Undervalued House by Estate Agent?

daz100

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33927317.html?premiumA=true

We are looking to sell or rent. This is a neighbours house that has sold.

Our house has been updated. Extension, new kitchen, new bathroom, new boiler. Well presented.

Now EA has come and valued our house at 125k now that seems really low to me. I would appreciate your thoughts. :-) Looks like we will be renting it out.

dunstonh

Estate agents typically value houses around 10-15% higher than likely sale price. So, you claim of undervaluation bucks the trend.

However, does it matter if you are renting it out?

flecker

Agree with dunstonh but, in this case, the EA's suggestion does seem to be pretty low. Recent sold prices for the road:
33 - £225,000 - 06/05/2011
9 - £168,000 - 03/12/2010
47 - £192,000 - 24/09/2010
24 - £249,950 - 02/07/2010
68 - £199,000 - 27/01/2010

Thefunkygibbons

I assume that there are other agents that you can also get in

GAH

DO you know the price that your neighbours sold for or is the sale still going through?

As for eg, if they accepted an offer of say £110,000 and your property is the same but updated, then £125k sounds about right.

Other thing to do would be to get a couple more valuations.

tyllwyd

I'd get some more valuations - the EA may be suggesting a low asking price so that they can be confident of getting a quick sale. If you get a couple more opinions at least you have a more balanced perspective on it.

pinkshoes

Perhaps the neighbour accepted an offer of £100k?

Doing up a house doesn't necessarily add value in this market, as people want to be able to do that themselves, although if yours is bigger (i.e. extension) then it should add some value.

RobertoMoir

Not trying to be funny but £125,000 is around the upper limit of what I'd pay for a house like that right now (please don't take that as a dig, my house is 'a house like that' too). Where are you getting your own valuation from in order to suspect that the EA is undervaluing?

I don't know the areas around stafford and I know that makes a difference to the value of a property but I don't immediately see what would place that far above this house, for example.

p00hsticks

Did the estate agent give a reason for that valuation ?

One thought that springs to mind is that - if my memory is correct - £125,000 is the upper limit at which no stamp duty is payable. Setting an asking price a bit higher is therefore probably going to put the property above an important ceiling for a large number of buyers and would only attract offers of below this threshold anyhow....

Caveat_Mortgagor

Did you get that asking price from the same EA as the neighbours?

If not, get them round, they will be eager to win an instruction by demonstrating that they have sold locally, so you might be able to find out what price the neighbours achieved.

This will help you make a decision on whether to sell or rent.

daz100

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Not trying to be funny but £125,000 is around the upper limit of what I'd pay for a house like that right now (please don't take that as a dig, my house is 'a house like that' too). Where are you getting your own valuation from in order to suspect that the EA is undervaluing?

I don't know the areas around stafford and I know that makes a difference to the value of a property but I don't immediately see what would place that far above this house, for example.

That house is right in the middle of the biggest council estate in Stafford. If you do a google street view you will see the difference in area and it is a pretty big difference.

I am getting the EA in this week who sold my neighbours house and like I say it needed a LOT of work.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-19020129.html

This is comparable to my house and this property is smaller.