Selling advice needed for a large LARGE house!

alyth

hi - I've never been into this thread before, but the time has come to admit defeat - We live in a 35 roomed former hospital that we have tried to painstakinly renovate over the last 4 years, but we now have to admit defeat that the house is too big for us, and we're planning on selling it. We tried to sell it last year through Galbraiths and whilst we had loads of viewers, no-one wanted the place due to the lack of central heating - and we're in Perthshire! So we've installed central heating at a cost of £20K and done loads of other works, and whilst the house looks good it doesn't look good enough - there are still things like a massive fire escape at the back of the house, a former operating theatre which is now just two rooms, a former laundry which will hopefully be taken away by a scrappie soon, but quite frankly I'm feeling totally overwhelmed! Every time I walk into a room I find something else that needs to be done, whether a skirting board that's a bit scrapped due to the heating engineers, to the garden which is about an acre and I don't know what I should be concentrating on, the house or the garden, should we try and sell it independently through a website or go with Galbraiths again even though it cost us about £2.5K in brochures, fees etc last year! How is the best place to market somewhere like here - it's a fairly well known house throughout the area, being a former maternity hospital and nursing home, we had some press coverage last year but I'm slightly less keen to go down that route again, I think it smacks a bit of desperation, and just dont' know what to do!!

Three valuers are coming on Monday and Tuesday of next week, and there are still about 3 bedrooms that look like bombs have hit them, no curtains, furniture in them that doesn't look right, should I delay the valuers, or let them see the place as it is, and then instruct them in a month's time? I should say that I work in within the property department of a lawyers so I know how the system works!!!

Does anyone have any advice or direction to point me in as to how to sell and market my house the best way??? Kind regards, Alyth

Ian_W

35 rooms - Phew!! I can't give you any advice other than it's a REAL Niche market property! Thought of asking any of the EAs about putting it in an auction? Don't know whether they work the same on Scotland as the rest of the UK but something like this with potential either to develop into Flats or Hotel or Care Home might well end up in one south of the border.

BoL.

jonnyw_2

35 rooms makes 7 decent flats!!!!! A care home or an hotel ???

I wouldnt have bothered with the central heating - anyone really interested wiuld just knock the estimated cost of putting it in of their offer.

I think its the same with the bedrooms being in a mess. It wont have much effect on the valuation and whilst it might be better to tidy them up when you can I think every pound you spend on this sort of thing will only give you pennies increase on the sale price.

I would just let the valuers see it as it is and have a good chat with them as to what if any repairs you should be doing. They should know what alterations will be cost effective.

Astaroth

I would imagine that auction may be a good route to go. A former associate sold a large property in perthshire a few years ago - was probably larger than yours and had massively more land - but it had been massively run down by having been owned by the YMCA for decades. He ultimately found that the auction was the best route to go.

nej

As it's big enough to be converted into flats, why don't you approach a property developer?

itsakidsworld

You could make a massive kids indoor funshop!!! Like Charlie and the chocolate factory? Each room different sweets. I'd come up!!:j

Sorry, mind went daft then.:embarasse

cattie

I would have thought it would be of interest to a property developer too. A hospital quite close to where I live was converted into luxury apartments some years ago.

How brave you were to try to take on the renovation yourselves. I'm sorry it's defeated you, but hope at least you make a decent enough profit to have made your hard work worthwhile.

Good luck.

alyth

thanks for all your replies. The village I live in has an embargo on properties being turned into flats, a developer was interested last year but pulled out due to being unable to get planning permission. We had our first viewers tonight, despite the house not being on the market, they were friends of friends, and the feedback was that the house is too big - they were sent a schedule beforehand!

Astaroth, do you know with which auction people your friend sold their house through - to be honest, it's not something I had ever thought of, I know the Scotland on Sunday sometimes advertises properties for auction, and a big house up near Glenisla sold for a fortune at auction a little while ago. I'll look more into that tonight but would appreciate any more info you have.

Still feeling overwhelmed but an hour tonight made all the rooms that are still being decorated look almost perfect! I'm just struggling to find the best way to market the house, is it down south, abroad, locally, I'll go back to my wine and internet and keep researching the auction route further I think! But thanks again for your replies, itsakidsworld, fantastic idea, although the drawback is that I'm not particularly into kids - animals maybe!!!!

courtjester

I'd say if you have invested £2,500 in brochures etc, you might as well go back to this agent and make the best use of your investment.

At the same time, advertise the property using a decent national website - there is nothing to prevent you using an agent and your own private advertising alongside, provided you agree to Sole Agency terms (NOT Sole Selling Rights) and you choose an established professional website (as many smaller property sites are not properly structured to ensure they don't conflict with agency contracts).

Vincenzo

Alyth,

Sounds like quite a property you have there! What sort of value are we talking?

I am no expert on the market up there but it may be worth your while contacting some of the London agents. In particular I would concentrate on Chartered Surveyors, namely Savills or Knight Frank. Perhaps even Chestertons (no longer linked to a commercial practice).

This sounds like the kind of property a well off FT100 director might go for and have refurbished as a weekend/holiday/retirement house. If so, these are the agents you need to be talking to, not your average high street agent, most of whom are more interested in quick, easy sales.

They will also be well placed to advise on sale by auction. Often with these types of property the local market represents the worst value for the vendor. You may find the value achieved through a London agent will be much higher than you expected.

Good luck!

alyth

Hi Vincenzo, I suspect the house is worth about £400K, you're absolutely right about going with one of the big named agents, Savills do have a branch near here, the problem I'm finding is that anyone who is looking for a property usually looks on the local Solicitors Property Centre websites, such as Tayside and Perthshire, as well as Savills, etc and I'm not sure which direction to go in - go with a local agent that's a member of the Property Centre, and thus it only costs about £200 in fees, or go again with a "big" agent where it costs around £500 just to get the brochures printed.

As you mention it's the ideal place for a weekend retreat for a wealthy person, this area is full of second-homers from down south, and I think an ad in Sunday Times will be worthwhile, I'll check it out this weekend. I've put the house on a couple of property websites, Propertyladder and some other one that came up near the top of a google search, but I'm not holding out much hope from that, but it didn't cost anything apart from my time!

I'm also going to investigate the auction route this weekend, I had a quick search last night and found a couple of companies that seem to have auctions in this area, so now at nearly 11pm I've finished painting and will pour that glass of wine and plan my list for tomorrow!