But that's the whole basis of how a RICS valuation is finalised, that they consider the evidence of recent sales for similar properties -
https://www.rics.org/globalassets/r...parable-evidence-in-real-estate-valuation.pdf
So when we showed them 6+ properties that had sold in the last 6 months that had sold for far more than their valuation of our larger 3 bedroom flat, what was their excuse? That the market and other buyers were wrong for paying that much? What about the fact that the amount they valued it at wouldn't get you anything like a similar flat in that area at the time.
I know exactly how they come to their valuations and they still clearly get it wrong on a regular basis. They don't even bother going into the properties either which can make a huge difference to values. Sometimes they don't even go and look at the bloody house and do it all online based purely on recent sales in the area.
You seem to think they are some highly accurate metric of property prices. They aren't. If they can't work out the value of a flat that is a carbon clone of 100 other flats in an estate where there is a regular turnover of properties then they are clearly not that good.
Dismissing them as complete **** is a laughable. We're talking a valuation difference of £55,000 here - as mentioned earlier, my frustrations lie with the estate agents for allowing the property to be marketed at such a level and not managing the expectations of the vendor.
So you want estate agents to sell houses for less than people are willing to pay for them because.... If a house sells for an amount, that is what it was worth at that point in time to that buyer. Whether they overpaid for it is by the by. I know plenty of people who have had undervaluations from mortgage surveys and none of them overpaid for their homes based on the local house prices.
We looked at probably about 30 houses and plenty were overpriced and its quite easily to tell when one is when you look at enough and you know the area. We saw properties that needed 50-100k of work on them valued like they had already had that work done on them and you could tell straight away that the estate agent didn't want to be there because there was no chance anyone was buying the house at asking or anywhere near.
Estate agents are a mixed bag. Some will put it on for whatever you want and others will tell you to hop it if they think you are asking too much and it won't sell. Our estate agent when we were selling was trying to get us to go higher than we thought we should because they thought it would impress us. We knew we wouldn't get that for it and we wanted to sell. We ended up getting very close to what we put it on for because we knew the market value. It still took a while to sell.
Mental. After almost the same thing happening with our first solicitors (that dumped us because of their mistake!) it's absolutely insane that this has happened again. How can a bank, of all organisations make such a massive mistake? 
