Cash buyer only- lenders down value it??

[RainingYetAgain]

DS is looking to buy a place, and asked me to find out a bit more about a flat he spoted on Rightmove. Its listed as cash buyer only, but it doesn't look like a property that would be affected by cladding and appears to have 92 years on the lease. I rang the agent, and asked about it, and in particular why it was only suitabe for a cash purchaser. I wasn't expecting to be told that the vendor had specified a cash purchaser as it had been STC previously, but both times the lenders' valuer had undervalued the flat. Vendor had refused to accept a lower offer , but had now reduced the price slightly. I asked why the valuer had undervalued the property and was told that no similar property in the area had been sold recently.
I had a look at the Land Registry and a neighbouring property had been sold for 60K in 2016, and the Nationwide calculator valued it at about 75K now. There were a few others, sold about the same time for similar prices.
Its on the market for a lot more. Doesn't seem to have had any high quality improvements.
I know the property market is hot, although recently I've seen quite a lot of price reductions in his area. How reliable is the NW index do you think. Would it underestimate by 40% ???
Can't decide whether it is worth suggesting he goes to see it.

I've heard of a similar issue recently. No comparable properties in that the only other properties that had sold locally were totally different in either condition, length of lease, desirability and were two or three roads away from the property in question. Two or three roads make one hell of a price difference when you are talking properties close to the beach. It can be an issue occasionally.

Where I live prices hit a peak in 2016. I've seen a lot of flats sold in 2016 and then sold again in 2020/21 for a lower price than the 2016 price.

The seller of the flat your son is looking at sounds way off to me. The £60 to £75k jump sounds about right, possibly even generous, if the two flats are comparable.

Other issues that can make it difficult to raise a mortgage, or can lead to the mortgage offer being downgraded to a lower value. Any of these reasons could also make it a bad idea to buy with cash.

Being too high up in a high-rise block of flats - some lenders will specify a maximum floor number they will lend to because higher up flats can be more difficult to sell.

The property having any issues with subsidence or Japanese knotweed that the individual flat owners will share liability for.

Terms in the lease creating a significant liability for the leaseholders - a flat I looked at once and considered buying, I walked away from because it turned out the freeholder (which was the local council as it was an ex right-to-buy property) was planning a big refurbishment including new windows and insulation for the whole block and the bill passed on to the flat owners was going to be massive.

If a property is being marketed for cash buyers only that rings alarm bells for me. it means that people whose job it is to assess the probability of the purchase turning out to be a terrible idea will consider this property too big a risk. Buying with cash means taking on that risk yourself and potentially losing a lot of money and/or not being able to sell the property on when ready to move on.

So no method thinks the flat is worth what the vendor wants for it, not the NW valuation took, the real life surveyor and I guess you have also checked zoopla.
So the vendor is living in cloud cuckoo land and this is unlikely to be an easy purchase. I would walk away.

Yes I think he should leave it too. It is ex LA and I wondered about structural repair costs. One of my friends had an issue with costs of the window replacement scheme in her ex LA flat. It worked out about twice the cost her boss felt it should be- she worked for a building company.
It's ground floor and so was the 2016 sale
I think I was a bit shocked that the seller didn't accept that he was just asking too much after 2 surveyors thought it was too dear.

We have purchased flats previously and go through the leases carefully which stopped us making a mistake on one occasion We have never considered those that were cash only previously, as was fixed on the idea that cladding would be the main issue at the moment.
We live about 3 hours away, so don't know the area well which doesn't help.
Thanks for confirming that it's not a good idea.