It was reported in the Guardian today that lenders are delaying / stopping new mortgages because of difficulties with valuing a property. The consequence reported was that whole property chains are failing to complete due to one or two in the chain struggling to get the required valuation.
So why does this happen? Well you will see from our earlier posts on house prices that there is much confusion as to what is happening in the market. Halifax, Nationwide and Land Registry all offering different figures, some up, some down. The bottom line is the low volume of property transactions combined without continued recession uncertainty make it difficult for valuers.
That said, if your property is of fairly standard build, typical for its area, then it should not be difficult to arrive at a property valuation, here are some tips.
1 – Check out the actual sold prices in your street. These are the prices paid for a property, not what was advertised by the estate agent. You can find out what the sold prices are here … http://www.hometrack.co.uk/ … Simply type in your postcode, you will then get a list of sold prices and dates for your street.
2 – Next look at the list of properties sold and note the prices of any properties that are similar to yours (known to valuers as comparables).
3 – Next find out what the postcode price change is for your area. Enter the sold price for the comparable you found (in step 2 above) here http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/calculator.asp … along with the current quarter / year. Then enter the current quarter / year and “calculate”4 – You have the current valuation for your comparable. But you need to do one last check, make any allowance for differences between your property and the comparable, e.g. conservatory added, general condition, etc.
The 4 steps above will give you an approximate valuation for your property, it is not a RICS valuation but if you have a good comparable in your street then your valuation should be close to the RICS figure.
