Why estate agents inflate valuations, and what it costs you.

Here is the play, in three steps. Three local estate agents come to value your house. They walk the rooms, ask about your timeline, and then write a number on a piece of paper. Two of those numbers are close to each other. The third is twenty thousand pounds higher. You sign with the third agent.

You should not have. The third agent did not see something the other two missed. They knew something you did not: the number is what wins the instruction. The price is just a marketing tool. Once you sign, the work begins, and the work is convincing you, over the next three months, to drop the price to where the first two agents already put it.

A property that launches at the right price gets the heaviest traffic in its first two weeks. Rightmove pushes new listings to email alerts. Local buyers who have been waiting compare it to what they have already seen. The first viewings turn into second viewings, and offers follow.

A property that launches over-valued gets the same launch traffic, then gets ignored. Three weeks in, your agent calls and suggests a small adjustment, ten thousand off. Then another ten. By the time the price is correct, you have lost the biggest pool of motivated buyers and your listing carries a “stale” flag in everyone's portal alerts. The number you end up accepting is often lower than the realistic valuation you were offered at the start.

When the agent quotes a number, ask them to show you the comparables they used. Not a brochure. The actual three or four recent sales on streets near yours, with the sold prices, property types, and condition. If they cannot produce them on the spot, or in writing within twenty-four hours, treat the valuation as a guess dressed up in confidence.

Then ask what their average time on market is for properties in your price band, and what their offer-to-completion percentage is. Both are knowable numbers. An agent who has them at hand is telling you something about how they run their book. An agent who deflects is telling you something different.

At Whittaker Property Group we quote one number, backed up by the comparables we used to reach it. If we are wrong about the market, we are wrong on the side of selling your house, not winning your instruction. The incentive is to price honestly and sell quickly. That is the entire point.