Anyone has repossessed houses/flats auctions experience?

alien123

I am looking to purchase a new flat/house and may consider the auction. What shall I keep an eye before I do so? Shall I arrange a mortgage before as I know everything has to be done within 4 weeks. If no one lends to me, will I lose the 10% deposit that I won the bid for?

Can I view the flat/house before hand? Any good place to check the average price? Is it always cheaper than the brokers/estate agents coz we get rid of the middle man?

Thank you

knithryn

Alien
I too have been looking into this, and although I have no experience, this is what I have found out...

You need to go to your proposed lender and make sure that you will be able to get a mortgage. You can get a 'mortgage in principle' which means that you will know you can get x amount of money.
You probably will NOT get a mortgage on a property that is sold uninhabitable ie no roof, kitchen, bathroom. You need to look at properties that you could feasibly move into and live in. The way to get funding of a major renovation would probably be through a Commercial loan/mortgage from the bank (with business plan etc).
You would want to have access to the deposit and fees ready for the auction day.

Contact the auctioneers who may have a particular day(s) for viewing. They will also have the 'legal pack' before the auction. This gives (I believe) all the searches and info that often hold up completion of house buying.

Have a solicitor ready to work on a property so that if you are lucky you can move things forwards immediately.

Attend some property auctions before buying so you can get an idea of how it works, pace etc.

You will need to complete some forms at the auction before you can bid, so check out what identification you need to bring with you beforehand. And don't forget the charges that the auctioneers will make to you - this should be on their Terms and Conditions.

Some websites like Zoopla will tell you the previous prices of houses sold in the area, but remember that anything sold more than a couple of years ago will be at a higher price than they would reach today.

And yes, if you 'buy' at auction and pay the deposit and then can't get the mortgage, you will probably lose the deposit (and the auction fees etc).

The auctioneers might also have the results of previous auctions, which is useful to see how close the final price was to their guide price.

Again I will say that I have NOT bought at auction, but have found out the above through some research as I too have seen a 'perfect renovation property'. Due to it's condition I won't be able to proceed as the bank won't give a mortgage on it. Probably an expert will be along in a minute and give us more info.
Good luck with it!

Conrad

With all my 19 years of industry know how, I would not buy at aution unless I had 100% cash.

An ordinary mortage lenders agreement in principle is really just the first step - there are many issues that can cause a decline of which most will be outside your control - for example if the lenders lawyers could not get full information in time - often info is limited as the owner has been repossesed /died etc.

I might, for a real bargain property use short term bridging finance as the lenders require less info, but the rates are super high and you will need a bare minimum 30% deposit and a defined exit route.