Most of the time when you purchase a property the valuer is merely trying to ascertain (through previous sold settled properties) that what you’ve paid is fair.
You pay $285,000 the valuation will (most likely) come back at $285,000.
You pay $666,666 the valuation will (surprisingly) come back at exactly $666,666!
But sometimes the valuation can fall short of the mark and here you’ve got a few options:
1. Accept the lower valuation and either contribute more of your funds or pay some more lender’s mortgage insurance (note if you’re borrowing a high percentage of the property’s value this may not be possible).
2. Use the opportunity to renegotiate the purchase price (you’d speak to the agent on this).
3. We can present comparable sales to the valuer to try and argue contest the valuation (this can be slow and doesn’t often have a high success rate).
4. You can use this information to discuss with your solicitor pulling out of the contract.
5. We can go to other lenders and try to get another valuation firm assigned to value the property (note, we cannot get another valuation at the same bank).
See below as Kirsty discusses these options –