Commercial property turn into residential with no planning permission needed.

Graham_Devon

tyler80 wrote: »

Through my job, I'm well aware of where the empty homes are and the council are aware of them too. They're still empty...

Are they purposely left empty though?

Watched a BBC documentary on the empty streets in Liverpool, where 1 or families still live. The council want to demolish them, but the families that own won't move out, so as form of protest the rest of the houses lay empty, thereby hopefully forcing the other families out.

PasturesNew

lynzpower wrote: »

this is the cheapest commercial property I can find in my area on a quick gander to compare with aside from: http://www.findaproperty.com/displayprop.aspx?edid=04&salerent=0&pid=116856 a floor in an multiple tenant industrial estate.

That's a 27 year lease. So, in addition to that price, there'd be annual rent to pay too on a short lease.

lynzpower

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Are they purposely left empty though?

Watched a BBC documentary on the empty streets in Liverpool, where 1 or families still live. The council want to demolish them, but the families that own won't move out, so as form of protest the rest of the houses lay empty, thereby hopefully forcing the other families out.

That whole liverpool thing, most of the properties are shot to bits, damp, poor roofing, zero electric, they may be vacant- theres the reason. they are so damp they are beyond refurbishment

Graham_Devon

lynzpower wrote: »

That whole liverpool thing, most of the properties are shot to bits, damp, poor roofing, zero electric, they may be vacant- theres the reason. they are so damp they are beyond refurbishment

Yer, they were, but developers wanted them, and were willing to pay for them. A developer at the time say 11k per house to get it back to standard. One developer would have bought the entire street and got them back to living houses within 2 years or something.

There was one other issue though, something to do with the homes not conforming to council spec, even if they were overhauled.

lynzpower

vivatifosi wrote: »

I know of a few large scale commercial to residential conversions. To a building they have all taken unloved high density office buildings, mainly from c1960s and refaced them and turned them into flats. Key criteria: they have to be central to the core location to attract young professionals who will want to have facilities to hand and they should also have parking provision. Here are some examples:

Before:
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://image03.webshots.com/3/2/73/54/18327354uyWpNsLUZm_fs.jpg&imgrefurl=http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1018327354011645349uyWpNsLUZm&usg=__LjtjEcDrltqBZWFANP_zDSGz5ZQ=&h=1600&w=1200&sz=367&hl=en&start=0&sig2=IVMtlB_UkYv0uuPTYhltWQ&zoom=1&tbnid=amRvPk8gRHwPBM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=90&ei=LVaGTa2HEpmAhAfP_c2vBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkodak%2Bbuilding%2Bhemel%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D987%26bih%3D397%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=758&vpy=40&dur=2895&hovh=259&hovw=194&tx=127&ty=145&oei=LVaGTa2HEpmAhAfP_c2vBA&page=1&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0
After:
http://www.livetheimage.com/

This is before only, going through at moment, government bldg:
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.novaloca.com/images/property/lg_359_15824_634002891494785000.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.novaloca.com/property-details/36467%3Fsearch%3Dtrue&usg=__fo4rHOrLWEk23jwZbpR8dNen_5U=&h=461&w=614&sz=34&hl=en&start=0&sig2=QIN3zPHzIn6zgBNdzPyfNQ&zoom=1&tbnid=jNFG3mV9At2srM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=181&ei=8VaGTYOgDo2GhQeopcitBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhereward%2Bhouse%2Bpeterborough%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D987%26bih%3D397%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=328&vpy=78&dur=171&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=71&ty=94&oei=8VaGTYOgDo2GhQeopcitBA&page=1&ndsp=8&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0
Notice: http://planpa.peterborough.gov.uk/online-applications/buildingControlDetails.do;jsessionid=AF3264A89658331AB3C10C1AF4A2B625?previousCaseUprn=010008055351&previousCaseType=Property&activeTab=summary&previousKeyVal=I30EN9ML00000&previousCaseNumber=I30EMYML00000&keyVal=L9ENM3ML0AV00

It wouldn't surprise me if the government has identified a lot of potential buildings that it will no longer use and nobody else would want that it would be very happy to see sold for resi conversion. Many years ago when I first worked in commercial property the old adage was "if you have a ropey old building that nobody else wants, the government or BT will take it". Then BT privatised and started moving into nicer premises leaving horrid buildings as the domain of the government.

I thnik you are definately right. the government will aim to close lots of extra services so of course there are the likes of community centres and such. the government have been offloading these sorts of properties to developers. In london for large sites ( old hospitals and the like) you have to be a serious developer ( the unite group for example) and a bit of PP isnt really stopping you from buying an redeveloping these old piles of carp, man of them total eyesores that it costs the government to maintain. Of course it is right that junk properties are flogged off.

the problem with government is that they always flog off the assets at the bottom of the market. when we realise we do actually need libraries then im sure that we will buy and build them at the top of the market.

PasturesNew

lynzpower wrote: »

That whole liverpool thing, most of the properties are shot to bits, damp, poor roofing, zero electric, they may be vacant- theres the reason. they are so damp they are beyond refurbishment

There was a programme on the telly a few years back that took one of those houses and refurbished it, to prove it could be done cheaper than a demolish/re-develop.

All this "buy up old terraces, demolish, build shiny places" is just a way to take property from the poor and create shiny places for the richer to buy.

If you own outright a terrace that on the open market would have been worth £50,000 (without the redevelopment hanging over it), they'd probably offer you £30,000 for it. They'd then demolish the places and bung up shiny flats at £200,000. With £30,000 in their pockets the previous owners can't buy anything and certainly can't stay in the area.

lynzpower

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Yer, they were, but developers wanted them, and were willing to pay for them. A developer at the time say 11k per house to get it back to standard. One developer would have bought the entire street and got them back to living houses within 2 years or something.

There was one other issue though, something to do with the homes not conforming to council spec, even if they were overhauled.

It means that they will continue to havea Catergory one hazard- ie that hazard cannot be written out. I had a lecture about this just the other day one of the issues was that the staircases were too steep adn contribute a category one hazard.

If you remember at the time it was thought to be cheaper to knock down and start again with a brand new with NHBC.

Ultimately the problem in liverpool is about demand, it is not only these properties vacant, there is oversupply and lack of jobs to attract people to the area. the docks are of course, not the employer they once were.

Graham_Devon

lynzpower wrote: »

It means that they will continue to havea Catergory one hazard- ie that hazard cannot be written out. I had a lecture about this just the other day one of the issues was that the staircases were too steep adn contribute a category one hazard.

If you remember at the time it was thought to be cheaper to knock down and start again with a brand new with NHBC.

Ultimately the problem in liverpool is about demand, it is not only these properties vacant, there is oversupply and lack of jobs to attract people to the area. the docks are of course, not the employer they once were.

For the council it was cheaper to knock down and start again, but they had massive prices for everything. For developers, this wasn't the case, which is why private companies were willing to buy them.

Programme is on youtube I think.

Running_Horse

The real problem is big builders sitting on large land banks, and rationing new builds every time prices drop. This developable land needs to be heavily taxed until something is built on it, and agricultural land needs to be zoned for future housing.

As for pubs, in the country they often have gardens and car parks, and the pubcos demolish them overnight, then slap in a development for a new small estate knowing councils will not want a derelict site in a village.

Cleaver

lynzpower wrote: »

Ultimately the problem in liverpool is about demand, it is not only these properties vacant, there is oversupply and lack of jobs to attract people to the area. the docks are of course, not the employer they once were.

Indeed. The main issue for Liverpool, unfortunately, is that it's a city which is far too big for the amount of people who live there. In the early part of the twentieth century when Liverpool was a very rich and important city I'm sure they had nearly a million people living there and all the buildings, houses and infrastructure to match. They had so much money they could afford to build and build and build.

Today the city only has around 400,000 people and therefore you have lots of empty residential buildings as the city simply doesn't 'need' the amount of people living there that it used to need. Sad really, but the shipping industry is never going to be what it was. I guess you could blame the Manchester Ship Canal and the invention of trains, planes and automobiles.