Author's Name:	Udobi, Alexander Nnamdi; Egolum, Charles Chukwunwike & Ugonabo, Celestine Udoka
Subject Area:	Social Science and Humanities
Subject	Accounting
Section	Research Paper

Reliability of valuation, conventional method of valuation, residential properties, South-East geopolitical Zone, market price.

The increasing criticism that the value estimated from conventional investment method of property valuation practice in the country does not accurately predict market price, this study examined the ability of Estate Surveyors and Valuers to estimate accurately the selling prices of residential properties in the South-East Geopolitical Zone of the country using conventional investment method. The aim of the study is to appraise the reliability of the conventional investment method of property valuation in South-East, Nigeria, with a view to providing concrete evidence of reliability or otherwise of the conventional investment method of property valuation and to validate the claims of the Estate Surveyors within the Geopolitical Zones and to achieve these, questionnaire backed up with interviews were administered on the population of forty (40) registered firms in Aba, Enugu, Onitsha, and Owerri Towns. Data obtained were analyzed with the use of the Mean Deviation from the market price, Standard Deviation, and correlation Analysis. The margin of error obtained from the eighteen sample properties using mean deviation was 2.7% and was within the acceptable margin of error of + or – 10% adopted for this study. The P- value in the ANOVA table is 0.000, meaning that there is a statistically significant relationship between the market prices and value estimates. The value estimates using conventional investment method were very good proxies for market prices of real properties and therefore reliable.