I have got an estate agent coming round to value our house in an hour.

Have not had it valued for 18 months and with all the bad news about house prices dropping, am dying to know if we will be in negative equity or not!

if yes then we can kiss goodbye to moving to oz, one because we needed money from house to get there and two if we are in new equity now, and house prices continue to fall, by the time we get visa grant in 6 months, house will be worth even less

so fingers crossed xxx

Good luck hopefully prices in your area have rocketed

if the house for sale at the end of the street says anything then NO , prices have slumped massively. Our house is immaculate, and spent a bomb on it, realy dont wanna end up doing it up for nothing and end up owing. we will see in an house, fingers crossed.

good luck! - fingerscrossed the value hasn't gone down. It's awful if this property price situation causes people to be in negative equity...

not sure where you live - but we had our house valued 4 months ago - put it on the market at a value in-between two of the valuations....had viewers during the 3months it was up for sale but no offers despite dropping the asking price slightly twice. Have temporarily taken house off the market now whilst we go on holiday etc...but when we asked the agent we are going to use next time (he did one of the valuations) what he reckoned our house might realistically be valued at now - he said there was no reason why we shouldnt market it at our original asking price 4 months ago! All this house price business is getting confusing Dont know what to believe really as there's quite a few houses that went up for sale at around the same time as ours and they haven't sold either and many have dropped between £10,000 and £20,000 off the asking price too.
Thankfully we got our visa's last April and did a validation trip Nov/Dec last year.....so we now have till March2012 to actually move - although we really want to go this year..... We're just hoping to have better luck 2nd attempt at selling....

Got everything crossed for you. Good luck. Mind you, a valuation means sod all if no buyers are going to come through the door unfortunately but sending good vibes

How depressing, after spending 10k on 1yr doing house up, it is now worth 10-15k less than last year when it was a sh*t hole.

On the plus side, agent rekons that it will be bought by first person to view it, but it's getting someone to view it in the first place.

Agent rekons only way of a defo sale is by paying buyers deposit. On top of losing 10/15k on value.

Hubby wont agree to sell, and agent said house will lose 1k per month in next 10 months. So we will be close to negative equity.

Just want to cry, hubby wont sell because he 'loves' the house, and doesnt want to pay double our mortgage on rental, but if visa is granted december time (and the rate they are working maybe mar09 which is more depressing), noone will want to buy then and we will have to do a validation trip costing
5k on top of the 10k we will lose on house.

The whole situation is depressing me so much, just want a decision on visa so we can decide what to do. Hubby doesnt understand the stress it is causing me.

im sure things will work out for you in the end karma on its way to you

Really sorry to hear your valuation wasn't good.
Let's hope the situation improves or at least doesn't get any worse....
I truly hope you manage to work something out by the time your visa's arrive.
Best of luck with everything....
Sometimes all you want is a place of your own - and then it becomes a chain around your neck! So frustrating!

Good luck, fingers and toes crossed for you x

get another valuation done we got 3 done when we were selling and the diff in them was massive. If the agent is so sure that the first person will buy, then it must be a fab house, so perhaps you will get more for it.

Maybe the agent has somebody lined up and wahts to get them a good deal lol it happens u know get a second opinion or even a third...doesnt cost you owt

Agree with above...

Try not to be to disappointed, go and get at leased another agent around!Remember they work in funny ways ( sharks the lot of them ) if you ask me.
If i may give you my opinion,
pull the plug now why you can before the situation gets so much worse,then you can start a fresh in oz and will not have to throw the keys back-in, which awaits so many in 6- 12 months time.
Good luck in what ever you decide.

Can you not keep it as a rental? At least you've have the mortgage covered, just wouldn't have the equity you want to move over. Sorry you didn't get better news. Give your husband a slap from me and tell him he needs to listen to you.

thanks everyone for your kind words of support. feel much better today. hubby never listens to me (dont know where im going wrong!) he does have some useful words of wisdom tho, hubby has convinced me that agents are desperate for sales so by giving houses away, they still make their 1%.(id like to think he's right!) Also come to realise that i cant have everything NOW and cant always get my own way .

was going to rent it, but dont like the thought of having tenants and us being so far away. also was told that we would have to pay tax on it in oz.

Visa's will come when they come, and everything will sort itself out in its own time. Like hubby said with valuation we are making money when we sell, we cant lose something we never had, in the sense that it was worth this now worth that, as lond as we get what we paid for it and not in neg equity there is nothing to worry about. what we get profit wise at the end is in his word ("better than a kick in the d**k!").

Looking around me there are people in alot worse situations than me, but they dont always show it. (not moaning gits like me!). And if worse thing in my life is a bad valuation then i should consider myself lucky.

worst case scenario is a validation trip, which is expensive but will give us the chance to see if we really like it in oz.

Good luck to everyone in their move, wherever you are up to in the process. As prob everyone on here there are bad days and good days. but the goal at the end is what we are aiming for.

get another valuation, also you do not have to put it on at what the agent values it at. When we were in the UK we sold two properties the first one we added another 15k on to agents valuation and we got it, I think even I was surprised. On the property we sold before coming here we got 3 agents in and there was 100k, yes thats right 100k price difference on the valuations, fair enough we were selling it with a couple of building plots but how on this earth can agents be so far out
Ignore this agent, get another two in and then consider from there. Don't tell them that you are going to Australia as they will think your desperate.