Geoff Gault makes the point in his letter in the May 20 issue of MI, that the value of an item is ‘the price that another person is willing to pay for it in an open market situation’. Fine, but how does this square with the alleged discounts that particularly buy-to-let investors are receiving from developers? In this instance, the builders are also selling in an open market situation, and presumably will only discount because nobody wants to pay the full price.
Following Geoff Gault’s rationale, the discounted price becomes the value. How happy would that make brokers? The challenge one should make to valuers is in the relevance of the comparable properties they use in arriving at their figure. There are also several very useful free websites now available for checking prices actually achieved in an area. Valuers have to tread a careful path in satisfying the requirements of lender, broker and borrower, and they are never going to be able to please all of the people all of the time.
Paul Rumbold
Marketing director
Cheval
