All residents in Singapore will have received letters or fliers in your letterbox, from agents promoting themselves but taking center stage will always be, printed in bold “ Indicative valuation or X-value is $X,XXX,XXX, specific to your unit #xx-xx”. These figures are usually enticing enough to get a resident excited about his sale.
But how did these agents obtain this number for your specific unit? it ‘s actually quite simple, X-value is an algorithmic average of recent transactions either in the development itself or along the street. Sounds reasonable to use this value as your sale price? Depends.
What is X-value
Firstly when taking loans, HDB loans are more straightforward, valuation will be based on HDB’s panel of valuers. For private loans, one will go through financial institutions, and banks will then obtain their valuations from their own valuers. The x-value will actually have no bearings on the valuation of the unit.
Next, X-value treats all transactions as homogenous. However, this is never the case, pool facing units or units with a view will always command a premium over a low floor, carpark or wall facing unit. Thus, with this in mind, if recent transactions are all less desirable units or lower floor units, would that then be a disservice to you as a seller with a premium facing unit? And the same can be said vice versa, if a seller has a less desirable unit but decides to price much higher due to recent transactions, said seller may then find themselves in a bind when their unit is in the market for an extended duration as it has lost its value proposition to potential buyers. Ultimately, in a willing buyer-seller market, finding the common ground in value is what makes a successful transaction.
More Than Just a Sale
Furthermore, in most cases, a sale will usually translate into a purchase after and timeline management is of paramount importance. If a seller requires to sell their unit much higher than recent transactions to be able to comfortably afford their purchase, their financial planning probably needs a review or if their unit stays in the market for an extended period of time to hit their target sale price, in an uptrending market, price of their desired purchase would potentially have run too.
In closing, real estate transaction isn’t so much of just a sale and a purchase, but timeline, family needs & financial management. These intricacies require professional advice and guidance.
Reach out to us for a discussion if you would like further clarity for your next real estate move. Otherwise, do empower yourself with more knowledge with our sharing on all real estate related posts.
