'s more than their offer?

The fact that you pay an EA thousands of pounds for some sales administration work means they should be getting a correct figure as you are paying for a professional service. If local surveyors are used the EA should be aware of this when advising the Vendor what to market at. We are regularly seeing 15% discrepancies against marketed price and valuations.

I am not getting at the EA here, far from it its the Surveyors acting in the Bank's questionable interests imo but the Industry should work together as its the buyer who is footing the bill for the valuation each time and the seller incurring legal costs for every sale that falls through.


The OP has had 3 prices - one from the EA, one from his Surveyor, and one from the valuer and they are all different. Who can you say is wrong here? Just because the valuer holds the trump card because their opinion means funds are released doesn't necessarily make him correct.

There are lots of EAs out there who do overinflate prices, it's just not the case every single time. The banks are very much trying to limit their exposure to risk, that's why downvaluations are far more common than they used to be.

You don't see posts saying buyers have saved x amount because surveyors only value the property up to the sale price. It's not really their job (when working for a lender) to say...it's worth x amount over the asking/selling price, the lender is only interested in whether or not it is worth what is being borrowed. Agreed, the valuer isn't always correct, but their word is what the bank agrees to lend on, so you can see why they have a certain amount of power. We actually do end up working fairly closely with surveyors, as the good ones will generally ask our opinion before submitting their report. They don't always listen to us, but they do collect info from several different sources.

As for who has the correct price in the OPs situation, I don't know, I don't have enough info.