National Home Buyers

Dawn_Beachus · 8 March 2005 at 3:14PM

I am looking to sell a property and would like to do so quickly and do not mind taking a lower price. I found an advert in The Guardian for National Homebuyers (https://www.nationalhomebuyers.co.uk) where you pay an upfront fee (for the value of my property of £500) for the survey (which is recoverable if you agree for them to purchase your property) on your property, then they offer you a price and agree to sell to you within 30 days. It looks like it is geared more towards retirement people as you can stay in the property after the sale and pay rent to National Home Buyers.

I was wondering if anyone has had dealings with this company (there are lots of positive feedback from customers on the website) and how they found them and what percentage below the market value does the company offer to buy your property.

Any comments will be gratefully received.

howjan · 22 March 2005 at 10:22AM

I am considering doiing the same.

Has any one gone ahead with this company?

daddycool_3 · 16 May 2005 at 4:46PM

I'm intrigued as to how much under market value these people are likely to be offering. I appreciate that it is on a case by case basis once they get the surveyors report in but I'd like to get a feel if it is worthwhile paying (over the odds) for the surveyors report in the first place if all it does is solicit a "stupid" offer.
Anybody got any experience of them and likely value as it would be a huge help. Many thanks.

rammell · 25 May 2005 at 5:31PM

I'm interested too!

I searched the internet to see if there was any anecdotal comments about National Homebuyers. The only thing I found was a story from The Guardian which said that they offer "at least 10% below the market value". They also cited an individual who was offered 34% below his asking price for his property and that was after he'd forked out several hundred pounds for their survey.... which of course he lost as he didn't go through the sale (understandably!).
I'm also intrigued to know how they can justify their charges for their valuation. For a property valued £250,000 - £300,000, they charge £695 for a valuation. I can get a full structural survey for that!!

rammell · 25 May 2005 at 5:35PM

Me too.... seems like nobody has actually used them though!!

The survey also sounds extremely expensive. Their website states that the survey is often conducted externally. For £695 (the cost mine would be) I could get a full structural survey!

russ_c · 25 May 2005 at 7:10PM

there was a report about this company on the you and yours program earlier this year.Im no good at putting links in but if you go to the radio 4 you and yours website, you can still hear it. look under money in the browse by category section, the report was dated 21/01/05.

meanmachine_2 · 25 May 2005 at 7:14PM

Can I ask why people are so keen to sell their properties?

What are your circumstances that you're "forced sellers"? Just curious.

With unemployment so low, I thought forced sellers were thin on the ground.

I also thought, even in today's "buyers market" that those properties that were market value were still selling. Is that not the case? As a potential buyer I'm interested to know what is really happening out on the field.

BTW, i thought companies like nationalhomebuyer were for those at threat of repossession. Can't think why anyone else would want to use such a service.

bridiej · 25 May 2005 at 8:18PM

I've merged these two threads since they are about the same company.

Bridiej

rammell · 26 May 2005 at 1:28PM

>Can't think why anyone else would want to use such a service.

Depends where you are located in the UK and your particular circumstances. It doesn't necessarilly follow that your house is over-priced just because it is not selling straight away. Could be a number of other factors including a general lack of buyers in the area looking for your kind of property.

Why would you want to use such a service? Well, if you've found your ideal property to purchase and are having difficulty selling your own, even after you've dropped the price below what both the estate agents and surveyors says its worth, then clearly you're going to look at other options. National Homebuyers is such an option but I guess, like myself, people are wary about committing to paying for an expensive survey up-front without knowing how much below market prices they're going to be offered.

cleo13 · 26 May 2005 at 3:47PM

like everyone else it seems i'm interested by this, my house has been on the market since january and i've dropped the price by £10,000 due to the lack of offers. the way it's looking for i'm wondering if i should use this company before i need to drop my price further. the website has lots of happy customers but do you think that they are true cases?

rammell · 26 May 2005 at 4:06PM

> the website has lots of happy customers but do you think that they are true cases?

Yes, I think those cases on the web site are genuine cases. What is not known though is how many un-satisfied customers there are. Or how many potential customers paid for the survey and then pulled out due to the low offer National Homebuyers made.

In fact, it has just occured to me that National Homebuyers could probably make more money from people pulling out than from those going ahead. In my case, it is charging £695 for a basic valuation which probably cost them no more than £100.... so almost £600 clear profit. If 90% of their potential customers pull out, that's still a wacking profit for National Homebuyers. Cynical or what??

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

National Home Buyers

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free