The agent who says your house is worth the most clearly knows the market best.
This is the assumption most sellers land on once three appraisals come back forty to sixty thousand dollars apart. It seems like straightforward logic. Greater market knowledge should translate into a more accurate figure, so the agent quoting the highest number must simply be the one who has researched the property most thoroughly.
The Gap Between Appraisals That Nobody Questions
A seller who collects three appraisals for the same property is not usually looking at three versions of the same number with small variations. The spread is often large enough that at least one agent has to be substantially wrong. Sellers rarely stop to ask which one that might be. Instead, the natural instinct is to trust the highest figure, because it is the one that matches what the seller was already hoping to hear.
Beyond being a valuation, an appraisal always carries a second function: it is a pitch for the mandate, whether or not the agent frames it that way. Two agents can walk through an identical property, review identical comparable sales data, and still arrive at wildly different figures, because one is genuinely pricing the house while the other is pricing their own chance of winning the listing. It is a distinction worth keeping in mind before the first appraisal appointment For anyone comparing agents before committing to one read this is a reasonable place to start. The specifics change from agent to agent, but the underlying pattern rarely does.
Why the Biggest Figure Rarely Reflects True Value
Quoting a high number is not evidence of deeper market insight. More often it reflects a readiness to say whatever secures the mandate. That does not require deliberate dishonesty from the agent. Many genuinely believe the optimistic figure, at least until the campaign gets underway and the market tells a different story. Whatever the intent behind it, the seller still ends up appointing an agent on the strength of a number that was never really about the market.
The hard part is that this rarely becomes clear until well into the campaign, once several weeks have passed without the interest that the initial appraisal had implied would show up. Recent examples from local campaigns make this easy to see Sellers wanting to understand this dynamic in more depth additional information is a reasonable starting point. Either way, this is the kind of thing worth knowing before the first inspection, not after.
What Separates a Reliable Appraisal From an Optimistic One
The appraisals worth trusting are rarely the ones stated with the most enthusiasm. They are the ones supported by specific comparable sales, recent settlement data, and an honest account of what buyers have actually paid for similar properties nearby in recent months. An agent who can walk through the evidence behind their number is doing something fundamentally different to one who simply asserts a figure with confidence. Confidence of delivery and accuracy of number are not the same thing, and sellers who cannot tell the difference tend to select for the wrong one.
There is a simple test for this. An agent with a genuinely defensible number can usually name the specific sales they are comparing against, within a reasonable timeframe and a comparable location. An agent relying mainly on optimism tends to speak in generalities about the market being strong, without pointing to anything specific that supports the figure they have just quoted.
Confidence is cheap. Comparable sales data is not.
What Matters More Than the Number Itself
The question worth asking is rarely who thinks the property is worth the most. It is closer to: who has a defensible strategy for reaching genuine market value, and who is prepared to have an honest conversation if the campaign does not move at the quoted figure straight away. The track record of an agent on this specific point, how they have handled properties that needed a price adjustment mid-campaign, tends to reveal far more than any single number offered at the first meeting.
This is also where a direct question tends to teach a seller the most. An agent willing to talk through what happens if the opening weeks do not go to plan is behaving very differently to one who has only ever discussed the upside.
Common Questions About Agent Appraisals
Why do agents give different appraisals for the same house?
An appraisal blends real market judgement with the incentive to win the mandate, and different agents balance those two things differently. The variation between quotes often says as much about that incentive as it does about the property. An agent chasing new business has a reason to lean optimistic that has nothing to do with the actual comparable sales.
Is the highest appraisal ever the right one to trust?
Occasionally, but it should be trusted because of the evidence behind it, not because it is the largest number offered. A high figure backed by genuine comparable sales is a different thing entirely to a high figure offered simply to win the business, and the only 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.
Is a lower appraisal figure a sign of a weaker agent?
Not necessarily. A lower, well-supported figure from an agent who can walk through the comparable sales behind it is often a stronger signal than a higher figure with no evidence attached. Sellers who filter agents purely on the size of the number they quote are optimising for the wrong variable entirely.
An appraisal functions less as a measurement of the house and more as an opening bid for the right to list it, and sellers who see this early tend to make a very different call to those who simply chase the biggest number. Throughout the Gawler District and the northern Adelaide corridor, where appraisal spreads can be just as wide as anywhere else in Adelaide, this distinction carries even more weight, given how quickly a mispriced campaign can stall in a market where comparable listings tend to appear close together.