Hans asks: “Do you have any tips on the easiest and cheapest way to get your house valued?”

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Q&A 62 – Getting Your House Valued – Shownotes

David asks:

Do you have any tips on the easiest and cheapest way to get your house valued?

Thanks for your question Hans. There are certain ways you can get a valuation, so I’ll start from the easiest to the most complex and add some detail on each.

 

Getting Your House Valued – Online Valuation Tools & Sites

The first is to go online and use a house valuation tool, like Zoopla or Mouseprice. You enter the details of your house into their system and they crunch the numbers on comparatives, house price changes in the area, last sales price, additional features, etc, etc and they come up with a valuation.

The benefit of this approach is that it is free and it is very quick and easy. The downside is that, because it uses automated algorithms, it is often fairly inaccurate. One of the participants in the Moneystepper Savings Challenge, for example, recently sold their house and the sales price was £30,000 (or almost 15% above the Zoopla estimate).

 

Getting Your House Valued – Do It Yourself

The next way to value your house is to look yourself. Have a look around at recently sold properties and properties on the market in your region. You need to try and find very similar properties, or otherwise try to analyse the differences and how much that might add to the valuation.

For example, if a 3 bedroom property in the same style as your house sold last month for £200k, and the only clear difference was that you have built a £20k conservatory on yours, then it’s likely your valuation will be around £215-230k.

 

 

Getting Your House Valued – Using Estate Agents

The next method to value your property would be to get one, or more, estate agents round to give you a valuation. You just need to call the estate agent and inform them that you are thinking of selling and are talking to a few estate agents to get an understanding of the valuation. They will want to win your business, so will come round and give you a valuation. I would recommend that you get 3-4 different agents round and inform them that you are looking to sell reasonably quickly and ask for a valuation. This will give you a more realistic valuation, as if you are looking to sell, it is in the estate agents’ interest to tell you a higher valuation so that you list your property with them.

Again, this would be free. The only downside is that you need to be in when the estate agents are free and you’ll need to remember that the provided valuations will often be slightly above the real market value.

 

Getting Your House Valued – Chartered Surveyors

Finally, you could pay a chartered surveyor to provide you with a house report which will value the property at today’s market price, and also outline areas which may need attention in order to achieve full market value. These reports come at different levels and prices and I would only personally use these if you are looking to sell the property and are keen on obtaining a quick sale at full market value.

So, you didn’t explain why you wanted the valuation in your question Hans, but I hope that those four options outline the different methods available for valuing your property.

 

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