Whichever agent names the biggest number is obviously the one who has done the most homework.
That is what most sellers believe when three appraisals come back forty to sixty thousand dollars apart. It feels like common sense. More market knowledge should mean a more accurate number, and the agent who arrives at the biggest figure must simply be the one who has done their homework properly.
The Appraisal Variation Sellers Take at Face Value
Three appraisals on the same property rarely land as close variations on one number. The gap between them is often wide enough that one figure has to be significantly off the mark. Few sellers pause to work out which one that is. The instinct instead runs toward the largest figure, since it happens to match what the seller was hoping to hear from the start.
An appraisal is not just a valuation. It is also, whether stated or not, a pitch for the listing itself. Two agents can walk through the same property, see the same comparable sales data, and still arrive at figures tens of thousands of dollars apart, because one of them is pricing the house and the other is pricing the opportunity to win the trust of the seller. This is worth understanding before meeting with any agent at all For sellers still deciding who to trust with the campaign find out here offers useful local context. Either way, the pattern tends to hold regardless of which agent a seller speaks to first.
Why the Largest Quote Is Often the Least Reliable
An agent quoting a high figure is not necessarily demonstrating superior market knowledge. Often they are demonstrating a willingness to tell the seller what they want to hear in order to win the mandate. This is not always deliberate deception. Some agents genuinely believe their optimistic number, at least until the campaign runs and the market fails to agree with them. Either way, the seller ends up choosing an agent based on a number that was never really about the market at all.
The uncomfortable part of this is that the seller rarely finds out until well into the campaign, once the property has already been on the market for several weeks without the interest the appraisal implied it should attract. Anyone who has watched a few of these campaigns unfold can see why Those wanting a fuller picture of how agent selection actually works view this page gives a clearer sense of what actually matters here. Either way, this is the kind of thing worth knowing before the first inspection, not after.
What a Confident Appraisal Actually Looks Like
The appraisals actually worth listening to are rarely the most confidently delivered ones. They are the ones backed by real comparable sales, recent settlement figures, and a straightforward account of what nearby buyers have genuinely paid in recent months. An agent who can walk a seller through that evidence is doing something entirely different from one who just states a number with certainty. Confidence and accuracy are not the same thing, and sellers who conflate them tend to pick the wrong agent for the wrong reason.
A simple test separates the two. An agent with a properly defensible figure can typically point to the exact sales being compared, within a reasonable window and a genuinely similar location. One relying mainly on optimism tends to speak generally about market strength, without anything specific standing behind the number they have just given.
Confidence is cheap. Comparable sales data is not.
What Actually Deserves Attention From a Seller Instead
The right question is rarely which agent believes the property is worth the most. It is closer to which agent has a genuine strategy for reaching real market value, and which one is willing to have an honest conversation if the campaign does not move at the quoted figure straight away. How an agent has previously handled a mid-campaign price adjustment tends to say far more than any number offered at a first meeting ever could.
This is also where a seller can learn the most simply by asking directly. An agent willing to discuss what happens if the first few weeks do not go to plan is behaving very differently to one who has only ever talked about the upside.
Questions Sellers Often Ask About This
Why does the same property get such different appraisal figures from different agents?
Every appraisal mixes genuine market assessment with an incentive to secure the listing, and agents weigh those two elements differently. Much of the spread between quotes comes down to that incentive rather than the property itself. An agent under pressure to bring in new business has every reason to lean optimistic, regardless of what the comparable sales actually show.
Is the highest appraisal ever the right one to trust?
Sometimes, but the trust should come from the evidence supporting it, not from its size. A high figure grounded in genuine comparable sales is an entirely different thing to one pitched purely to win the listing, and the only reliable way to tell them apart is to ask what the number is actually based on.
Instead of asking for a number, what should sellers actually ask?
Asking what evidence sits behind the figure, and what the agent plans to do if the property does not attract offers at that price early on, tends to reveal far more than the number ever could. It also tends to separate the agents willing to defend their number from the ones hoping nobody asks.
Should sellers be wary of an agent who quotes a lower number?
Not really. A lower figure backed by an agent who can clearly walk through the comparable sales is often a far stronger signal than a higher one with nothing behind it. Sellers who choose agents based purely on the size of the quoted figure are optimising for the wrong thing entirely.
Rather than a true measurement of the house, an appraisal is really an opening bid for the listing itself, and sellers who recognise this early tend to choose very differently to those chasing the highest figure. Across the Gawler District and the northern Adelaide corridor, where the spread between agent appraisals can be just as wide as elsewhere in Adelaide, this distinction matters more rather than less, given how fast a mispriced campaign can lose momentum where comparable listings surface close together.