“Lanka Property web land prices analysis misleading: Institute of Valuation”
Lanka Property web has sent the following response to the article under the above titled which appeared in the Business Times on June 20.
“Information obtained for the article published by LankaPropertyWeb (LPW) analysing the increase in land prices in the Western Province (except Colombo city) from 2018 to 2021 is purely based on the asking prices generated from land sellers advertising on LankaPropertyWeb.com.
Neither LPW nor any related party of LPW have conducted valuations on properties to generate this information and has never mentioned it to be a valuation in any of the reports published. The information has been provided to the public to get an understanding on the market dynamics of the land values and not to create an impression that these are the official land price values in the country. It is not an official indication of the land values, which the company isn’t able to provide anyway, as data on closing prices of land sales are not published in Sri Lanka.
LPW prides itself in providing accurate and verified statistical analysis of market data obtained from advertisements on the website and other available market data. We have been a trusted source for providing such data to local and international companies for the past nine years with the House Price Index and other such statistical data. Data integrity and authenticity are key factors that are exercised for any of the reports that LPW generates. As such, the data presented has been thoroughly verified not just with data from LPW, but also with data from other sources such as print and digital advertisements. It has not been subjected to any manipulation or adjustments to promote land sales and therefore reflects actual asking prices from advertisements posted for lands in the Western Province.
Furthermore, as mentioned in our past reports, we’d like to reiterate the fact that values generated are statistical average prices of lands listed on the website for that whole area. Actual selling prices may vary from the asking prices listed on ads. Prices within the area will have its own variances, such as land close to main roads or junctions being expensive and above average.
While we agree that ‘the sole authority and the competent person in regard to valuation is the Government Chief Valuer and no other person or body we want to specify that this (our) information is not a valuation but rather a depiction of the land price changes in the market according to the seller's asking price.”