market appraisal of house...odd margins

[blitz]

Help! I have had 5 estate agents value my home all within a 3 day period. Same set up for each visit and guesstimates vary by as much as �74,000!!

One even came in �19k lower than his colleague valued the house a year ago.

Should I add all together and divide by 5 or do as they do...pluck a figure out of the air?

Confused or what

[Miss Zippy]

How desperate are you to sell?  If you�re in no rush there�s no harm putting it on the market at the highest valuation and see what interest you get. It�s just a case of �suck it and see� really. You can always drop the price after all but you�ll kick yourself if you put it on too low and it is snapped up and you�ll wonder if you could have got more. If you have a difference of �74k between valuations, then I�m guessing you have a property worth in excess of �400k, in which case you can probably expect people to make offers of around �15k to �20k below the asking price anyway (unless you have a particularly desirable property in a desirable area) so you need to factor this in.  Was there one particular agent whose judgement you most trusted? Do you know what other houses similar to yours in your area are going for?  

[blitz]

thanks for your advice. house only worth 250-320k so you can see why i'm confused.

Last house to sell like mine/in our area was mine...8 yrs ago so difficult to value, i know but what a difference from e/agents!

Hope to put on market april time so have a few weeks yet but want/not need to sell soonish.

PB

[Miss Zippy]

That is a big difference in valuation!  Last time I sold a property 3 years ago I went for the highest valuation, knowing it was a bit on the high side but was consequently happy to accept an offer for �7k less (this was a �150k flat to put it in context).  Had I gone for the lower end valuation (�120k) I would have lost out on at least �23k.

[blitz]

Back to the drawing board,i guess. Can't quite see how there should be such a massive variation on the market appraisal other than 'to get the business' and 'to sell low to make a buck'

 

Ho hum...all the best,PB