When a seller looks to sell their house to a property trader there are a number of approaches companies use to set their offer price. One of these is to offer to undertake a valuation of the property using a surveyor and then offer a percentage of the valuation.  Initially this sounds like a good way of getting an objective valuation and hence a fair offer.

However, it should be noted that property valuations can be influenced by the instructing party, so getting a valuation from an interested party is of questionable value, as the buyer can work to make the valuation lower.  If a seller wants to get a truly independent valuation they should go to RICs themselves, find a local surveyor and ask them to value the property. This will cost you no more than the costs offered by some property buying companies and will be truly independent. Then, armed with this information, the seller can determine the discount any offer made is against the market value of the property.

Sellers should bear in mind that what matters at the end of the day is the offer that is made in real money terms, rather than what percentage of a valuation it is.  If you are under time pressure, it may sound appealing to have a percentage of the valuation secured, but if your buyer influences the valuation to be lower than it would be if undertaken by an independent body, the actual money you get for your property could be lower than you expected. 
Always focus on getting an absolute monetary offer in writing as soon as possible as this is hard to change later.  We often hear stories where a buyer says they will give 85% of a valuation, and in the initial call, they talk up the possible value and hence the likely offer, however when the valuation comes back it is a lot lower and hence the actual offer will be reduced?... but by this time sellers are running out of time and hence under pressure to agree an offer and get a fast house sale.  At Fairdeal Homes, we make a monetary offer straight away, hence avoiding this issue, and not misleading property sellers. 

The moral of this is that sellers should :

• Not pay any money to get a valuation of their property
• Only make a decision once an actual offer price is given (not a % of a valuation)
• Always obtain your offer in writing.