Surveyor has valued the house lower than what it has sold at!!!

michjoe

We didn't go off other houses in our area really, there are four for sale on the street at the side of our house.

One is three bedroom with loft space £140.000 just reduced to £135.000
One is three bedroom £125.000
One is three bedroom but third bedroom is a partitioned room £89.950

Ours is a four bedroom priced at £115.000 but we accepted £110.000

Consa

Please, do people not understand that the percieved value of property CAN go down, why do you look to blame someone other than yourselves, ie: surveyors, "oh dear, he hasn't valued it at enough, he must have made a mistake blah blah", get real and face the facts, maybe your own valuation was on the high side.
PRICES CAN GO DOWN!!

devils_advocate

dips wrote:

The estate agent doesn't *value* anything - they suggest an asking price which is based on what other houses have sold for + a bit to allow for negotiation + a bit to keep pushing house prices up + a bit just to chance things and see if someone will be it.

IMO most EA *valuations* are probably about 10% above what the house is actually worth in the open market and shouldn't be taken as a guide for remortgaging. A lender is only interested in protecting their asset and it doesn't matter what an EA tells you.

An Estate Agent's valuation has one purpose, that is to get YOU to market your property through THEM. They cant make any money if its not on their books, and lets face it, when they've tied you into a sole agency agreement and they can't get viewings, they'll either tell you they can't understand why it's not selling or that you should drop the price. If its the former, that's no matter to them, because at least they've had the opportunity to sell it to some mug who they've talked the price up with, and if its the latter they can probably get the viewers round at the lower price, and keep you happy.

That's also the reason why EAs ask how much the competition has valued it for. If you've spent the previous half hour telling them that you need all the money you can get 'cos you've just put in an offer on a wonderful but expensive place, are you then surprised when they tell you that they can sell yours for 5% more than the previous agent 'valued' it for?

For the inner workings of an estate agency, see http://www.agentsdiary.blogspot.com/

michjoe

Consa wrote:

Please, do people not understand that the percieved value of property CAN go down, why do you look to blame someone other than yourselves, ie: surveyors, "oh dear, he hasn't valued it at enough, he must have made a mistake blah blah", get real and face the facts, maybe your own valuation was on the high side.
PRICES CAN GO DOWN!!

So you are telling me everybody in the area has put the price to high on their properties??

mi-key

I think your post #32 says a lot - there are properties FOR SALE - not sold, not under offer - they are just sitting there with a price tag on them that nobody is willing to pay. The fact you say one has just been reduced is a good sign that they are overvalued.

There is a house round the corner from me that has been on at £250,000 for almost a year now - no way will they ever get that when very similar ones are going on now with an asking price of £235K - so is that house worth £250,000 ? chances are if a new surveyor valued it now, he would say no way.

Your house is only worth what a buyer will pay - in your case its annoying as you've had a decent offer, but the mortgage company dont think its worth what the buyers do.

I think part of it may be that lenders are getting a bit tighter with what they will lend, and with the interest rate rises imminent, are maybe thinking that the property will be worth less in 12 months than it is now ( and YES - this does happen, despite what some people say ! ).

Perhaps they have told the surveyors to be cautious in the valuations so they are covered and the buyer doesnt end up with a big chunk of negative equity in a years time ?

michjoe

I think what we will have to do is get a second survey done.

mr.broderick

michjoe wrote:

I think what we will have to do is get a second survey done.

Tell your buyer to find a new lender or you'll find a new buyer.

michjoe

mr.broderick wrote:

Tell your buyer to find a new lender or you'll find a new buyer.

That is what we've decided to do if we haven't had any answers by Monday

Miss_Penny_Pincher_2

£17,000 just sound like too huge a drop! Have you checked on rightmove to see the sold prices for properties local to you?

I think surveyors can be full of baloney! The first house we ever put an offer on (£94k) we had a survey done on it and it said it was worth £92k despite it needing around £20k worth of structural work! In the end we pulled out as the amount of work really was daunting and we would have made a loss doing the work. Since then the vendors have been to 2 other estate agents to try to sell their house! The last I knew it was on the market for £85k!

Edit: forgot to mention that the vendors paid for their own survey after they saw ours. This one unsurprisingly also said that the property was worth £92k but played down massively the work that was needed! Hmmmm!! The estate agent said that this was an independent surveyor working for a rival estate agent. I noticed though that on their website it includes adverts for properties under the other estate agency with both logos showing etc!?

lynzpower

Consa wrote:

Please, do people not understand that the percieved value of property CAN go down, why do you look to blame someone other than yourselves, ie: surveyors, "oh dear, he hasn't valued it at enough, he must have made a mistake blah blah", get real and face the facts, maybe your own valuation was on the high side.
PRICES CAN GO DOWN!!

your not allowed links in your signature.