UK and European real estate valuation and sale price differences 2010: IPD evidence (in partnership with RICS)

It is no surprise that the valuation of UK commercial property has had its share of criticism as a consequent of the economic downturn during the financial crisis. Determining the value of a [commercial] property is an increasingly difficult venture during such times of global market instability when transaction volumes fall. Market valuation is a proxy for a price and prices are not established by what has gone before but by the direction a market is heading. Valuation is by nature largely reactive: the gap between valuation and sale prices are largely due to a market of imperfect information; not up-to-date information and not shared information between valuers and sellers. IPD carries out annual Valuation and Sale Price reports on both the UK and some major European markets for the RICS. This research measures the differences between the previous valuation of any properties that are subsequently sold (the adjusted market valuation) and the sale price, having adjusted for any time differences between the sale price and the previous valuation, including any capital expenditure. The IPD analysis covers the UK and European markets and addresses two key questions: 1. How much do sale prices differ from previous valuations? 2. Are differences random or were sale prices consistently above or below the latest valuation? // During the crisis in the UK, the average difference between an assetís sale price and its preceding adjusted market valuation (referred to as the ëweighted average direction differenceí) was -4.8% in 2008 and, -0.9% in 2009. In 2010 this reversed in the UK and the average difference between the sale price and the valuation was 8.3% when adjusted for the level of value. Unadjusted, the difference was 4.4% in 2010 (compared to -5.8% in 2008 and -1.0% in 2009). This suggests that, for the first time since the financial crisis, UK valuers have underestimated the level of prices in 2010 and the largest underestimate was for the more valuable properties. The commercial property markets in France, Germany and the Netherlands all showed a positive weighted average direction difference in 2010, with sale prices exceeding valuations by 5.0% in the Netherlands, 2.8% in France and 0.4% in Germany. The overall results for the four countries generally show that there was an increase in the proportion of properties being sold at a price above the IPD Market Adjusted Valuation.