BMV is a myth as it is used in most marketing. As RICS Chartered Valuation Surveyors living and working in Spain, at the centre of the Survey Spain Network, we are arranging and carrying out UK style building surveys and valuations on a daily basis. As Inez Rix says in the article, there can be many ‘values’ or numbers stated for a property, but what everyone wants to know is its open market value in comparison with all the other similar properties that are available on the market. If all properties are equal in other respects, it’s the lowest priced one that will sell first, thereby creating the Market Value.
Unless somebody changes their value, the next buyer will buy what was the second lowest priced property and so on. And so the market value will appear to rise. However, one of the other more expensive may reduce their price to become the lowest and therefore it will be bought next. BMV should only refer to a price below what the last one sold at. When BMV is quoted in adverts, the value, or probably more properly the price, they are referring to it being below, will be the highest that the property was being offered at before the market collapsed. Until a property is sold, it only has a price and not a value, so what they are really saying is “it’s ?% below the highest price that we didn’t sell it at”.