Let the Numbers Be Cold and the Service Warm

A valuation should be cold and the conversation around it should be warm, and a lot of the trouble in selling a house comes from getting those two the wrong way round.

The cold part is the comparison. Which houses on similar stands, of similar size and condition, have actually sold nearby, and for how much? Not what was asked, and not what a neighbour claims at a braai, but what was registered at the deeds office. The municipal valuation on the rates account is a different number for a different purpose, and the bank's valuer will reach a figure of their own when a buyer applies for a bond. A valuation that ignores all of that to please the seller is a warm number, and warm numbers cost money, because the house sits on the market until the cold one catches up with it.

The warm part is how the number is delivered. Picture a widower who raised his children in the house and believes it is worth far more than the sales say. He deserves the truth, and he also deserves time, a clear walk through each comparable sale and some respect for what the house means to him. The number does not change because he is sad. The way it is told should.

Getting it backwards gives the seller a pleasant number delivered coldly, and months later he learns it was wrong.