House valuation advice needed

Watt_2

I am looking at a 2 bedroom detached house on the market for offers of over £140,000.
The house was last bought for $142,5000 in 2008
Nethouseprices and the Nationwide house price calculator give it a current value of £129,000
PropertyPriceAdvisor suggests £125,0000.
How reliable and accurate are these sites for giving realistic advice that reflect true market prices?
I have not found much information about other similar houses being sold in this area and I feel uncertain as to what offer to make initially.
What are the views on this board regarding the above valuation sites?

Doozergirl

The calculators are based on averages. They also assume that the house was bought at in 2008 for full market value and that nothing in the house has changed. Therefore if they got a deal on it, if they've spent money on it, if the price is correct in the first place (sometimes it isn't) then it's wrong. Even parts of a town move differently in terms of HPI - let alone across entire regions. Some parts of town will dive as others that are more popular are barely touched and still sell quickly.

I will always stretch my search across a whole town when trying to value a house - when you sell you are competing with properties across a wide area and people are normally looking to get best value across the area rather than pay any price in your street. Usse rightmove, ticking the box that allows you to see what is under offer currently and compare the prices of similar sized properties that are under offer.

I'd never use a house price calculator to help me decide what to offer. It might be one thing in a toolkit but it's far from the most important. You can see where the property market is at this moment by looking around - what's for sale, how much is selling.

Watt_2

Thanks for your view. I have now made an offer which was accepted. I feel such a virgin at all this stuff. I have now just to wait for the valuation to see how far in or out I was.

googler

I'm a bit late to the party, but what do the Sold Prices in zoopla and ourproperty suggest? Not the estimates, but the actual sold prices in the same street and surrounding streets....