Appraisal versus Valuation

Hi, im in the middle of sorting legal stuff to do with separation.... and dividing our investment properties. what a pain! the ex has made me an offer but i havent accepted until I know its a good deal and had advice from my solicitor and mortgage broker so I can be sure of refinancing etc. basically I had an appraisal from the real estate agent who manages the property.. and its come out $70,000 more than what we paid for it less than 2 years ago.. (without telling them why i wanted the figure) however, how close is the appraisal from real estate agent, to what a valuer would put on it..? Im also wondering if the ex has to know this new higher figure as that may make him rescind the offer.. but i guess this isnt the right forum for that question.. any advice greatfully accepted.
 
A bank won't take an agent's appraisal. And agents have an incentive to over appraise anyway (to get you to think about how nice it would be to sell at that price).

I would use a proper valuer who doesn't have an incentive to value it either above or below.
Alex
 
agents are not valuers. Valuations stand up in court appraisals are based on speculative probable sales.

Valuers go to university agents are trained by real estate institutes with micky mouse teaching methods (I've done it! :D )
 
I agree about the formal training of valuers, but they still phone local real estate agents to get a "feel" for what the local market is and check values, and while they can look up the RP data, it is always a little stale and looking at a piece of paper doesn't give them any idea of what a house was "really" like.

So valuers utilise real estate agents in their quest to put a value on houses. And having worked in that section of the bank many years ago, they were always very conservative, though with most banks outsourcing these days, that has perhaps changed (but not the last valuation we had - $150K sold for $205K same month - perhaps a little TOO conservative).

Wylie
 
Back
Top