How accurate is a valuation?

sonastin

In general, the valuer isn't answering the question "how much do you think this property is worth?" Most of the time he is answering the question "do you agree this property is worth what the customer is paying for it?"

So you will usually get a maximum valuation of the agreed purchase price, but lower than that if the surveyor thinks it isn't worth that much. Occasionally the surveyor will answer the first question but that is more commonly when the purchaser is instructing him than when the bank does.

Orpheo

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

I wish people would stop using the word "survey", it's meaningless and causes confusion. The mortgage company does a valuation, purely to satisfy themselves that they aren't lending too much. It has a vested interest and there's no reason they'd want to value it higher than the accepted price. The Homebuyer's Report and Building Survey are done for the buyer and have nothing to do with the mortgage company. They are independent and probably more accurate. You may have bought it from the mortgage company but the Homebuyer's Report and mortgage valuation are not linked, you don't even need a Homebuyer's Report to buy a house.

I didn't mean to confuse you, snowflake. You are making a fuss about semantics. However right you may be about this insignificant incident of vocabulary use, it doesn't change the fact that my valuation came in at 13k above the offer that I made and had been accepted. I have bought and sold houses a number of times now and I am quite aware of the fact the lender requires a valuation and that a homebuyer's report is optional and for my benefit. It doesn't change the fact that the homebuyer's report and the valuation both became part of the same entity.