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Original poster

Surveyor valued at less than price we agreed - advice wanted

26 replies

suebfg · 06/11/2011 19:33

We have been looking for a house for a while now and have found a house which meets most of our requirements - there are a few compromises. The surveyor has now valued it at 5% less than agreed price. This equates to just over £25k below the price we agreed.

We think the surveyor is being a bit cautious but obviously we are concerned that we offered a bit too much. How would you approach this with the estate agent? We don't want to lose the house but neither do we want to pay more than the house is worth.

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RandomMess · 06/11/2011 19:39

I think you need to ask the surveyor why he thinks it is worth the price he as quoted, examples of comparisons etc.

Then you need to ask the estate agent to speak to the sellers. You will find it difficult to get a mortgage if it is overpriced. This puts you in a strong position to negotiate a lower price.

GrooveIsInTheFart · 06/11/2011 19:42

Did you just have a valuation or a full survey? Do you know the ratio of lending? Has it been on the Market long?

Original poster
suebfg · 06/11/2011 19:50

We had a homebuyers report. We don't have an issue with the lending side as we're putting up most of the money from a previous house sale. The house has been on the market since May I think and has been under offer previously but sale fell through after survey.

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Original poster
suebfg · 06/11/2011 19:51

Should have added that sale fell through as vendors pulled out because buyer wanted to knock price down further

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grumplestilskin · 06/11/2011 19:51

survey values area always a bit lower, so long as it isn't crazy lower then I wouldn't worry

RandomMess · 06/11/2011 19:52

Why has it come back at the lower value, is it an unusual property that is difficult to compare to others locally?

Original poster
suebfg · 06/11/2011 19:52

But £25K is a lot of our hard earned cash

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Original poster
suebfg · 06/11/2011 19:59

No, it's not an unusual property but it's quite hard to draw exact parallels with other properties in the area e.g. some have been extended but are in smaller plots and it's hard to work out what is worth more - outside space or interior space

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RandomMess · 06/11/2011 20:04

Would it be worth asking the sellers to meet you half way between the 2 prices?

GrooveIsInTheFart · 06/11/2011 20:07

I'd speck to agent, many will argue it's a valuers opinion and this is to some extent true. A homebuyers is lengthy, detailed, I would suggest even if you asked and they pulled out it may be valued lower again. If it has been Downvalued before ask the agent what they know. They might not give you details but they can't lie. Also if the difference is only 5% it's within tolerances for valuations. If you where prepared to offer it you must have believed that's what you wanted to pay. You could get a secondary basic valuation done to rest your mind. If that too is lower you might be better negoatioing power, it wil cost a few hundred but not a patch on 25k

Original poster
suebfg · 06/11/2011 20:12

Obviously we thought long and hard re the offer price before we made it but since making the offer we have seen more Land Registry data re recent sales. A comparable but larger property sold for the same price we offered - maybe not in as good a plot but quite a bit bigger. Also a few things were noted on the survey that we weren't expecting.

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hattieboomboom · 06/11/2011 20:27

This happened to us, well, to our buyers. They agreed to get another valuation, through a different lender, and the second time I was was prepared when the surveyor came round, and showed him details of several comparable properties in the area, and made sure I told him we'd had three offers very close to our agreed price and all within two weeks of going on the market (which was true). We were selling without an agent but the other property details I got from the agent we were buying though and they all included the for sale price AND crucially, the agreed offer price. The agent is based just up the road as we are staying in the same area - they were willing to help as they didn't want our chain to collapse. Oh, and I also gave the surveyor print-outs of the three estate agent valuations we'd had, which were in the region of our offer price. He valued it at precicely the agreed offer price (which was also our asking price).

hattieboomboom · 06/11/2011 21:10

p.s. I think land registry data is about 6 months out of date isn't it?

Original poster
suebfg · 06/11/2011 21:11

No, it's only a couple of months behind

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Barbeasty · 07/11/2011 10:15

If it doesn't matter mortgage wise that the valuation is lower than your offer, then it really does come down to whether you are happy with what you offered.

The comparable but bigger house could have sold at that price for all sorts of reasons- sellers after a quick sale for relocation; something not obvious from the survey; buyers who demanded a lowering in price the day of exchange...

Check that the valuer got the details right. Our house was valued recently for a remortgage and the idiot person who valued it failed to notice one of the reception rooms which he went into to measure for damp and so when they did the comparison with sold houses in the area, they were comparing ours with houses half the size.

When we provided details of houses like ours which had sold, and helped them count to 3, they revised the value back to what we had said in the first place.

If you think their reasoning is sound, then its up to you to decide the value for yourself. At the end of the day a house is worth what someone will pay for it.

grumplestilskin · 08/11/2011 19:34

yes some are very lazy, have the recently sold places in the same street got any dissadvantages which a lazy valuation wouldn't take into account? (being nearer busy roads, double yellows at that end, more run down houses etc???

Original poster
suebfg · 08/11/2011 21:21

No, we've been in the other houses ourselves so we can make a good comparison.

In any event, we reinstated our original offer as we really do like the house but it now looks as if the vendors may be getting cold feet. It's anybody's guess what will happen next!

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Primafacie · 08/11/2011 22:02

So you are prepared to pay 25k over valuation but the vendors are having cold feet? They are MAD!

Original poster
suebfg · 08/11/2011 22:13

I know I can hardly believe it myself - maybe it's a blessing in disguise

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RandomMess · 08/11/2011 22:21

It sounds like they still think their property is worth more than it is aka greedy.

They could be a complete nightmare from begining to end!

ajandjjmum · 08/11/2011 22:24

Can you check Zoopla for similar house sale prices, to see whether your offer was too high?

Original poster
suebfg · 08/11/2011 22:27

Yes, we've done endless research. It's not clear if the offer was high or not as the difference was only 5% but ultimately we were prepared to pay that price to secure the property, well at least we thought it would secure the property!

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myron · 08/11/2011 23:27

This happened to us but our mortgage offer (although low LTV) had a double figure retention conditional on repairs to be done on the property (evidenced by an unexpectedly poor survey!). In our case, we asked them to meet us half way (similar amount to yours) but the vendors reacted by putting it back on the market! We decided that we didn't love the house enough and have now found a better house to buy.

Original poster
suebfg · 09/11/2011 20:38

Update: sale now back on

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RandomMess · 09/11/2011 20:49

Confused does this mean they have come to their senses?