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Jessica Darnbrough
The “soft and fragmented” property market is causing valuations to fall short of buyer expectations, RP Data has claimed.
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Speaking to The Adviser, RP Data’s head of corporate affairs Craig Mackenzie said while most property valuations were failing to match up with expectations, this was reflective of the property market rather than “underhanded” tactics of valuers.
“There is a lot of uncertainity in the market, which is wreaking havoc with valuations,” Mr Mackenzie said.
Mr Mackenzie’s comments come just days after The Adviser published a story which reported that conservative valuations were harming brokers’ bottom lines.
Steve Waters, a director at Right Property Group, told The Adviser that time pressures, the inexperience of some valuers and increasing professional indemnity insurance were combining to cause the inconsistencies.
While a majority of brokers agreed with Mr Walter’s thoughts on the topic, many argued that valuers were often “underhanded” and possibly in “cahoots” with the major lenders to ensure valuations were coming back well under expectations.
“At the end of the day, the banks instruct the valuers what they want on the valuations so that they are protected,” one broker, 'Andrew S', wrote on the website.
Other brokers were annoyed that valuations fluctuate so much from company to company.
“Based on my opinion, valuers are not consistent. Last month I have had a full valuation done from one bank $700,000, next week same property was valued from different bank $570,000. I just could not understand how valuation could differ $130,000 within a matter of weeks,” 'A Rubel' told The Adviser.
Mr Mackenzie agreed that varying valuations were a “huge bug bear” for brokers, who are crying out for “consistency and reliability”.
“At RP Data, we are hoping to put an end to the huge variations in valuations. We are currently working with all the lenders to ensure the instructions they provde their valuers with are all the same,” he said.
“Last year, we devised a standard form of valuer instructions and began the process of rolling this form out to lenders. This year, all the lenders will be implementing the standardised form, so I expect to see a lot more consistency in valuations moving forward.”
