questions - offers, mortages, etc.

hethmar

New builds are always down valued because the builders have bunged on their high profit - bit like buying a brand new car, it loses value the moment you drive out of the garage with it. They want you to use their own FA and probably their own solicitors to tie you up. Dont do it. Mortgage lenders will want probably at least 20% deposit down to cover the possible negative equity.

Builders are accepting about 20% below price at the moment.

The ones that have been lived in a couple of years are probably a better buy as they are already built, so no problems with your moving into them. Find out from the Land Registry site how much they were sold for. If they were sold in 2007 that was the peak price and you should be looking for at least 20% less than that, depending on the drops locally - check out what others in the block have recently sold for.

But how much deposit will you have for a new place?

Richard_Webster

(current house is semi with drive and garage),

being sold for £72.5K

and new build flats going for £110K - come on, they saw you coming - flat probably only really worth about £80K. Anyone who uses the fashionable word "apartment" has already partially fallen for builder hype and prepared to pay more for new build. Apartments are only flats with lots of en-suites and not worth much more because of that.

If you are going to buy a flat buy one that is not brand new and look to see what others have paid recently for the same thing.

Dooley

thanks very much, things to think about.

the deposit I'll have is about £14k. not much I know.
I've looked into mortgages and it's seeming reasonable.

re my house being a semi...etc, and I'm looking at apartments. Mine's gone so cheap cos it's in a really bad area, middle of a council estate, lots of trouble, scruffy and run down, the odd boarded up house, etc.

most new build apartments are being advertised starting at 99k. The ones I'm looking at are in a nicer area, and that's what I'd be paying for.

I will look into things further!
eta, just checked. the one up for 99k sold a year ago for 123, the one up for 85k sold for 120 in 2007.

Dooley

just a bit more on the flats I mentioned.
Flat1 - sold in 2008 for £123k. Now up for 99k private sale.
Flat2 - sold in 2008 for 120k. Now up for 85k -repo. apparantly had one offer on it.
Flat3 - can't find any details about what it sold for. Now up for 75k-repo.


Flat 1 is the one I really want, due to location of parking space. (right outside door, as opposed to round corner). Not a great distance, but can't see car from flat.
but I don't want to pay a lot for that flat, when I could get the cheapest one for maybe between 65 and 70k (hopefully).
so would it be realistic to offer between 70 and 75k for Flat1. It seem slow on a 99k property, but there is no other difference between them at all. Literally identical.

Although, from reading on here, repos are a bit of a nightmare (and a risk) to buy...