Property Market

[PracticalLady]

Has anyone else noticed the huge difference in valuations between Zoopla and Rightmove? For example, our house is valued at £60,000 more on Zoopla than it is on Rightmove. We are trying to help my daughter buy a property and this discrepancy is not helping an already difficult situation. Also, is it true that the property market has slowed down now, following a rush to beat the new stamp duty rules, as one Estate Agent told us? Will this also affect house prices around the £300,000 plus mark, as we think it must do?

Yes, its especially bad with houses that have no modern data.

The house we have bought was last sold in 1994 and Rightmove thinks its worth £78,000 (low for its size) and Zoopla thinks £122,000 (top end price despite being a doer up).

We are buying it somewhere in the middle at just over £100,000.

It's best not to take online valuations too seriously, whether Zoopla, Rightmove or whatever.

If you want a slightly more realistic valuation then only an EA can provide it and even then their valuations are likely to be over optimistic so need to be taken with a slight pinch of salt.

It's just a fairly simplistic computer algorithm, I wouldn't take a great deal of notice.

These computer valuations really get shown for what they are where we live.

They've got no data for our house as we've been here 30 years. House above us sold for 1.5 million a year ago (direct sea view from a huge extension), in between them and us is a set of flats that sell for about 150k amd the other houses are all unique and dotted here amd there with varying sea views, parking and garden size.

There's no way a computer can have a scooby what our house is worth. I bet even an EA would slightly struggle. Maybe 500. Who knows!

If a house has sold more recently I think sites like move market are not too bad. Then you adjust for work done since sale before.

Ultimately look at as many local properties as you can and land registry sale prices. That helps give an understanding.

What offer gets accepted though depends on seller motivations. If they live there they need the money to move on. If its empty its a potentially different ball game. If its a do-er upper don't forget the costs of work now.

Our last house on Zoopla was estimated at 625K. Massive overestimate and nowhere near what it sold for.

How do you get at online valuation on Rightmove? I thought only Zoopla did online?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-value.html

Interesting as we aren't on the list for our postcode.

I assume that's because we've been here 30 years so they don't have data.

You can look at house price indexes - land registry do one (landregistry.data.gov.uk). You can choose locations, types of property and dates. It shows you what the average change in prices has been.

So if you knew what a house had sold for in 2007, you'd find the HPI for that type of house in that location, and the current HPI. Divide the current HPI by the original HPI. Then if you multiply the result by the original sale price, you can see what the house would cost if it had increased in value in line with the average.

It's just another measure of inflation and growth, but land registry have no direct interest in you selling your home, unlike Rightmove and Zoopla!