House re-Valuation before re-mortgaging

Sam3007

Hi 

My mortgage is with Halifax and my fix rate mortgage ends in Jan 24 and I might stay with Halifax when mortgaging.
In the Halifax app, I got the figure £278K as the estimated property value (based on the Halifax house price index).. but other similar houses in the area are selling for +300 to 320K.
Is these a process where I challenge Halifax valuation as this might help me hit the 60LTV?

Thanks

TheJP

Sam3007 said:

Hi 

My mortgage is with Halifax and my fix rate mortgage ends in Jan 24 and I might stay with Halifax when mortgaging.
In the Halifax app, I got the figure £278K as the estimated property value (based on the Halifax house price index).. but other similar houses in the area are selling for +300 to 320K.
Is these a process where I challenge Halifax valuation as this might help me hit the 60LTV?

Thanks

You can ask Halifax to have the house valued by a surveyor, usually this is free if they are your current lender. I re-mortgaged recently and my lender had our house valued at £390K, i thought it was higher so we had it re-valued. It was valued at £450K which is a 30% increase in 2 years and put us in the 60% LTV rather than 70%. It wasn't a massive difference to affordability or the monthly payments (£40). However i feel it is worth doing.

kingstreet

If you require a physical valuation for a Halifax product transfer, there is/was a small fee. IIRC it was about £80 but that was years ago, TBH.

JM68

Do you know that similar houses are selling for 300-320 or do you mean they are listed for that and are going 'sstc' or 'under offer' on Rightmove?

If you did attempt to challenge the valuation I expect you would need to present quite a 'high bar' of evidence, including showing actual sold prices and that the market is the same (or better) at the time you get your new valuation.

Bear in mind that actual sold prices will not appear in public records several months after the sale completes, and the Halifax index is showing a -2.5% (national) fall in the last quarter (Feb release).

Sam3007

JM68 said:

Do you know that similar houses are selling for 300-320 or do you mean they are listed for that and are going 'sstc' or 'under offer' on Rightmove?

If you did attempt to challenge the valuation I expect you would need to present quite a 'high bar' of evidence, including showing actual sold prices and that the market is the same (or better) at the time you get your new valuation.

Bear in mind that actual sold prices will not appear in public records several months after the sale completes, and the Halifax index is showing a -2.5% (national) fall in the last quarter (Feb release).

I bought the house back in 2021 (new build) and new identical houses are now released for a price of (starting from £320) without the extras, so I think my house should at least be 300K!

I tried to call Halifax and the advisor said that they don't re-value the house and if I want to challnge their valuation, then I should pay for an independant surveyor. 

mi-key

Have you checked the figures to see how much difference to your monthly payments the LTV change would make? If you are already in the 70% range you  may find it doesn't make any difference at all, or could be less than it would cost you to get a survey done. 

New builds do normally see a drop in value as soon as they are sold ( on account of not being brand new anymore ) for a short time, so that may be why your lender is valuing it lower than brand new houses.