Selling our BTL in this economic recession... how's that for on topic?

mewbie_2

Cleaver wrote: »

Thanks for the kind words Mewbs.

My pleasure, you and I know that all the joshing is just that, joshing. It's interesting that if others on here had posted your story I would probably have ripped into them, accusing them of lying, but I believe and trust you. Character comes across, even in a few lines of text.

Cleaver wrote: »

THowever, I was kinda looking forward to lots of witty tales about Estate Agents, witless buyers, meeting dodgy 'investors' etc etc, but it looks as though I won't have the opportunity now. Seems a bit of a shame. But as we've told a lot of people on here, nothing is sold until contracts are exchanged.

I was also looking forward to a set of pieces on the pitfalls of trying to sell a property, with Cleaveresque descriptions of estate agents and punters. However, much as I'd like that, I hope that you just get a quick sale and job done.

bluey890

mewbie wrote: »

Character comes across, even in a few lines of text.

Clever tricksters are notoriously difficult to spot.
Look at Tony Blair.

<I'm sure Cleavers fine though!>

fc123

Cleaver wrote: »

Thanks for the kind words Mewbs. It's an unusual property for the area we're in and, hopefully, not pricing it stupidly high has helped. And I think being a lucky sod certainly plays a part. I guess for every seller out there you just need someone who loves your house to walk through the door.

However, I was kinda looking forward to lots of witty tales about Estate Agents, witless buyers, meeting dodgy 'investors' etc etc, but it looks as though I won't have the opportunity now. Seems a bit of a shame. But as we've told a lot of people on here, nothing is sold until contracts are exchanged.

OK.... I know you are your own man STS...but the Dopestar influence can seep through sometimes..


I have sold stuff for more years than I can remember, many items were one offs. If something sold straight away, we would, first, cheer, then doubt ourselves. Perhaps we had undersold it? Was it too cheap?

Our motto was always, if it is the right price for the product then it will sell straight away.

And I have been caught out on it in the past too.......pushing up a price pont due to being 'too fast selling'...and then making it a slow seller.

Doesn't matter what the product is that one is selling...same rules apply.

lostinrates

Well done, fingers cross for the ''paperwork bits''

Well presented, well priced and well timed IMO.

fc123

lostinrates wrote: »

Well done, fingers cross for the ''paperwork bits''

Well presented, well priced and well timed IMO.

I didn't post about our house selling experience last year on this board.

Priced 'competitively' (hanging out here can seep through the psyche)
and it sold very quickly for about 5% under asking.

They kept getting keys of EA to measure up, met my lovely neighbours etc. EA Checked them out..seemed OK...then nothing.

Perhaps as we don't live in it and had taken the view that the EA could truly earn their fee, I put the sale out out my head...had other stressy fish to fry at the time.
A few weeks later, turned out the mortgage that was arranged wasn't as arranged as they had implied. Seemed it relied on some MEW and the house they were expecting to MEW had fallen in value quite considerably.

After a chat with EA, seemed that they had taken our competitive price at face value but not taken the same loss in value off their own property. Has been common according to very nice EA that we hired.

By coincidence, same week an old friend needed somewhere to live urgently. We told EA they had 7 days to sort out purchase or we would withdraw from market to help friend in need. Couldn't house her and still keep it on market..didn't feel fair.


We helped out friend in need and kept the house.
It is a very useful house and will house son now he has finished uni....and maybe us at some point in the future.

Fingers crossed for exchange.

To DS, I forgot a wink smiley on my post..you know I love you really.

geoffky

The house next door to me that got repoed has still only one viewing and the market here is dead as a dodo with just twelve sales in the last two months...hope more houses come on the market though as i am tired of the same old crap..most have been on sale 18 months or more.

Cleaver

I had hoped this thread would be a bit longer, but there we go. Am dropping off a big file full of papers for the house at the solicitors tomorrow. I have no idea if I should have a load of these docs - some are 60 years old, with wax seals and fancy ink lettering. Deeds, titles and lots of other stuff. Anyway, from them you can build a bit of an interesting picture of the history of the house.

I know that it was built in the 1890s, close to the railway for the workers. There is reference in my docs to searches and deeds in the 20s, but the first proper document is....

August 1955 - sold for £650
£650 hey? Even Dopester and Ad0898 might splash out if they fall back that far. I actually do see prices falling back to Q3 1955. The woman that bought it was called Enid, which I think is a great 50's name.

It then sold next in...

June 1983 - sold for £11,500
I know it didn't sell between these two periods, as the name of the person who bought it in 1955 died in 1982 (death cert included in my docs), hence the sale in 1983.

So in the ownership of one person, over 28 years, the house went up in value by 17.5 times. Quite mad really. If things followed the same tragectory from this point foward as they did between 1955 and 1983, the same house will be worth just over £2 million in 2037, just as I would be taking early retirement.

June 1984 - sold for £15,500
My maths ain't great, but I make that a 34% rise in one year. Maybe Sarah Beeney bought it, painted it white and chucked down some laminate.

May 1987 - sold for £25,250
I believe these were the last owners before us in 2004 and they pretty much doubled the size of the house and did all the conversion work.

Interestingly, there is the original Credit Agreement for the mortgage taken out by the people that bought it in May 1987 still in the pack:

Size of Loan: £4,000
Interest rate: 14.5% per annum (rising to 15.7% overall)
Full monthly payment: £50.60

Figures look so strange now compared to the ones we are used to seeing.

fc123

Cleaver wrote: »

I had hoped this thread would be a bit longer, but there we go.

It can be as long as you like..you can just keep adding to it.;)

Fascinating stuff, history of a house. I remember getting a load of info from the first house we bought. Similar history in that 1 owner from early 50's to mid 80's ...was a bus conductor...don't know where that was written down..but it stuck in my memory.

As we gutted the house pretty much, traces of them were everywhere from classic 50's lino and wallpapers to photos found behind the blocked up fireplaces. We found homemade Xmas decs in the back of the loft and original (very flammable) bought ones...which we used for years.
I only binned them 4 years ago.

The owner we purchased from had run the place to the ground in under a decade ..only repairs were from a council grant...roof and windows. He used one of the bedrooms to repair vinatge motorbikes.

bluey890

Cleaver wrote: »

So, me and Mrs C have decided to sell our BTL pad. ...We had a chat about what we fancy doing in life, and moving abroad and doing something completely different in a foreign land seemed to be something we really fancy doing in the next 2 to 3 years.

Out of curiosity, which countries were you thinking of moving /emigrating to?

Cleaver

bluey890 wrote: »

Out of curiosity, which countries were you thinking of moving /emigrating to?

On the surface it changes month on month: Australia, US, Cambodia, France, Spain...

One that remains constant though is Canada, for lots of reasons. So probably there.