Undervaluation

jojorose

We put our house on the market six weeks ago and "sold it" to a young couple within days. We live on the edge of a private estate looking out over fields in the Peak District. Our house is only one of five in our road of this kind and none have been sold in years (except ours which we bought two and a half years ago and had to do a complete renovate costing in excess of 20 thou and that was being careful).

No problems, then the Surveyor came. He wasnt a local man and he valued the property £27,500 less than the asking price. A massive reduction. The couple couldnt pay the difference and we lost our sale.

So.... we are landed with a solicitors bill of £500 quid and are very nervous of this happening again. Weve researched the property available in our area. We really havent been greedy, why did he do this and whats the liklihood of it happening again? Obviously I dont know who their proposed mortgage was coming from. The Estate Agent was horrified as was my purchaser and both fought to get the property revalued and provided supporting evidence of available properties. Nothin.........

davidmcn

jojorose wrote: »

The Estate Agent was horrified as was my purchaser and both fought to get the property revalued and provided supporting evidence of available properties.

What do you mean by "available" properties? The only sound evidence is from sales which have actually completed. Other sellers' ambitious asking prices don't really prove much.

Thrugelmir

What did you pay for the property just 30 months ago? May have a bearing.

Westminster

Have you checked the land registry index for your local authority and applied that to your purchase price?

csgohan4

renovations often do not add much value and certainly not the amount you spent to the value of the property

jojorose

The house was the worst in the road. It needed everything doing. We did that. We bought it priced as a renovation and have attempted to sell it at a fair market price as based on similar houses on the estate. We have not been greedy. The house is worth what we are asking and less than our Estate Agent suggested.

dlmcr

Surveyors don't just make numbers out of thin air, they value houses day in day out. If the surveor had valued it 25k more than sale price would you be here now? You can appeal but it is very unlikely it will change anything. You can either: get a buyer who won't mind paying the extra / ie they are cash buyers or can top up the mortgage or you can reduce the price but seeing as "it is worth what we are asking" I guess that second option is unlikely. Would still be interested to know what you paid for it, what you spent on renovation, and what you are asking for it now. Although it is a nice area peak district prices have not really been doing much for a while so if you are hoping for rampant hpi as well as value from 20k of improvements that the next buyer will probably rip out and start again then you may be disappointed...

jojorose

We move on Tuesday. The very first viewer from the first time we tried to market the property paid the asking price. We had five offers of a similar vein as soon as it came back on the market.

So concern was ill founded.