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In the last ten years, there has been much debate about the veracity and certainty of valuations. However, this academic analysis was not mirrored in the profession as the buoyancy of the property market meant that rising prices hid any worry about the certainty of the valuation. But since 2007, the downturn has lead to a paucity of transactions and an accentuated degree of uncertainty. Valuers worldwide have been asking how to account for this uncertainty in their valuations. This paper aims to address this issue.

This paper looks at the way in which uncertainty can be reported to the user of the valuation both in a form of words in accordance with the RICS's Valuation Standards as well as the suggested use of a probability‐based valuation model (using Crystal Ball) that provides a graphical representation of the expected state of the market at the time of the valuation.

The RICS Standards require the valuer to report uncertainty in valuations but they do not offer any advice on the form that such advice should take and, thus, there is no consistent approach. This paper suggests a matrix of outputs to allow users to identify quickly the uncertainty in the market at the date of the valuation.

This study contributes significantly to the practical application of probability‐based models to valuation. In particular, the findings from the study will be useful for clients to understand better the context in which a valuation figure is provided to them.

The aim of the paper is to present a review of the fiscal imbalances and debt crisis in Greece and identify the possible links with the recent developments in the Greek property market.

The author follows a non-technical approach to discuss a number of factors that have contributed to the fiscal crisis that Greece has been experiencing since October 2009. The author critically analyses both the “internal” causes of the deteriorating fiscal stance of the Greek economy (that is the prolonged macroeconomic imbalances that the Greek economy faces and the credibility problem of macroeconomic policy) and the “external” factors that might have contributed to the Greek fiscal crisis (that is implications of the recent financial turmoil and the timing of the response of Europe to the Greek fiscal crisis). The author then studies the extent to which fiscal imbalances and the debt crisis have affected the Greek property sector.

The analysis indicates that the current fiscal stance of the Greek economy and the Greek property market crisis are intertwined.

The author believes that these results are useful, make a contribution to the existing knowledge and provide some evidence that current economic recession has a considerable adverse effect on the property sector in Greece.

One of the distinctive features of the paper is to critically discuss the direct and indirect effects of the prolonged macroeconomic imbalances on the Greek property sector. To the best of the author's knowledge, none of the existing studies in this area provides systematic treatment of the Greek fiscal crisis as a contributory factor in explaining the current crisis in the Greek property market.