We had our house valued............

[Mirage]

After 2 years of humming & hawing,we have decided we definately want to move.We got to estate agents around to give us valuations & they couldn't have been more different.

The 1st guy took a lot of time,asked questions & noticed all the period details ect.He valued it at £140-145,000.The 2nd guy went around on his own,said nothing about the houses plus points,apart from our huge bathroom & valued it at £123,00.Not much difference there then!

The 2nd guy said that despite it being one of the biggest properties on the street,the fact that it has electric storage heating rather than gch & only partial double glazing,devalues it.

It is a big Edwardian terrace with huge rooms,a 100ft garden,outbuildings,utility & 3 good bedrooms.If I was a buyer,I would go for space & change the heating/windows as & when.After all,those things can be done at any time,but it is impossible to make a small house & garden bigger.(if that makes sense?)

Am I being naive?Would you buy an older house rather than a smaller modern one?I can't really get any other valuations as the 2 other local agents are well known for over & under valuing respectively.

gor blimey it's a bargain- where you live.. not London obviously!
the first guy sounds a bit more accurate I would have thought- but what's been the going rate in your road?.. that's usually the best tester.

Could you get the others in anyway? If you know they are likely to under/over value, that will give you a bench mark to compare the first two valuations. Maybe put the house on at somewhere in the middle of all of the valuations, or even nearer the top end and be prepared to negotiate when you see what kind of response you get. If no-one views you can always put the price down, but if you get lots of offers you might wish you asked for a bit more! Best of luck! Your house sounds great.

Go for the larger one every time, older properties are better built too, not thrown together with bits of wood and plasterboard.

Your house sounds lovely.

Mirage - I agree with the advice given so far. How about spending some time researching the other properties with the main plus points as yours in your area, ie number of bedrooms, garden size, plot size, garage/driveway space, location etc so that you get a good feel for the property market locally? Lots of estate agents have websites and so you can do it incognito. Also, if you're moving, presumably you need to know how much you're likely to get from your property in order to buy a new one. Good luck!

Mirage, I agree with oneofeach, you should get the other 2 agents in to see where they price it - you might be surprised and find the "low" one is still above your £123K valuation.

To answer your question, I would buy the bigger older one every time!

(Where do you live? Just out of curiosity!)

Yep Mirage - I would go for size everytime !

Seriously - our house has part d/g and storage heaters - we wouldve prefererred it to have been modernised - but we looked at the structure of the house and the space, not what was inside it or the decor.

If someone wants your house those things wont matter one bit. I agree with you totally.

By the way - your house sounds lush!

3 bed for betqween 120-140k??!! i'll have it !

seriosuly where do u live? all we get round here is flats for those prices.

Yes, I'd want the space/period details but would also be thinking about how much I'd have to spend to put in gch and, if appropriate, double glazing. And I might take that into account when making an offer. But someone else might be keen enough to offer the full asking price - depends on your local market.

Thanks everyone.It has made things seem a bit clearer reading back your comments.I'm going to sort out another valuation & see what they say.I am starting to doubt the 2nd guys capabilities,as he was talkig to me about another property he'd valued & told me something about it that I know not to be true. I'd viewed the same house 12 months ago & also know the next door neighbours,so knew what he was telling me was rubbish.He'd valued it at 30k more than it sold for last June!!!!!!!!!!!!Makes you wonder....

Our house is lovely-we were very lucky to buy it at the right time too,about 8 years ago when buyers could pick & choose.Things seem very different now.The huge amount of space we have is one of the reasons we have struggled to find a new house-they all look cramped in comparison.I viewed a new build down the road & we wouldn't even have been able to get our sofas in the room,never mind a dining table ect!I was quite shocked how tiny it was.

Ther is a lady 2 doors up whose house is similar to ours, (but bizarrely decorated)she put it on sale at £149,000 18 months ago & it has only just sold.It was overpriced at the time,but the market seems to have caught up with it now & she had 2 buyers fighting over it in the end.

I live in a small town (it was a large village when we moved here,but has expanded fast) about 4 miles north of Leicester.One of the reasons we want to move is that it has got quite built up around us in the past couple of years.Houses have been built at the end of the street & on a plot behind the street too,so I am feeling a bit 'hemmed in' now.I love this house though & if I could pick it up & move it somewhere else,I would.

I think this one will run & run.The village we want to move too is more expensive than here & has fewer houses for sale,so we could be in for the long haul.

I'll keep you posted.

Just to add my tuppence, we had the same problem when we put our house on the market and to cut a very very long story short we went with the estate agent who valued the house at the highest price and 8 weeks later we were still waiting for an offer despite lots of viewings. At this point we decided to drop the price of the house by £5K and sold within two weeks.
So, personally I would go with the agent who valued it the most but put the house on the market at less than their valuation.

Not sure how to answer your question as buyers want different things, our house was perfect but it backs onto a railway line, sometimes it is the location that will put people off rather than the work they have to do in the house.

HTH

WARNING WARNING ALL WHO ARE CONSIDERING A VALUATION ON THEIR PROPERTY:

Just because an estate agent suggests the highest price, don't automatically go with them, it does not always mean you will get the best service, check how they intend to market your property, do they do the internet?, are they connnected to other offices out of the area? do they have a purchasers waiting list?, do they advertise in the local papers? if so how many times a month etc, I could go on and on, get more than two valuations done and consider their charges, are they negotiable on the charge if the property does not sell within a certain period, are they asking a percentage of the asking price? or a set fee?.

GOOD LUCK

If you aren't in a hurry to move, then I'd go for the higher valuation and wait for the right buyer who will love the house for the same reasons you did. The alternative is to see how much it would cost to put in central heating and do the work yourself to make it sell faster. It sounds a lovely house. A house down our road (quite similar to ours) was on for an amount that made me gasp - so high I actualy asked if I could look inside to see if it was gold-plated or something. It did take a long time to sell, but last week it went at the asking price.

Agree with mothernature's points - need to chose agent on other criteria than value. It's a well-known trick to over-value your house to get your business and then tell you you'll need to drop the price when you don't get any offers. On the other hand if you don't need to secure a sale quickly then there is something to be said for putting it on high to test the market, as long as you're aware that that's what you're doing and that you might need to drop. Another point is that it's very difficult to get an overview of the market - prices in the property pages do not necessarily reflect the prices things are actually going for. You could ask the agents to show you (ie give you the details, not just waffle on vaguely) some houses they have sold recently and the price they actually went for. And ask them exactly why they value the house at the price they do. Also remember fees are negotiable and you could negotiate a variable fee dependent on the price.