Owning your own home

My last two moves I have gotten a mortgage through Coventry for intermediaries and on neither occasion have they done an in-person valuation. To be honest the valuation was never even mentioned - Might be worth a look.

I successfully appealed a beneath asking valuation, last year - they did a desktop and based it on floorspace only, but we asked for an in person valuation and they bumped it up to what we’d agreed. Worth checking process is, I’d say

Long time ago now, but ours came back valued under what we offered. I put together a pack with recently sold comparable properties, their asking and selling prices, asking prices for comparable places currently on the market and I think what those would sell for if the asking/sold price ratio was the same. It helped that I’m in a little nest of streets with about 250 houses that are the same size and style. Came back revalued to what we offered. No idea if my stuff convinced the valuer or if they just thought “well if she’s desperate to overpay let her”.

The other approach is to reduce your offer because you are overpaying. We didn’t because the market was hot and our price was fair.

Speak to the agent first. There's a good chance they'll have a good relationship with the surveyor and will be able to change their val with a list of comps etc. I used to see this quite a bit and it was very rare the surveyor wouldn't budge.

It happened to me last year, I met the seller in the middle of our offer and the valuation.

Personally I wouldn't be appealing an undervaluation as a buyer, it's the sellers issue not yours.

Exchanged on the garages today.

The problem for me is that if the seller relisted, it would go above the asking price in minutes. The valuers have got it wrong. I spoke to HSBC and they won't reassess it, so I will look at other lenders.

The problem for me is that if the seller relisted, it would go above the asking price in minutes.

True. I do wonder if the current situation in Europe will put the brakes on somewhat, but that's going to have to some lag, if it happens at all.

Has anything in the history of ever put the brakes on London house prices?

You might get something cheap in the line of "Oligarch's lair" currently?

Unless the next person is willing to top up with cash they will likely be in the same situation, unless there are comparable - completed at that price- properties nearby, another Valuer will use the same metrics as the last one.

2008 crash for a quarter or two, other than that ww1 and ww2

Someone could come in and be less price sensitive - round here cash buyers are a real thing

round here cash buyers are a real thing

I'm sure you've considered this, but when I bought my place in a very toppy market 2012-ish my valuation was £10k under the price agreed. I could just about scrape together the amount to cover the shortfall (increased deposit by £10k) and when it came to new mortgage time after 2 years the valuation had caught up and exceeded the price paid by a decent amount. If you want to move quickly and can find the funds from somewhere that would be the easiest solution...

Ww3 then?

unless there are comparable - completed at that price- properties nearby

There are literally loads. The valuer must have been smoking crack.

10% on (presumably) a 900k+ property, is probably beyond most people's ability to scrape it together though.

I am for expropriating Russian-owned properties, but I don't want to live in central / west London.

Ha, yeah, we're talking much different scales of finance here admittedly...

Has anything in the history of ever put the brakes on London house prices?

2008 and Brexit did, briefly.

The problem for me is that if the seller relisted, it would go above the asking price in minutes. The valuers have got it wrong. I spoke to HSBC and they won't reassess it, so I will look at other lenders.

Just had a look online and it looks like HSBC challenge tolerance is 20%, which is mad at London prices. I work in the property dept of NBS and our process is pretty fair in comparison IMO

Have you asked the vendors for a potential reduction?

Bridging loan company did it to me too! And the amount I wanted was less than that 10% figure.

Not everyone is buying at 90%+ LTVs though, it's common for the constraint to be affordability / income multiples rather than deposit size.

True, but if the bank says its worth 90k less, you still need to find that 90k. Unless I misread and they are reducing their mortgage offer amount by 10%.