Estate Agents want your business, it is a very competitive market with great rewards at stake. Estate Agents are under presure to keep up their numbers and hit their bonus targets that they will almost do anything to get your business.
The main weapon the Agent has to attain your business is to dangle the carrot and tell you that your property is worth more money than it actually is.
When it comes to choosing your agent, the 'carrot' says choose me, you will make more money selling your property through us.
The problem (the Stick) comes in two ways, firstly, the property is over priced and gets no views, then time on the market come into it, no one comes to view because they think there must be something wrong with it.
The second it a massive inconvience and can temporarily distort the market. This is the scenario: An Agent values and markets your property at £300,000. Someone views your property and falls head over heals in love with your property and makes you an offer of £270,000 and you agree on £285,000, and the property status says Sold, happy days. Further down the line, along comes the mortgage valuer and he values it at £240,000, 20% lower than the original sales price.
Now the mortgage company is looking to only lend 90% which is £216,000. This means the buyer now has to find a deposit of £69,000 to keep the sale alive, sadly the majority of deals fall through.
Now, you the seller, are extremely disappointed as you have already made an offer on a new dream home. You have sadly two options, gamble and go through with your new purchase using an expensive bridging loan or pull out of your deal and ruin someone elses dreams.
It may temporarily distort the market, you can hear the conversations, 'Well, the Jones's got £285,000 for their house', ours must be worth more. And the problem continues...
With all this said, the sales price is ultimately the sellers choice and the agents valuation is a matter of opinion and sometimes sadly, we can get it wrong.
A member of Our Valuation Team will contact you shortly with a choice of Dates. This is a no obligation, free and fair House / Property Valuation
The Valuer will Visit and Survey your Home and provide you with a Honest Value within an Hour
Value is an Opinion and Not the Sales Price, this is down to yourselves, we can only advise.
Are you thinking about Moving? Need some Advice on Improving your Home? We can give you a brief Home Survey and Advice on how to Improve your Property to maximise your equity.
Have you Sold your House and you're looking at number of purchase options, you may ask our opinion or you would like a Survey on a new purchase
Are you looking to invest, investment property is increasingly propular and there are many different options, we can provide our professional opinion on Real Estate Investments.
The Mortgage Company does not want to lend more than the actual market value, in the default scenario the mortgage company has to be able to repossess and sell it quickly without losing capital. They will look at comparable data based on similar properties in the area, Sold within the last 3 months. They will choose 3 or 4 properties to compare with, factors include:
If the Comparable evidence is sufficent or deemed a Good or fair comparable the adjustment value will be upheld.
Ever more recently the evidence has not been conclusive and a RICS Survey and Valuation has been instructed.
This is a very thorough and conclusive inspection of the subject property and they look at every aspect of the property as detailed in the diagram below and much more which is detailed into a Homebuyers Report.
Then finally the mortgage company will conclude their valuation. If the valuation is deemed not conclusive they may impose a higher deposit to limit their risk.
Estate Agents also do comparisons but they predominantly look at similar property 'For Sale', we all know that the 'For Sale' price is 5% to 10% higher, to allow for a discount. Mortgage companies claim that 80% of estate agency valuations fall between a 10% and 17% higher tollerance than their own valuations and One in Five are completely unrealistly high and the deal either expires or a much higher deposit is sort.
Estate Agents do want your business and be careful when choosing your agent, do not base your decision upon valuation alone.
There is a very well known company who asks for an upfront fee for selling your property and they purposely undervalue your property! Why? For their own marketing purposes, 'we sell quicker and our market value achieved % is better than every one elses'. This is true, I was once asked by a developer, 'How do we sell these tomorrow?', I jokingly replied, 'Price them at a pound, and they are already sold!'. Anyone can sell them quickly if they are cheap and when they are getting an upfront set fee, do they really care about you and your investment?.
This maybe a strange question? But I think you may ask 20 people and get 20 different answers, I asked google and I got even more answers. The most basic answer is someone who "Sells, Rents or Manages Property". This statement represents the majority of companies, they do the bare minimum or...
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Abacus Valuations Ltd is a registered company at Orchard House, East Lound, Haxey, Doncaster. South Yorkshire DN9 2LR. Registered company Number is 13387578.