Valuation survey from a seller's perspective

Orpheo

It's great news that surveyors are valuing accurately and sensibly. After all, who wants to buy an overpriced house?

harrup

You truly are between a rock and a hard place. Don't envy you.

IMO, your "hard place" stems primarily, if not solely, from the fact that you are stretching yourself to the limit with your next property.

Possible solutions:
1) since you said the vendor of your future property will not renegotiate - retract your offer & forget about commiting yourself to another property until you sold your existing one. Or would the vendor be amenable to wait until you find another buyer? Some vendors are quite happy, indeed prefer, a long completion period.

I know that's not what you want to hear...I wouldn't either in your shoes....but your main problem concerning the valuation of your existing home is that the purchase of your next property is contingent on achieving a minimum of 355 K on the one you have. And it looks like you won't. It doesn't actually matter whether it was due to a clerical issue or this buyer deliberately misleading the bank or whatever. It equally doesn't matter that much how much your neighbours house went for last year. That was last year and a different buyer who MAY have been prepared to pay over the odds for some reason.

My gut feeling, however, says something is strange about your buyer's reluctance to play with open cards...because why wouldn't he simply show you the valuation report to underpin his 10 K reduction demand? I would. Without being asked. I think most people would.

Solution 2) Challenge the valuation and commision your own independent survey, instruct the EA to inform your buyer that you intend to remarket the property....and rely on the hope that your existing buyer wants your house as much, or more, as you want your next property.

harrup

Orpheo wrote: »

It's great news that surveyors are valuing accurately and sensibly. After all, who wants to buy an overpriced house?

Orpheo...that isn't a constructive or sensitive reply to the OP post, is it?

In fact, the whole point is that the accuracy of the OP valuation report may have been corrupted. That has nothing to do with HP being too high in general or whatever. I agree with you, IMO they often are, but that isn't the central issue in this thread.

C'mon....one day you may need/want the input of other posters concerning the sale or purchase of a property YOU want....would you be happy with a reply like the one you gave?

dopester

All this drama over £10K on a house in the hundreds of thousands range which you've seen at least treble in value over the 14 years you have lived there.

I hope you do get the house you want to max out for, and which you are obeying the seller's word they won't drop the price any lower to sell to you.

Got a feeling you have a serious education coming to you about values.

tonycottee

I can't wait till I get to a stage in life where £10k is just a trivial matter.

Seanymph

Have you had the house you are purchasing surveyed yet?

brit1234

poppysarah wrote: »

14 years ago you paid a lot less for the property - how vital is this 10k?

Is this 10k worth messing up a sale for?

What % profit is it?

Fully agree, it does look like seller greed rather than exceptance that the selling price is too high.

That £345k-£355K is made up of 10 years of doctored valuations in the great uk housing bubble. Maybe if you bought it for £390k last year you may have a point but you bought it 14 years ago at the bottom of the market before the housing bubble and mass fraud took off.

£345K seems a fair price, if you don't like it turn the buyer away and get another one. However with prices falling again and set to continue falling even that £345k may be a remote possibility if you don't sell shortly.

thebeard2002

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I won't reply to individual responses, but give an update and more information...

1. I have now managed to see a copy of the report. The bank - instructing the surveyor - wrote the wrong value at the top of the form (telling the surveyor that the bank needed to house to be worth 345k rather than 355k). The surveyor valued the house at 345k. They were never going to value the house at 355k under those circumstances. If the bank had written 355k on the form, it is reasonable to believe that the surveyor would have valued the house at 355k. It is also a reasonable expectation that if they were now re-instructed to view the property, they would find some reason to do so at 345k to protect their professional pride (I say "reasonable" - I haven't moved for 14 years so this is hearsay and supposition).
2. Someone else offered at the same price as my maximum price for the house I am aiming to purchase, so my drop in price would lose me the deal (I was chosen because I am in a better position to move).

As it stands, I've said that we aren't in a position to drop the price, and my Estate Agent has gone to great lengths to demonstrate to my purchaser that firstly, in all likelihood the valuation was based on an incorrect set of assumptions, and secondly, they will be getting a good, comparable price for mine. I'll let you know how it goes.

kingstreet

It would be entirely reasonable for the purchaser to ask his lender to explain the error to the surveyor to see if the surveyor believes the property is worth the agreed price.

In my experience, surveyors will agree with the price as long as its reasonable. He may have thought £345k was very reasonable. Let's just hope £355k is still in the reasonable bracket.

Just shows how dropping £10k on the unverified word of a stranger may not be a sensible moneysaving idea...

Orpheo

harrup wrote: »

C'mon....one day you may need/want the input of other posters concerning the sale or purchase of a property

No. No I won't. Buying and selling houses is old hat to me now, if I need advice, I'll seek it from professionals. I won't be seeking for others to validate any fallacious beliefs about the value of my house. For a few quid, a RICS chartered surveyor can tell me the value of my house. Awesome.