Looks like I wont be selling for a while.lol

phil1873football

My property was valued at £75k in Nov 2008, therefore listed it for 2 reasons, firstly, I did not want to have to fork out further costs with this pointless HIP they introduced in Scotland in Dec 2008 and secondly, I have nightmare sc*m type of neighbours and really want to move.

Been with the same Estate Agents since November and had 2 viewings who never got back to me or the Estate Agents (which personally I think is rude). Another Estate Agent, contacted me recently asking if I would consider moving over to them which I was considering but it depended on a few things...so let me give you a brief background to my situation...

Bought the property in Sept 2007 for £70k fixed price which was at the market peak as I was worried at that point incase I would never be able to afford a property as prices were going up up up. The neighbours were not living there at that time as it was a council house and were in the process of re-letting out (wasn't aware of this until after I moved in), ever since, these sc*m upstairs have been a nightmare including damaging my car. Anyways, took out a 100% mortgage with Bradford and Bingley and could easily afford the repayments (just couldnt wait any longer to save a deposit as prices were rising faster than I could save a deposit), 2months after I moved in, I was offered a new job giving me around a 25% increase in wages which meant repayments were a sinch. Anyways, since then, the following has happened, banks went bust including Bradford and Bingley which is now state owned and because of this, they have stopped all new lending and further lending to existing customers (funny as I thought the idea of the Government rescueing them was to force them to lend again!!!). This means I am unable to borrow further funds, even though I could easily afford the repayments on a larger 2 bed end of terrace. My property has obviously went down in value, therefore I am stuck in a situation that I simply CANT sell for less than £70k or I would have no place to live and owe the bank thousands!!!

This new Estate Agents were just off the phone and without actually viewing my property told me realistically, your looking at £60k-£65k which was a bit of a shock as its a 20% fall in 9months.

Bottom line is, I wont be moving as I simply cannot afford to sell for this price, I will need to wait till prices come back up (if they ever do) and sell then.

This makes me wonder if there are other people in a similar situation where they simply are unable to sell for the prices that their property has fallen to which is possibly creating this demand out weighing the supply.

This was just a quick thread to express my situation which maybe a few other people are in aswell!!

Thanx for reading if you managed to get the whole way through:rotfl:

polly30

Hi there,

We have found ourselves in a similar situation, my boyfriend and I both own flats in Scotland and both bought at the peak in 2007. Since getting together we want to sell both flats and buy a house together however i bought my property at 125k and it has since been valued at 115k and his flat was purchased at 124k and has now been valued at 112k.

We have now decided that we are going to rent one flat until the market picks up and take the hit on the other. We ar ehoping to get a good price on a 4 bed house which will balance out the loss on the flat.

One thing to be careful of is we were told by 3 estate agents that we would get 115k for our flat however the home report was carried out and it surveyed at 112k. This made quite a difference to us but by this time we had paid the marketing fee to the estate agents and paid the home report so decided to go ahead and sell anyway.

If you are really unhappy you could consider letting your property out and renting a bigger house while you wait for the market to pick up. If we dont get any interest in our flat thats what we plan to do.

Good Luck!

Guitar

It sounds like it's mainly the neighbours that are the problem. If you happy living in the flat and can afford the morgage it doesn't matter what it's currently worth.

I'd be looking into getting the neighbours sorted out, prices will eventually go up but you might be looking at another 5-10 years.

Coupon-mad

If you have extra income then you could save towards repaying the mortgage shortfall sooner rather than later. Have you considered that you could sell for less than the mortgage but pay off the shortfall in cash, or with money borrowed from family or from another unsecured, reputable source.

It's not a new situation, the same thing happened to my generation in the early nineties. As the Country came out of recession last time there were plenty of people taking unsecured loans for 'mortgage shortfall' purposes (people like you who had the income for a loan but were saddled with a property which was no longer suitable).

I am not saying a loan is a good thing - I am just saying there are other ways around your situation than thinking that you 'have' to sell for £70K. You may not be able to for a couple of years...or longer...do you want to stay there for many, many years?

We had to pay a £5,000 shortfall ourselves in order to rid ourselves of our old flat after the last recession. We had very little in savings so I used some of my redundancy money (I had another job and so did my OH so the redundancy money was there for the using!).

I didn't want to use my money for such a 'waste' of a reason - and it can make you feel quite bitter that you got your fingers burnt by property when others have made shedloads of money! But we felt we had no choice as we had already rented the flat out for a couple of years - which more than enough extra hassle for me to cope with as a full-time working Mum with 2 toddlers. We were already living in a larger property and paying 2 mortgages (albeit the flat was covered by rental income). But it still felt like a millstone around our necks and the shortfall wasn't going to go away quickly.

I found having tenants in the old flat a complete pain and was glad to move on with our lives by paying off the £5K. It felt like a weight had been lifted when we untied ourselves from the worry of that flat.

Best of luck!

dopester

phil1873football wrote: »

(funny as I thought the idea of the Government rescueing them was to force them to lend again!!!).

If the banks got busted the first time around, how do you think the country would survive if the gov forced banks to lend any amount of money to people with no brains in their heads? Who self-cert lie to buy and so on.

Even nationalised banks aren't going to lend to poor risks just cause they ask for a loan. There was a time, many years ago in the old-world, where banks lent cautiously to good risks, expecting the money to be repaid and to earn a bit of interest on top. Shareholders were happy as they'd earn a little bit with shares increasing in value and annual dividends.

Not just lend out any amount any brain-dead knobber who wants to borrow for them to go spend and then default on their debt. I think it is possible we're heading back to that kind of thing.

phil1873football

dopester wrote: »

If the banks got busted the first time around, how do you think the country would survive if the gov forced banks to lend any amount of money to people with no brains in their heads? Who self-cert lie to buy and so on.

Even nationalised banks aren't going to lend to poor risks just cause they ask for a loan. There was a time, many years ago in the old-world, where banks lent cautiously to good risks, expecting the money to be repaid and to earn a bit of interest on top. Shareholders were happy as they'd earn a little bit with shares increasing in value and annual dividends.

Not just lend out any amount any brain-dead knobber who wants to borrow for them to go spend and then default on their debt. I think it is possible we're heading back to that kind of thing.

I appreciate what you saying, but not everyone is a 'brain-dead knobber' who will 'then defualt on their debt' but it's because of that type of person that makes it impossible for the decent people to get by.

phil1873football

Thanks Coupon-mad, your points are appreciated, I am like you and don't really want the hassles of renting with the possibility that you have a tennant that ruins the property or doesnt pay the rent...etc etc...I have read of many horrors stories on here about dodgy tennants, and don't want to put myself in that position.

With regards the loan, if i took out a loan to pay of the deifcit, then that would mean I couldnt save up for a deposit as you generally need 80%LTV nowadays...so its all kind of up in the air.

I personally think there are 2 options...firstly, sell for say £65k and take out a loan for the deficit/legal fees/EA fees, rent for a few years until the loan is paid off and then save up for a deposit, this however, means I may be renting for around 10yrs or so which would mean when i do try and buy again, I will be 39...not ideal as repayments would then be sky-hi.
Secondly, would be to see what happens in the next 2yrs as 'hopefully' my lender may start to agree further lending to some of its customers who have had no problems with their repayments,etc....the latter would be my best option.

But thanx for all your points of view and guidance.

ALIBOBSY

Can you overpay the mortgage? If you brought the outstanding down you could then sell to cover costs.
Perhaps have a look over on debt free wannabee and old style. Slash your bills and throw all spare cash 50% into savings for a deposit and 50% into reducing the mortgage (I am assuming no other debts?).
May be a sacrifice for a couple of years, for a longer term gain.
Also defo look around for advice re the neighbours, start keeping a log and speak to your council. Alot treat anti social behaviour more seriously these days.
good luck
ali x