Owning your own home

Just their desktop HPI valuation

My fun the last month for remortgage:

• Different lender with the best rate sent a valuation surveyor and knocked the price down 15% which pushed my LTV up.
  
• Existing lender with an average rate has given a HPI that puts the price up 10%
  
• Got a surveyor for the hell of it to see what other nasties I might have in store and they've put the price up 15%
  
  

The range between these is significant. I asked my broker whether the first lenders valuation could be challenged, the answer was not really. Very little of that valuation is based on the property, yes the condition of the building, etc... but a lot is based on what has sold in your area that is equivalent (space and building condition, not the quality of finish)... and COVID has mucked up sales enough to reduce the number of data points.

I'm probably going with the existing lender but for only a 2 or 3 year just whilst I push my LTV safely into a region the rates become way more favourable.

Depending on which of the above is believed by a lender, I'm either below 80% LTV or above... and the rate difference is large at that 80% boundary.