Calculate End Value of A Property Using Comparables – Real Example

As a property deal sourcer or investor, the most important thing is making sure your numbers stack up.

And one of the most important numbers in buying residential properties as an investment is knowing the current and potential end value of the house. 

Whether you want to do a flip and sell the property, or do a BRRR to refinance and put the property up for rent, you need to have a good idea of what your end value is going to be.

The best way to explain this is to look at an example. 

On Rightmove, it says it’s a terraced house, but looking at Google Street View it’s definitely a semi-detached property.

Here’s a quick overview of the property:

• 3 bedroom
• Semi Detached
• Auction property
• Auction guide price is £125,000
• EPC certificate link
• Square metres = 86

It’s a full refurbishment project that needs a LOT of work done to it. 

We won’t go into the costs of doing a refurb today, but this property is a good example for this post because we can predict what the end value will be when it’s fully done up. 

So how do we work out what this property could be worth? 

We’ll use Mouseprice as well as Rightmove comparables. 

Let’s start with the quicker one and show you why it’s not the best estimate.

Using Mouseprice

Here’s a summary of the postcode S8 0NQ according to Mouseprice.

According to this summary, the average price per square metre is £2540. 

Remember that the property we are looking at is 86 square metres. 

So at a done-up end value, we could probably be looking at £2540 x 86 = £218,440

But I won’t be using this number and here’s why…

The average is over the last 5 years which means there is data as far back as 2018 and the market changes a lot in 5 years.

In this case, the market has gone up considerably since 2018. 

But let’s be specific...

As well as that, this average will include properties that need refurbs doing to them which will deflate the price paid per square metre (because properties that need refurbs doing to them will sell for a lower price compared to a ‘ready to move in’ property).

So we know that the £ per square metre shown on Mouseprice is probably an underestimate.

But we can see it as a floor price if we want to be safe so we’ll note it down anyways.

Mouse price valuation based on 5-year postcode summary and £/square metre: £218,440.

Now we’ll move to Rightmove to find comparables because you can see the previous listings there to judge the quality of the houses when sold and be more specific.

For example:

• Was it run down?
• Was it a medium spec that maybe needs light touch-ups?
• Was it done to a high finish and no work is needed?

Finding Comparables on Rightmove

The best way to value a house is to use accurate comparables in the area.

For our property, we want to see what the end value would be if we did a complete refurb to it.

First, let’s go back to the original listing of the property we are looking at. Here’s a link to it again.

• Listing on Rightmove – 63 Havercroft Road

Now scroll down to the tab that says ‘Recently sold and under offer’ and click on this like in the image below.

Now click on ‘View all recently sold’.

Now we want to see 3 bedroom semi-detached properties on the same road that have sold as recently as possible. 

I’ve sorted by semi-detached and only properties sold within the last year, but only one property shows up. 

That’s still good.

I’ll note this one down as ‘Comparable 1’ and this will be our most reliable comp because it is on the same road, the same type of property AND it was sold very recently (only in the last 6 months).

Now let’s expand to 2 years just to get a bit more data. 

Perfect, 3 more properties that are all on the same road and 3-bedroom semi-detached properties.

Now we have 4 comps, all sold within the last 2 years, and on the same road as our original property that we are trying to price up. 

Without wasting too much time I’ll give you the summary for each property in the graphic below.

Here are the links to the individual listings if you want to look through the pictures and the description of each listing side by side. I’ve also included the link to the EPC certificate because this is where you can see the size of the property in square metres.

The main thing we are looking at here is the ‘£ / square metre’ metric because we can multiply that by the square metres in the property we are looking at refurbing.

Overall, all of the properties can be seen as ready to move in. None of the comparables would need a full refurb.

Now let’s look at what the end value of our property will be if we use this £/square metre metric and multiply it by 86 square metres. (The listing we are looking at has a size of 86 square metres. )

So you can now see a summary of our predicted end values depending on what ‘£ / square metre’ metric we use.

Remember that all of these properties are pretty good comparables because they are all on the same road as the property we are trying to price.

The main difference is the finish and the timing of the sale.

Based on these comparables we can see that we now have a range of potential prices for our property.

Most Reliable Comparable

You can see from the graphic that comparable 1 which we think is the most reliable comparable gives us a price for our property of around £252,941.

Lowest Value Comparable

The lowest prediction comes from comparable number 4 which gives our property a predicted price of £246,931.

But this is also the furthest back in time as it was sold in 2021.

Highest Value Comparable

The highest prediction comes from comparable number 3 which predicts our property would be worth around £282,060 when completely refurbed.

Average Of The Different Comps

Using the average of all of these comparables we get an average price (£) per square metre of £3041, which would result in our property being worth £261,551.

Factoring In Potential Market Changes

So our most recent comparable is from April 2023 which is 6 months ago, but prices can change.

At the time of writing (24 August 2023) the most recent land registry data for house prices is for June 2023.

In this 6 month time period house prices can change.

That’s about a 6% decrease in 6 months.

Since we want to be safe let’s just assume this happens again for the next 6 months.

This might not happen.

House prices could stay flat, they could go up, or they could go down even further than 6%.

But we like to be safe because it’s our profit at the end of the day.

So here’s what our predicted end values prices with a 6% average reduction in price.

• Most Accurate Comparable (No.1) with 6% reduction = £237,765
• Lowest Comparable (No.4) with 6% reduction = £232,115
• Highest Comparable (No.3) with 6% reduction = £265,136
• Average comparable with 6% reduction = £245,858
• Comparable 2 with 6% reduction = £248,415

Here’s a graphic showing you this range of reduced predictions.

Putting It All Together

Just Looking At Our Most Reliable Comparable

If we want to simplify and just use the most reliable comparable you have the following figures.

• If the market stays flat = £252,941

• If the market drops 6% = £237,765

• This gives you a range of £237,765 to £252,941

And there you have it, you’ve worked out the potential end value of this property deal once it is fully renovated based on comparables on the same street.

You’ve even got a range of values based on different scenarios and you’ve even accounted for a slight downturn if that occurs.

If you are particularly conservative you can work out scenarios where the market drops even more.

And don’t forget that last resort price we got from Mouseprice that indicated our price would be £218,440.

This is well under the figures we arrived at by using accurate comparables, but you could use it as an extremely safe estimate.

What Do I Do With These Price Predictions?

Now that you know the predicted end value of the property you can figure out your strategy for offering on the property.

This is also useful for presenting deals to investors if you are a deal packager as you can give them a range of projected ROI based on, worst-case, likely and best-case scenarios.

Choose the predicted price you feel most confident with before moving to the offer stage.

I’ll use the ‘expected value with 6% reduction’ number of £237,765. This was based on matching the price (£) per square metre for comparable 1.

From that figure you:

• minus your legal costs
• minus your refurb costs
• minus any financing costs
• minus the profit you want to make

If you had to write this down like an equation it would be something like this:

End Value – Total Costs – Total Profit = Maximum Offer Price

For example, let’s say all of the above add up to around £60,000 for you (I’ve just made this number up).

Then you know you don’t want to offer anything above £177,765.

• End Value – Total Costs – Total Profit = Maximum Offer Price

• £237,765 – £60,000 = £177,765

Now you have the highest price that you are willing to bid at.

If you can secure the property for below £177,765 then you’ll be hitting your profit target for the deal.

Just remember that everyone has a different profit target and the refurb cost can vary wildly depending on what you want to do and how high of a spec you want.

There can also be unforeseen costs in refurbishment projects so always make sure to have a contingency.

Other Things To Consider

Here are some further things you can do to get an even better idea of the predicted end value.

Estate Agent

Call a local estate agent and ask them what they think the property would be worth based on your planned refurb (but not the one selling the property).

Sold Subject to Offer Listings

Check Rightmove if there are any sold subject to offer listings on the road or nearby. This will let you see the asking price when the property was sold.

It’s not the best method because there may have been a discount agreed from the asking price, but it gives you a ballpark idea of the prices needed to get the property sold.

External Factors

The method we used in this post was to use the square footage of the house internally. But this doesn’t take into acountu external factors.

For example a larger rear or front garden, or a large driveway can make a difference in the price.

If your property has a smaller garden or driveway than every comparable then you will want to take this into account and reduce your predicted end value slightly.

Further Reading

In our example that we analysed the full address of the property was already on the listing, but in a lot of listings this isn’t the case.

To use our method we need the full address so we can use the EPC certificate to find an accurate measurement for the size of the property in square metres.

Luckily you can find the full address of a property on Rightmove.

Essential reading for beginners:

• Why You Should Invest In Property
• Money Needed to Invest in UK Property