Mary Portas: Secret Shopper (Ch 4)

Doozergirl

Jowo wrote: »

Someone on another MSE forum located the 2 bedroom flat the EA couldn't shift. It's on the market for £495k.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-17808471.html

I then found a similar flat in the same street on the market for £425k and I'm not sure the glass bricks is sufficient reason to ask for another 70k...It's been on sale for 4 months and has had the price dropped from £450k. So this agent and buyer think, ah, I know what, a similar flat hasn't sold after 4 months for £425k, I'll pop on an extra £70k on the price and that'll shift it..

http://www.foxtons.co.uk/property-for-sale-in-muswell-hill/chpk0232581

It looks like they are spending too much time finding out about who is responsible for broken fences and not enough time accurately pricing the property ... One can walk around the corner and find a garden flat of that size for much less.

The Foxtons one has a garden! That properly makes it worth more, so even if they were the same price, I know which one I'd be choosing. I prefer the interior of the Foxtons one from the photographs as well. Glass bricks are a bit 'of their time' I think...

Errata

I thought the glass brick wall was there to enable borrowed light into each of two main rooms from each other. It'd be like the black hole of Calcutta otherwise.

Jowo_2

Doozergirl wrote: »

The Foxtons one has a garden! That properly makes it worth more, so even if they were the same price, I know which one I'd be choosing. I prefer the interior of the Foxtons one from the photographs as well. Glass bricks are a bit 'of their time' I think...

The Martyn Gerard one has a courtyard garden, too, it's just I really can't understand why their flat is priced around 15% more than the other, they seem relatively comparable.

Generous use of hair gel isn't going to shift it when a buyer can buy a similar property for 70k less in that exact area, and more if they trot off round the corner to look at other garden flats.

BitterAndTwisted

True, and that courtyard garden is at the front so not nearly as private as a basement flat (sorry, lower ground-floor) with a garden at the rear. I think those glass-brick flat-owners are living in an alternative reality to the rest of us but I wish them well with their (eventual) sale.

poppysarah

Jowo wrote: »

courtyard garden

Sorry that's EA speak...

clairehi

so the flat featured in the programme hasnt even been sold - as it turns out to be overpriced! !!!!!!.

I didnt see Mary taking them to task over that in the programme - and isnt that the first thing people always say on this board - if your house wont sell its probably because its overpriced?

so (gasp) maybe Mary Portas DOESNT actually know everything about selling after all???

BitterAndTwisted

Yep, and it's a shame they haven't actually been able to provide a vague approximation of a garden either. Unless slabs and gravel equates to vegetation in someone's mind. Notice the rather fetching and trendy white enamel watering-can to water practically nothing and some welly boots for walking about where there's no mud either.

Edit: I don't believe that MP would present herself as a property-valuation expert and therefore don't necessarily think she should have had anything to say about that particular property's price. That was not the intent or focus of the programme as far as I understand it.

poppysarah

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

That was not the intent or focus of the programme as far as I understand it.

Indeed. It was about customer service for buyers...

Jowo_2

poppysarah wrote: »

Sorry that's EA speak...

Blimey, I took the estate agents word for it that there is a garden in the highly overpriced flat but if I'd have scrolled through the piccies, I would have seen a dingy patch of gravel.

Please will someone tell me why there is a pair of wellies in the back garden that has virtually no grass or soil?

I'm starting to feel sorry for those oily estate agents who clearly have an owner fantasising about the value of their property. Or should I feel sorry for the owner who has been tricked into this fantasy by the EAs? It's clearly well over priced.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-17808471.html

Mrs_Money

F_T_Buyer wrote: »

Now I've read it in context, I assume it means a quiet road and/or cul de sac?

Yes, it does - but isn't the word "turning" rather archaic? I associate it with the 1940s and 50s and people's descriptions of their childhood homes in slums - bit ironic really!:rotfl: