BCM - I can't really agree on your assertion that a price is what a person is prepared to pay for it.

Surely most buyers are obtaining a mortgage. Even those who are cash buyers are likely to get a mortgage valuation and survey carried out. Do these people pay more than what the surveyor values at? I'm not sure too many people would want to pay more than it is valued at.

Agents / sellers are over-valuing property. All my husbands agent forums discuss this. Sellers still trying to obtain prices the same as in 2007 at the height of the market.

Statistically, the UK national average asking price is £236,000. The UK national average sale price is £163,000. Why such a vast difference if property prices are accurate in the first instance.

For the record, the definition for the market value for a property is:

The estimated amount for which a property should exchange on the date of valuation between a willing buyer and a willing seller in an arm’s-length transaction after proper marketing wherein the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently and without compulsion.

This is the rule to which RICS surveyors work when undertaking mortgage valuations.

Lots of property sales are experiencing lower valuations than the agreed sale price currently due to surveyors not finding enough comparable sale data from other recent sales of very similar property (size, style and location).

Hopefully somebody will find some of this information useful to them.

Megans husband