Immoweb valuation: what the figure does and does not say about your asking price

An Immoweb valuation gives you a price indication for your home in a few clicks, based on the data of the largest property portal in Belgium. Handy as a starting point, certainly if you intend to publish your listing there anyway. But the figure you get back is something different from the price a buyer eventually pays. This article explains where that difference sits and how to set your asking price correctly.

What is an Immoweb valuation based on?

Immoweb is the largest property portal in Belgium. At any moment tens of thousands of properties are online, with their asking price, their surface area, their year of construction and their location. That collection forms the basis of the valuation module. You enter an address and a number of characteristics, and an automated valuation model compares your home with what it already knows from the same municipality and the same price bracket. In the sector such a model is called an AVM, an automatic valuation model.

That starting point differs from a surveyor's. Nobody comes round, nobody opens your meter cupboard and nobody looks at your roof insulation. The model calculates with the characteristics you enter yourself and with statistics about your neighbourhood. As a result you quickly get a figure or a price range free of charge, but without a report you can present anywhere. For a first impression that is enough. For the price you actually put in your listing, it is too rough.

An asking price is not a sale price

This is where the most important limitation sits, and it applies in particular to figures that come from a listings platform. A portal mainly sees what sellers ask, not what buyers eventually pay. The price in the notarial deed is registered with the authorities, not on the portal. When a property drops ten per cent after three months and only then sells, that first, too high asking price still lingers in the picture.

The result is a distortion upwards in markets where there is firm negotiation, and downwards in markets where bids come in above the asking price. In a number of Flemish municipalities the latter happened regularly in recent years: properties went above the asking price after a round of bidding. A valuation that has no sight of this underestimates your home. Statbel does publish real sale prices per municipality, but with a delay of months. Which way it falls in your case therefore depends on your municipality and on the moment. That is precisely why a figure without context is worth little.

From valuation to asking price: your place in the search results

There is a reason to be extra sharp about the price you put on a portal, and it has nothing to do with the valuation itself. Buyers search with filters. They tick a municipality, a number of bedrooms and a price ceiling. That ceiling is almost always a round number: 300,000, 350,000 or 400,000 euros. Anyone who lists their home at 355,000 euros falls outside the filter of everyone searching up to 350,000 euros. That same home at 349,000 euros appears to a much larger group, while the difference in proceeds after negotiation is often negligible.

On top of that, your listing sits next to all comparable properties in your municipality. Buyers see at a glance what a home with your surface area and your energy label costs elsewhere. An asking price ten per cent above the neighbours does not sell your home for more. It mainly ensures that the listing stays up for months. And a property that has been online for a long time loses negotiating power, because buyers see the publication date and conclude from it that there is room.

What happens after you enter your details?

Online valuation modules are rarely free out of friendliness. They ask for your email address and often your telephone number, and those details go to estate agents active in your region. That need not be a problem, because at that moment you want to speak to an agent anyway. Do check how many agencies receive your file and whether you have a say in that yourself. The difference between a few targeted contacts and ten calls in two days sits exactly there.

We are transparent about this. ImmoMakelaarVergelijker.be is an independent Belgian comparison platform that sends your request to a maximum of 3 BIV-accredited estate agents from your own municipality. You decide yourself who you continue with and you are under no obligation. Request a free valuation of your home here, or compare up to 3 estate agents on commission, approach and selling time.

How to check the figure before you publish

Use the online valuation as a starting point, not as a decision. In practice this order works best. First get your online indication, so that you have an order of magnitude. Then have two or three estate agents view your home on site and ask each of them for a substantiation instead of an amount. What sold in your street in recent months, at what price, and after how many weeks? Also ask which bids determined those sales, because that figure appears in no public database and on no portal.

If someone deviates strongly upwards, ask what they base it on. An entry price that is too high is the classic reason why a home lingers and later still goes with a discount. If someone deviates strongly downwards, ask which defects they see that you did not count yourself. Finally, put the commission percentages side by side, because half a per cent difference on a home of 350,000 euros quickly amounts to 1,750 euros.

Your next step

An Immoweb valuation is a useful first benchmark and costs you nothing. Treat it as a range and not as a price tag, and keep in mind that portal figures start from asking prices. The price that counts is determined by the condition of your home, your energy label and what buyers in your street actually paid in recent months. So have your home viewed on site at least once before you publish. Compare up to 3 BIV-accredited estate agents from your municipality, free and without obligation, and only then decide which asking price goes into your listing.