Undervalued!!!

f6100153x

Hey,

We're in the process of buying our first house. We've had an offer accepted of £155k and we're putting down a 10% deposit.

We had a valuation and home buyers survey carried out yesterday and I've just had a conversation with the surveyor who's valued it at £150k major reasons is it needs some Damp proofing and there's a crack in the chimney stack. He said if the work is carried out it would be worth the £155k.

What happens now? Does this mean the mortgage lender won't give us a mortgage unless we get the price dropped or put up an extra £5k? I'm guessing this must be a pretty common problem so it would be great to hear other peoples options and experiences

Thanks in advance

Malmo

Plenty of threads in the Forum about valuations lower than the accepted offer price. A Google search with this search phrase would have returned lots of results:

site:forums.moneysavingexpert.com mortgage valuation lower OR less

Your options are essentially to:
1) Accept the valuation and attempt to re-negotiate the purchase price down to £150K
2) Accept the valuation and make up the £5K shortfall yourself
3) Request the lender to ask the valuer to review and revise the valuation. Usually the buyer is required to show 3 comparable properties that sold for the higher price within the last X days (normally 120 days), within a certain distance
4) Approach another lender that hopefully uses a different valuer on their panel
5) Walk away from this property