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.
Why the Appraisal Spread Rarely Gets Challenged
When a seller gathers three appraisals for the same property, the results are rarely a tight cluster around one figure. The spread is frequently wide enough that at least one number cannot be close to right. Sellers seldom stop to consider which. The default is to believe the highest one, largely because it lines up with what the seller wanted to hear in the first place.
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. Sellers who grasp this early tend to interview agents very differently For sellers wanting a clearer picture of how this plays out locally further reading puts some of this in local context. Either way, the pattern tends to hold regardless of which agent a seller speaks to first.
Why the Highest Number Is not the Most Accurate One
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. Anyone who has watched a few of these campaigns unfold can see why Those wanting a fuller picture of how agent selection actually works read further is a reasonable starting point. It rarely changes the fundamentals, but it can save a seller from finding out the hard way.
What a Genuinely Defensible Appraisal Looks Like
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 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 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there so much variation in appraisal figures for one house?
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 it ever safe to just go with the highest number quoted?
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.
What should sellers ask an agent instead of what is it worth?
Asking what the number is actually based on, and how the agent intends to respond if the property does not draw offers at that figure early in the campaign, usually reveals more than the appraisal itself. It also tends to expose which agents are comfortable defending their figure and which were quietly hoping the question would not surface.
Is a lower appraisal figure a sign of a weaker agent?
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.
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.