Here are some summaries of the valuers and how they changed their valuations.

Herriots had a habit of devalueing a property just because we were involved or was it they made a mistake on one or the other?                                                                                      Rivergum Drive Nerang                                                                                                        Herriotts              13/8/1999                        $159,000                                                                      Herriotts              15/12/1999                      $120,000                                                                                Now this is a drop of $39,000, did the market drop by 20+% in 4 months? Which one should we beleive? Which one is correct? If you bought in August 1999 were you robbed? If You bought in December did you get a bargain, please Mr Herriot tell me which one is correct?

Ridgeway Avenus Southport                                                                                                                 Herriotts               8/3/1999                         $208,000                                                                         Herriotts              31/7/1999                        $190,000                                                                      Again which one is correct, or did the market drop 10% in 4 months?

So Mr Herriott which valuation is correct, did the people who bought with your original valuations pay $18,000 too much and were therefore ripped off? If so will you refund the $18,000 and $39,000 to them, there was probably only 100 units here, thats only $5 Million? Or did you simply revalue the property down to get your name in the media trying to make marketers look bad? Please Mr Herriot tell me which valuation is correct or would you tell us they both are because you are never wrong. Can you also tell me if you used comparable new properties to get the lower valuations, or did you use older inferior quality properties? 

Heron Todd White(HTW). They valued a property next to the Southport Hospital for the developer at $220,000 per unit so the developer could get $20 Million worth of finance. We started selling the property at $220,000 as per the valuation. We as a financier asked HTW to value the property for Mortgagee purposes to gain finance for the $220,000 purchase, they now valued the property at $170,000 in a rising market. I asked the CEO Mr Lacey about this and he said he was sorry but they had made a mistake and the $170,000 was correct. Other valuers valued it at $220,000 when they thought it was a normal sale. How is it you can make a mistake on a Valuation which takes weeks and costs $10,000 to $30,000 and yet correct that mistake when doing a valuation that takes 3 or 4 hours to do and costs a couple of hundred dollars?

I am confused how this can happen. How is it that a valuer can make a mistake of 25%, and how am I or a purchaser supposed to know which one is correct. How is it that a variation of $50,000 or 25% be acceptable when the media would have us beleive that a Valuation is what a property is actually worth and the person that is selling it is a conman because of a low valuation? How can this happen?

Ecleston Fraser. They valued a property at Carrara at $147,000 when it was sold by PRD for $149,900, this was for a local City Councilor who bought 2. We sold the property next door for $149,900 to a purchaser from victoria, it valued at $132,000. When I spoke to Mr Fraser as to the reasons, he said "your purchasers do not understand the values here", I repsonded that this was correct and that is why I had showed them his valuation so they could be educated, he kept the valuation at $132,000.

So did the people who bought from PRD pay $17,000 to much and were they conned? Or was it that our people were just the ones being conned because they were from out of town? How is it that the valuation varies down by $17,000 just because our people were not from next door, hang on a minute they were paying exactly the same price as those that bought from the local PRD agent, the only thing that changed was the valuation, and why did it change is what I would love for the valuer to explain to me?

Was it two tiered selling, which was never proved, or was it two tiered Valuations? 

The other question is why all of a sudden does it matter where the purchaser is from when it comes to valueing a property? Nearly every high rise on the Gold Coast was bought by out of town purchasers, why is it these valuations were not marked down because they were not locals? Was it that we were selling 60% of all the new properties on the Gold Coast, and the other 500+ agents only had 40% between them all and they used the valuers to make us look bad so that they could get back their lost business?