WTF Zoopla?!?!

[TeddyBee]

I quite like tracking the houses on my street on zoopla - it's ten identical houses that have been extended and modified differently. I also pay attention to our house value as we need to remortgage soon. I updated the info quite recently because we did a big old extension. Anyway, neighbours did a teensy extension over their garage and gained an extra bedroom and their value shot up to forty grand more than ours (which I think is a bit high anyway) so I sent them an email pointing this out, and mentioning that our house was actually bigger anyway. This was last weekend. I go to look today and they've knocked £100k off their valuation of my house. Which is kind of irritating as they haven't changed their valuation of my neighbour's house AND lazy ass mortgage company surveyors use those same valuations when they value for remortgages. Fuckers. Is this someone's idea of a joke? Ok it's deffs not the end of the world and I'm overreacting a lot, but I've spent eighteen months in a building nightmare and they're dissing my house.

Or you could just forget all about Zoopla, boycott them for their silly japes and insist on/pay for a proper valuation at re-mortgage time?

Well let's hope your next surveyor isn't an idiot but a professional and when he sees a huge difference in prices between identical houses, he'll know that's not based on actual sold prices and ignore it.

Oh and having just googled own property, there's a 200k difference between ours and our semi-detached neighbours'. Simply because zoopla takes the last sale price of the house and adds the annual market + / - for the region to that price.

Who actually pays any attention to Zoopla valuations???? Apparently our home is worth about £200k less than its last real valuation 3 years ago according to its random calc methodology! But do I care??!!

Maybe the people at Zoopla found your email irritating so they down valued your house to piss you off?

and and

Did your surveyor definitely say they use the Zoopla value estimates?

I use Zoopla a lot to estimate values - but only ever look at the advertised properties nearby, and make a call based on those/actual sold prices.

No, you're right, I'm stepping away from Zoopla and when the next surveyor comes I will have a folder of comparable houses recently sold in the local area to show them.

He did say that. We didn't argue at the time because the LTV didn't matter so much. It does this time.

That's what I thought sebs

YY to Zoopla valuations being mostly bollocks. They say our house is worth £115k but I would bite the hand off anyone who offered us £100k TBH. It's probably worth £90k at best.

If the lazy ass mortgage company relies on zoopla I would simply go elsewhere or send them better data to demonstrate my house value if I was in a situation where it actually mattered. Eg getting a certain value for a remortgage.

they might use Zoopla for reference but I doubt very much that they just take the figure and use it. Surely even the most incompetent surveyor would notice that your house is undervalued on Zoopla?

It's much more likely that they use actual sold prices to value anyway isn't it?

Might be other properties in the area that have sold which are less than predicted which had brought the estimate down, I doubt an email to them would of caused anything. If it's in London/south east it's highly likely that the value has been dropped for the time being

Ours is in London and it's still increasing (according to Zoopla, anyway, rather than real life ), so I don't think it's that.

Zoopla values can only be taken with a pinch of salt - they just base it on what the house sold for in the past and add a percentage on - this will not take any account of work done to the house or how well a house is now presented. Surveyors may well use it as a guide only but they also call local estate agents to find out how much properties in the area have actually SOLD for and not just on the market for which are two totally different things. I wouldn't worry about what Zoopla say about the value of your house........... there's no point.

Zoopla valuations are rubbish. They are about £150k out on my house. They use borough averages ignoring the school down the road and the work we have done. When we remortgaged the desk surveyor in skipton did the same thing, but it didn't matter to our mortgage. But had it mattered, they would have sent someone to value our house in person and then they would have known (they normally use people with local knowledge I think). So I wouldn't worry.

I wish anyone bothered about Zoopla. My house is worth £250k more than we paid a year ago. Yeah right!!

Zoopla is complete bollocks. Any surveyor using them to give valuations would be swiftly shown the door.

You do sound a bit obsessed Teddy. Maybe take a giant step back for a week and focus on other things then think about it again. You need some distance and perspective.

YABU! Omg why would you do this? Serves you right!

Ta BRB but this isn't AIBU. YY to PP, I will be firm if the next surveyor relies on Zoopla. Also will not worry about it until we start remortgaging in May.

Zoopla estimates are fantasies. In the past six months I have had two new bathrooms and a new kitchen put in only to find that Zoopla have lowered their estimate of my house's value by 8%.

Oh god, I thought it was AIBU ...property and DIY eh? Don't have a clue I'm afraid ...except I'd never do what you did.

I've had a really stressful day and this thread has really made me laugh.

Thank you OP

When we sold the ea came round with info on SOLD prices from similar houses nearby.
not the zoopla estimated values.

he even sniggered at next door who has put her own value in of 50% more than the rest of the street, and said no one pays attention to the values, only the sold prices.

Two houses on the street have been sold since our last valuation (possibly because of our extended and misery inducing building works?) so I can use those as examples.

In my limited defence (although yes in retrospect it seems a bit mad) they do have a button in the website you click to give feedback on a valuation. They were asking for it really. Ahem.