How can lender valuations be 100% accurate? Surely they provide a range?

[Spicegirl1234]

House we are trying to buy is 500K and we have offered that amount. Very similar houses on the same street have recently sold within a range of 475K and 500K. Would the valuation from our mortgage lender provide a range or do they usually come back with a specific figure?

We offered on a house that was on for X50 and had X48 accepted.

Leeds BS valued it at X48. I lol’d at the laziness of it.

They often do 'lazy' valuations not moving their backsides off of their chairs to actually visit the house or to properly look into 'unusual' situations. We had an issue with 2 of the houses in the street being 'sold' wayyy under the market price to family, which affected the 'valuation' of others afterwards.

However if you know other houses in that area are selling for less, what's making you prepared to pay more?

The lender valuation is not really about how much the house is worth, it's about how comfortable the lender is with the risk. If you have a low LTV, the lenders don't really care how much the house is worth, just that it's worth well over the amount they are lending so do desktop valuations, just agree to what you've offered etc. It's only when the gap between the loan and the "value" is small that they will start giving it more consideration and valuing more properly. When they start undervaluing, it is more about there being a level of risk that they aren't comfortable with than they think the house is worth the specific value they state.

When we sold my Dads flat in London the EA told us they sent the Valuer a load of information to justify the price that had been agreed.

Maybe not all EAs are as proactive as this but it worked and the Valuation was the exact figure we had agreed (which was quite different from the asking price). I can’t prove it but my suspicion is that a lot of Valuers just accept the price the EA tells them it has sold for. Unless they think it’s significantly overpriced when I hope they would be more honest.

I think you might be right. On the recent one we are now not buying the bank valuer asked her how she had arrived at the price (direct sale) and after she told him in depth how she had, he just accepted it. She said he seemed relieved to come across a seller with such a common sense approach.* I guess he is dealing with a lot of aspirational pricing right now.

*she said a lot of things that I now struggle to believe