that are engrossed to your property, the greater the chance of achieving an acceptable offer as swiftly as possible.

The advertising of the property and finding the right buyer at the right price is a process requiring skill and judgement. Marketing on the web is not always appropriate and certainly not the only method we use. We provide measured details, photographs and floor plans to prospective property buyers and will submit to the relevant media depending upon type of property and market conditions.
It is for a buyer to eventually to decide. But as estate agents, our job in residential sales is to sell your property for the best price that we can get for it. The first step in doing that is to value it i.e., make an assessment of what we believe we can sell the property for. Some people think, from the variation in valuation figures given to them from different estate agents, that this is merely a question of popping along to meet the vendor, recalling the price that a property down the road sold for and coming up with an intuitive guess as to what could be achieved.

Many factors play a part an explanation of the process and the market forces that influence property values may be of help in understanding this concept of 'what your property is worth'.

When we at Prime Move carry out a valuation of a property we assess an 'open-market' valuation. It varies from a lender's surveyor's 'valuation' in as much our valuation is simply the price we believe we can sell the property for (open-market). A surveyor may take into account other factors, and err on the side of caution due to the fact that the report to the lender needs to be a safe one for the lender's purposes.

Estate agents and Valuer’s alike will start with a base line of comparative data; what are the most similar properties to the one being valued, what they sold for and when. Information are then considered to see what distinguishes the property in question to those that have been sold or are on the market. In making these comparisons and distinctions, square footage/figures are often used, again as a baseline. If the property being valued is in better decorative order, well maintained and the garden has been properly landscaped these differences and market conditions mean that we may value higher or lower. Sometimes we will adjust our assessment after marketing of the property has started and we can gauge responses.

This is because from the people we have recorded who are looking to buy a property, they usually have fairly specific needs and set budget and they may well have viewed a number of properties with us over a period of time so we know what the buyers want and what they are ready to purchase it.

It is the market that dictates the value of your property and, more accurately, but less helpfully, the value of your property is worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for it!