Overpriced on survey

[Sitdowncupoftea]

Had a full survey on a property were buying. The full survey has said the property is overpriced. We didn't offer the full asking price. There is a 40k difference in our accepted offer and the survey valuation. We are happy with everything else searches etc but now stuck at this hurdle. Initially on viewing I did say to estate agent regards the price. The house is a rural property in a small village of 50 properties and there are hardly ever any that come on the market. Any properties that have recently sold have sold years ago. Any advice on what to do. 40k over the survey valuation is a lot of money.

The house is in an extremely small village in the middle of nowhere no properties have sold in recent years. We are having to wait until Monday to deal with it. To be honest I'm shocked that it has been undervalued that much as I've been looking in that surrounding area for over a year. Many of the houses are a lot higher price. There is nothing in that village to compare it to as there has been no sales for years. I would be rubbing my hands together and cracking open a bottle of champagne if I got the house for the price the survey has valued it at. I've viewed many houses in a 10 mile radius as its very rural and all from various EAs. It was forecast a 30% drop in prices this year but its never happened. I'm looking at it as a forever home. Its a very rural area not even a mobile phone signal. We are questioning the valuation as is our solicitor as its a large underestimate. However rarely do surveyers up the price and say they are wrong. The house would not appeal to many. Many rural properties have been overvalued due to the surge in WFH who think they won't be going back to work in an office so there has been a boom in the rural sector. I'm familiar with the area as I live rural now. Its a situation now where I can walk away but the chance of another property coming up for sale there is as rare as hens teeth. However putting an extra 45k from my savings to make the shortfall is not appealing. I'm not sure if the seller will lower the price but we are going to try. I'm hoping the seller will be reasonable. Has this happened to anyone before where the seller has lowered the price after the survey?

I would negotiate but it's unlikely the seller will accept £40k under. They might go for £20k lower as they would be in the same situation with another buyer. Its always worth an ask. If not I would consider pulling out and see what happens

I’ve been the vendor v recently in your situ and met the buyer halfway because we were so far in we needed to sell. It was more duress than anything. We needed the cash ASAP.

You can only ask.

We live in quite an unusual building and hard to compare it to anything else locally. It had full asking price offers including ours but the survey came back that it was overvalued by nearly 100k! We ended up agreeing a price with the seller that was about 40k less than the accepted full asking price offer as they realised that other buyers would be in the same position. We were happy with this because we had a large deposit around 60% to cover the difference and knew we wanted to live here for a long time.

We got 20k off our house after the survey brought up a few things, but they were material things they should have told us about in the first place, and the sellers needed to move quickly due to redundancy so weren't in a position to argue.

We remortgaged our house earlier this year, after doing £150k of work to it. Valuation came back 50k more than previous valuation. Surveyor (countrywide) blamed the fact there were no comparables within 0.5 miles that had sold in last 3 months. We eventually budged him up 50k after a house did sell, but it ruined our remortgage plans.

A much smaller, very dated house on our road with hardly any garden has just sold for 60k more than our mortgage valuation!

Surveyors are cautious, they’re worried they’ll get sued by the mortgage co if they over value and it is repossessed. Doesn’t mean the EA valuation was wrong (although EAs do tend to be optimistic to say the least), just that the surveyor is cautious.

I would try to negotiate with the sellers, as any other buyer may have the same surveyor and the same valuation. But ultimately it depends on whether you’d rather pay the agreed price or walk away.