What a valuation is actually for

There is a trick as old as estate agency: three agents come round, and the one who says the biggest number wins. It is a trick because the number that wins the instruction is not the number that sells the house. It is the number that gets you a board in the garden and, six weeks later, a conversation about a price reduction.

Why the highest figure costs you

A house listed too high sits. Buyers who could afford it filter past it on the portals; buyers who do view it use the time on the market to negotiate. By the time the price is right, the listing is tired, and the offers come in under where an honest price would have started. Across our area last year, homes that needed a reduction sold for 6% less than their first asking price and took 71 days longer to agree.

What we do in the hour

We look at the house, and then at what has actually sold nearby: completed prices from the Land Registry, not the hopeful ones still on the portals. We factor in the things that genuinely move a price here: the condition of the roof and windows, the running costs the EPC implies, parking, the garden’s aspect, and how many similar houses are for sale this month.

What you get back

A written figure within two working days, the three to five comparable sales it rests on, and a plain account of what would move it up or down. No obligation to instruct us, and no withdrawal fee if you do and change your mind after twelve weeks.

If our figure is lower

Ask every agent to show their workings. Ours will sit on completed sales you can look up yourself. If someone else’s rests on houses that are still for sale, you have learned something useful about their figure.