Owning your own home

Hi mands

we've not met so I hope you don't mind me jumping in...

back in 2006 we were in a similar position to you. Our valuation come back 25K under offer. We'd been searching in the same area for 4-5 months and seen the 2 bed terraces go from 225K in the spring to 235K+ in the autumn so we felt the valuation was unrealistic.

I told the estate agent (who works for the seller, not you - she is only on your side as long as she thinks you are the best bet for a completed sale, and even then will push you as high as possible without losing the sale) ... I told the estate agent "hey, you did a great job of convincing us this place is worth X, help me convince the valuer". I also put together my own comparables. To increase these, if a place was close but not directly comparable I looked at the historic ratio between my house and that one and extrapolated sale price for ours based on that. I didn't go back to the agent to renegotiate down because (1) we'd got the sale agreed before the house went on the open market and I didn't want to lose that, and (2) I knew the market had moved since these houses were selling at £225K

The valuer (not Halifax, sorry) changed his valuation to our offer. So, it certainly is (or was) possible to get a valuation changed. But

• this was before the credit crunch
  
• I'd been looking for a place in that area all summer and lost out on a few houses on the same street at the valuation price so I was very confident in our offer
  
• I've always assumed the valuer thought "well if she'd that keen to overpay then sod her"
  
  

I guess my advice is that the valuer is protecting you as well as the vendor. They can be persuaded to change, but unless you are massively confident the valuation is genuinely unrealistically low I would try and reduce the price rather than up the valuation.