Can I trust online valuation websites?

Why your property’s valuation is a vital part of the selling process

There are many important steps involved with selling almost any type of freehold or leasehold property, whatever your reason for seeking a buyer – whether that’s moving overseas, coping with a family change like a divorce, needing funds to fight against repossession of your current home, or anything else.

One of the most crucial aspects of the selling process happens early, and that is getting a valuation for your home. A valuation is an assessment of your house or flat’s current market selling price potential, and it can affect a number of decisions that you might make.

If you are given a low-price valuation for your home, it might inspire you to look at ways that you might be able to improve your property to make it more valuable. For example, if there is significant structural damage at the home, this may cause some prospective buyers to view it as worth less than you are seeking. Even if these buyers remain interested in the property, they could reduce their offer by at least the amount of money it would cost them to fix the issue.

Alternatively, you might get a very optimistic valuation of your flat or house, and this could lead you to take a chance on trying to sell via an auction. The high price valuation may make you think that many people will be interested in your home, creating a competitive atmosphere at the auction that leads to many bids, driving the final sale price of the property much higher.

Those are just two of the many ways in how a valuation can be a vital part of the property selling process. But how should you go about obtaining this price estimate for your home?

Traditional ways of getting a valuation include asking estate agents or auctioneers for free, no-obligation estimates about the price at which they think your home could sell. But more and more people are using online property valuation websites and tools to get this estimate, although there are some important pros and cons to know about taking this approach.

Keep reading to learn more in this guide about the various aspects of getting an online home valuation, as well as options for how to sell your property once you settle a valuation.

The advantages of using an online valuation for your property

When you want a quick guide to your home’s value, property websites can be very inviting. They offer a free way to get a fast projection of what your house or flight might be worth, and you can get these estimates in seconds. That compares to the lengthier process of contacting an estate agent to arrange for them to visit your home and give you a more in-depth valuation.

Companies like Zoopla and rightmove have very user-friendly options for getting an estimate on the price of your house or flat, no matter where in the UK it is located. Typically all you have to do is enter your address and the sites will give you a projected price for the property, letting you see the value not only of your home but also other properties on your street and nearby locations.

Depending on which site you use, the price you’ll be given might be the value at which the home last sold, or it might be a projected range for what price you could get if you sold now. This can be very useful information to help you determine whether or not you want to sell your home soon, or wait until a later date when your home might potentially increase in value.

Drawbacks with using online home valuation websites

But you should be cautious about making a final decision to sell using only the estimates you get from valuation websites. That’s because they calculate their home values by analysing a lot of data, including past sale prices and information about your neighbourhood, in determining the projected value of your house or flat. And the data that they use can sometimes be out of date, sometimes by several years, meaning your valuation might not be very accurate.

For example, these websites are unable to track very recent changes in your area that might significantly affect your house price, making the estimates inaccurate and not very useful when trying to get an idea of the price you might be able to ask when you sell your property.

These websites also can’t factor into their estimates any work you might recently have done to increase the value of your home, such as tidying the garden or installing new bathroom or kitchen equipment. Taking these simple steps can help to boost the sale price that you can seek for your home, yet you won’t get a good idea of how much such changes are worth through a valuation website.

How to find a buyer after settling on a valuation for your property

Once you have settled on a final valuation for your home – whether that’s using an online tool, quotes from estate agents or any other method – you will then have to make the important choice of which approach to use for finding a buyer. Often, you can select from selling to a quick buyer like LDN Properties, selling at an auction, selling on your own, or using an estate agent.

One way to narrow down the options is to write down your main priorities with the sale of your house or flat, including your goal selling price, whether you are prepared to pay any commission, and the timeline you’d like for selling. Then compare these factors against the details all of four strategies below to find out which most closely suits your needs.

Just note that all of the choices have unique benefits and drawbacks in terms of whether they charge fees, how long they take and other important factors. By way of example, if you sell your home using an estate agent or an auctioneer then you will need to pay them commission, but this will not apply if you sell without any help or if you sell to a quick home buyer.

Selling to a quick home buyer

Quick buyers are so-called because they have the money available to purchase your home right away, without needing to wait to initially get approved for a mortgage to cover the cost of the transaction – a process that can take many weeks or months. As a result, selling to a quick buyer often takes just weeks, covering every step from the beginning to the end.

Another reason why quick buyers like LDN Properties are so popular is that they will never charge an owner any commission when buying their home, which reduces your total selling expenses. This compares favourably to selling via an auctioneer or an estate agent, as you would need to pay them fees if they sell your home, and this will increase your expenses.

If your home has any structural damage, legal problems or any other negative factor, yet you want to sell it “as is” without resolving the issue first, a quick buyer can be a great selection. That’s because they are renowned for making competitive and speedy offers to buy practically any leasehold or freehold home no matter its age, condition, location, shape, size or type.

For more than 20 years, LDN Properties has made a wide range of purchases throughout the UK that includes, but is not limited to, flats without a leasehold information form, British Iron and Steel Federation houses, inherited properties, homes that have rot problems, flats that lack an Energy Performance Certificate, houses with a septic tank, properties with noisy neighbours, homes that have survey problems, flats without an External Wall Fire Review form and many other situations.

For your additional assurance when selling a property, you can also ask individual quick buyers if they are able to prove that they are registered with The Property Ombudsman (TPO). This independent organization writes rules to guard owners against fraud in the quick buying industry, and all true TPO members such as LDN Properties must commit to these policies. Never sell your home to a non-TPO member because there’s the risk that it is a scam.

You can find out fast, for free and easily whether or not a quick buyer is genuinely registered, starting by visiting TPO’s website and clicking on the “Find a Member” tab on the left side of the welcome page. You’ll be asked to type in the name of a quick buyer and then, if they are genuinely registered like LDN Properties, you’ll receive their full membership details. But if the company is not truly a member of the organization then you will not get any results.

Selling at a property auction

Or you could try your luck with an auction, where people will have the chance to place bids of increasing value on your home, and the top price bid at the time that the auction ends is announced as the winner and therefore the person that will be buying your property.

But you might not receive any bids on the home, in which case it goes unsold, and you would then have to begin again with seeking a buyer, which may extend the selling timeline much longer. Alternatively, you may get just a single bid at the reserve price – this is the lowest price at which you agree your house or flat can sell. Beware that a bid at this amount is a binding legal agreement to sell the property, and the buyer can sue to enforce it if necessary.

For this reason, it’s imperative that you devise a reserve price that is estimated to produce some profit from the sale after you have deducted the auctioneer’s fees. As a guide, this fee is often charged at 2.5 of a home’s sale price, but the actual amount can be higher or lower than this. The fee adds to your total costs because it is taken out of the auction proceeds immediately.

Auctioneers charge fees for their work in selling your home, which includes putting together a listing that describes your property and includes photographs of the inside and outside, advertising this listing, hosting the auction itself and overseeing a successful sale.

If you are trying to sell your property as fast as possible, you might want to consider rother methods because an auction can take a long time. There’s a long wait of weeks or months between when you decide to sell this way and when the auction happens. And then if your home sells, the buyer has about a month to finish their needed tasks to complete the purchase.

Selling without any assistance

You could also think about selling your home without any help from an auctioneer or an estate agent, but this means you will need to take care of all the tasks needed to secure a buyer. This includes making a listing, advertising it, scheduling viewings and hearing offers from buyers.

All of these steps will require a lot of time and effort, and potentially money, and it could quickly become quite stressful. That’s why you should only really pursue this approach if you have successfully sold a home before or if you have a suitably qualified friend or family member with such experience this agrees to help you with the selling process at no cost.

It may also take many months or even a year to sell on your own, which isn’t ideal for those owners who want to sell speedily. Also, someone can make an offer but then cancel it, causing the sale to collapse. You would then need to begin again with your search for another buyer, and this might extend the total selling timeline by many more months.

Perhaps the only obvious benefit of selling without any assistance is that you will save money by not having to pay commission to an estate agent or an auctioneer for their work in finding a buyer for your property. But in many cases you could discover that any saving you make as a result could be eliminated by the funds you need to spend on the various selling tasks.

Selling with an estate agent

Homeowners that want to sell as quickly as feasible might want to consider other options than using an estate agent, as this can be a slow process. It might take many months or even more than an entire year before you get a serious offer, and even then the buyer could change their mind and rescind the offer, making the sale collapse. You’d then have to start again with searching for a buyer.

A further downside of selling via an estate agent is that you will need to pay them commission if they manage to sell your flat or house. This fee pays for the effort that they put in to finding a buyer, which starts with creating and advertising a listing, then organizing viewings and hearing offers, and finally guiding a genuine offer to the last step of exchanging contracts.

Many estate agents charge this fee within a range from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of a property’s eventual sale price. This commission will cause your overall expenses to rise because it will be subtracted from the final sale proceeds. If you are looking to reduce your costs when selling then you might want to review options that won’t require that you pay commission, including selling on your own or selling to a no-fee quick home buyer.