The better information you have, the better placed you are to make good decisions. I always ask prospective clients what they want the valuation for. Often I can give someone the information they need in 30 seconds. 3 minutes. 5 minutes. Sometimes it takes 30 minutes. For them to go ahead and make good plans for themselves going forward.
If you have no intention of selling, do you want to hear a 30-minute pitch about how great said agent is at selling homes?
I’ve had thousands and thousands of ‘valuations’ that had nothing to do with selling. Open-plan extension plans, garden layouts, new kitchens, loft extension queries….
Quite often, someone not moving home is the best option. I’d tell them this quite happily.
There are two things to consider when getting a property valuation.
- What do you want the valuation for?
- Are you going to sell?
When I say what do you want it for, is because adding some context to a valuation is what makes it useful. A ‘valuation’ by itself doesn’t really mean much. We know that a typical estate agent sells less than 50% of what they list, so a ‘valuation’ is a coin-flip at best.
Nobody asks this, but it’s quite a helpful figure for planning.. “what’s the absolute lowest price you think this property will sell for?”
If they’ve give you a £500k ‘valuation’ but then say £450k…..
then you ask ‘if I wanted to guarantee selling in a month, what price would that be?’
‘What’s the absolute best price I could hope for?’
Something I see a lot is….
An agent values your home at £500,000. You plan everything around selling at £500k. You go and put your home on the market, and it doesn’t sell… but turns out the agent was giving the absolute best case scenario to you with no context and/or plan B.
If you’re going to sell
This conversation should be about a plan to maximise the sale price in the chosen timescale to the best possible buyer. A ‘valuation’ with no context is pointless if you’re selling.
Getting the highest price trumps all.
Transparent, good-quality conversations are what a valuation should be.
Simon
MD Mr Green
