Mortgage Lender Survey

BiancaCastafoire

I'm selling my house. The buyer's mortgage lender have asked for a lender survey to be done to see if the house is worth the price. I’ve never heard of this but am probably not up to date as I bought it 10 years ago. The company coming have some recent 1 star reviews for down valuing houses. My friend said when she sold last year they just did a drive by. I read online they come out if they think there is an issue. Is this true? Is there anything I should do in advance? Thanks- any advice much appreciated!

david29dpo

The lender will insist on this, nothing you can do but wait for the outcome.

user1977

Perfectly normal for there to be a survey and no, nothing for you to do. 

Albermarle

The mortgage lender has to be reasonably sure the house is worth what it is lending against.

BiancaCastafoire

Thanks. I just wondered if the fact they are coming to the Property and not doing it as a drive by meant anything. 

HouseMartin567

I think different lenders have different criteria. I applied for a mortgage on a property and the lender did an in-person visit before the mortgage was approved. Due to circumstances, that mortgage offer ran out before we could complete so I applied with a different lender (who then had a more competitive rate) - but same property - and they did a desktop valuation and approved without an in-person visit. So same property, but two different approaches for two different lenders.

BiancaCastafoire

Thanks 🙂 that's good to know. 

kinger101

I suspect the surveyor only ever gets negative reviews because nobody is particularly inclined to leave a positive one when the valuation doesn't make waves.  So I'd take the one star review with a grain of salt.

eddddy

HouseMartin567 said:

I think different lenders have different criteria. I applied for a mortgage on a property and the lender did an in-person visit before the mortgage was approved. Due to circumstances, that mortgage offer ran out before we could complete so I applied with a different lender (who then had a more competitive rate) - but same property - and they did a desktop valuation and approved without an in-person visit. So same property, but two different approaches for two different lenders.

FWIW, many different mortgage lenders will use the same company for valuations.

So even though it was a different mortgage lender, they might have instructed the same valuation company to do a valuation - and having visited a few months before, they decided they didn't need another visit.

Were both valuations the same? (If they were different, that would suggest different valuation companies.)

ReadySteadyPop

BiancaCastafoire said:

I'm selling my house. The buyer's mortgage lender have asked for a lender survey to be done to see if the house is worth the price. I’ve never heard of this but am probably not up to date as I bought it 10 years ago. The company coming have some recent 1 star reviews for down valuing houses. My friend said when she sold last year they just did a drive by. I read online they come out if they think there is an issue. Is this true? Is there anything I should do in advance? Thanks- any advice much appreciated!

Would have been standard practice ten years ago as well? Did you buy for cash?

ReadySteadyPop

BiancaCastafoire said:

Thanks. I just wondered if the fact they are coming to the Property and not doing it as a drive by meant anything. 

Are there any special or unique characteristics to the property?