Why do surveyors say they can value when they don’t?
6 June 2026(2026 June: LinkedIn) In my opinion, valuation is about starting from scratch. Valuation based on evidence of what someone else has paid/rented for a different property is comparison. Knowing how to compare isn’t the same as knowing how to value.
In 2009, I was invited to talk to a group of surveyors, mostly, about how to value when there is no evidence. I thought very carefully while preparing my answer to read out loud and spent almost the entire time boring the audience. I didn’t set out to bore; on the contrary, it was a detailed explanation on how to value when there’s no evidence. I thought it fascinating and would hold people’s attention, but when I noticed a few people yawning I realised that what I was saying had become boring. The room wasn’t warm enough for people to yawn to stay awake. The possibility that what i was saying was so relaxing that yawning was the only way for them to avoid falling asleep. But if that were the case, then after I’d finished talking I would’ve expected some questions; most people departed as soon as they could. A couple of people did come up to me afterwards to ask questions, they were tenants, but none of the surveyors did.
I guess the answer I gave was not what they wanted to hear. Generally, people in property are very good at not listening to anything they don’t want to hear so maybe that attitude has rubbed off on their advisers. Perhaps explaining the difference between ‘need’ and ‘want’, a fundamental principle in marketing, was beyond them. Most surveyors are employees so don’t have any experience of being employers, let alone setting up on their own. When advising company directors and proprietors it’s important to have an understanding, personal experience even, of how a business is run. Contributing ideas and solutions for dealing with the sort of issues that bosses have to deal with regularly appeals to clients. For example, how to be rid of troublesome employees without being taken to an employment tribunal. How a corporate tenant can get rid of a lease without losing the company name. As I say to surveyors whenever they want me to take client’s instructions, I’m not a messenger boy, I’m a professional adviser.
The main reason that valuation is done by analogy is laziness. It’s much easier, quicker, and more profitable for surveyor revenue to assume that what someone else has paid for something else would be paid pro-rata for the property in question. Valuation for company accounts is an example of not doing what is being paid for. When you look at the sort of properties that quoted propcos own, most is rubbish in the scheme of things yet somehow a resale market exists. From the discount between share price and last reported net asset value, it’s obvious that shareholders have no confidence in the valuations. Were it not for analogy, for reliance on comparable evidence passed off as valuation, the commercial property investment market would collapse.
( 2026-06-13 – LinkedIn views: 3,293. Supportive comments, including “Fabulous post”.)
Return to Article