Do we have any options?

DAVESDON

In 2009 my husband and I purchased our 3 bed semi for 100k with a 10% gifted deposit. So our mortgage was for 90k plus the usual fees.

We now want to sell, as we want a bungalow (I have an injured back and a weak pelvis due to SPD) and we also want to move nearer to nurseries/schools (daughter is 2)

We put our house up for sale at 119,950 with a well-known estate agency. We owe them £80 for an EPC and £120 for their 'premium listing' on Rightmove if we go off the market. We also have to pay higher fees if we go dual-agency and the first agency sells our house.

We still owe around 88k on the mortgage. The interest rate is about 7.4%. We can scrape together around 5k for moving fees but this is mostly coming from overdrafts.

We feel trapped in our house as it has been on the market since January with absolutely no interest. The agency have recommended we drop to 100k or less, but if we do this, we will be struggling to make any profit let alone have a deposit for a new house. We also have a 3k ERC as we are locked into our mortgage til 2013.

Do we have any options at all? We need to sell and we don't want to rent because if we get off the property ladder, we'll struggle to get back on!!

go_cat

Sorry to say but if you have had no interest after 9 months then its usually the price is too high

What are other similar houses priced at and what are houses similar near you selling for that should give you a guide as to what to drop it to

A house is only ever worth what someone will pay for it

KRB2725

Is your mortgage not portable?

Thrugelmir

I would be surprised if the value of your property has risen 20% since 2009. So would appear overpriced in the current market.

Was the gifted deposit from the builder of the property?

Moving house is an expensive business. Not something that can be afforded every 18 months or so. Using your overdrafts to fund the move is a dangerous move as you how will you repay the money.

You will need to raise the deposit of 10% when you exchange contracts on the new property. Have you considered how you will fund this?

Suggest you review your monthly outgoings and start overpaying your current mortgage. Then review the situation once the fixed rate ends in 2013.

tyler80

Most buyers will find out that you bought the house for 100k in 2009, they'll be wondering why the asking price is nearly 20k more than that just 2 years later when house prices have fallen.

Admittedly I'm not sure exactly what part of the country you're in but in an area where 3 bed semis cost 100k I think it's pretty much guaranteed that house prices have fallen by a significant amount there too.

DAVESDON

we're a suburb in the West Mids. The mortgage is portable, although we'd rather get rid and go for a better deal.

The area is funny - on our particular street, the semis go for approx 100-110k, and terraces are about the same. But within the next few streets, they go for anything from 80-120k, sometimes 125. There is a house on our street about the same size as mine, which is up at 100k, no upward chain but no interest at all.

I have no idea what is involved in moving house - how much deposit do I need for a new house? And if I port my mortgage over, what does that mean with regards to deposit?

The gifted deposit was from the vendors we bought the house from. They marketed it at 130k in 2007, but dropped to offers over 100k by the time we bought it in march 2009.

I am expecting a compensation payment - agreed but not yet paid - which I am hoping will cover the moving costs and thus repay overdrafts. It is a dangerous move, but we are very desperate to move.

ognum

Would it be possible to post a rightmove link so we can look at the listing and give feedback please
I think you are being optomistic about your resale value No interest after 9 months is an indication of this maybe
Like may people you probably are trapped where you are unless you drop your price considerabley
Post the link and we will see if we can help

phoebe1989seb

Hi there,

I can appreciate that in your situation you are very desperate to move and sympathise with your circumstances, but as other posters have said unless there are exceptional reasons in your area for why your property has risen in value it is unlikely that you will 'make a profit' on what you paid in 2009.

We sold earlier this year. We were also desperate to move, although for different reasons. We had spent approaching £40k on our house since purchasing at the end of 2007 (admittedly when prices were high) adding an extra bathroom and replacing dated kitchen units with timeless bespoke wood cabinets/granite worktops, replacing second bathroom suite and generally ridding the period house of 80s features as well as repointing the brickwork etc, but to get a quick sale we accepted that we would have to take a hit financially so we priced accordingly and accepted an offer £20k less than we had paid. This was not an easy decision as I hate 'losing' money but to achieve what we desired - to get away from an area we hated and be closer to family - we went ahead.............we sold in just over two weeks.

Luckily we had no mortgage and were buying a similarly priced house so remain mortgage-free, but if you are really desperate to move you have to be realistic as your house will sell quickly if it is correctly priced. It would definitely be worth investigating if you can 'port' your mortgage.

Good Luck,

Phoebe x

zappahey

tyler80 wrote: »

Most buyers will find out that you bought the house for 100k in 2009, they'll be wondering why the asking price is nearly 20k more than that just 2 years later when house prices have fallen.

Admittedly I'm not sure exactly what part of the country you're in but in an area where 3 bed semis cost 100k I think it's pretty much guaranteed that house prices have fallen by a significant amount there too.

Though in reality they only paid £90k as there was a £10k gifted deposit. To imagine that it now has the potential to be valued at anywhere near 120k is utterly delusional.

go_cat

Your options in a nutsell are

1) Stay where you are , try and overpay your mortgage and hope property prices go up

2) Cut your loses price the house at a sensible price and start again , maybe with less / no deposit

DAVESDON

thanks for the responses.

I forgot to mention, when we bought it we had to do quite a bit of cosmetic work to it, which we hoped would add value. In a nutshell we stripped, plastered and painted the whole house, new carpets upstairs, new laminate throughout downstairs, added integrated appliances (oven, dishwasher) and overhauled the back garden.

If we were to sell at say 100k, that would give us 8k "profit" after paying off the mortgage and ERC, or 12k if we port the mortgage.

Is it even possible to get a 95 or 100% mortgage these days? As I fear we would need to! It's likely the 8k would have to go on fees and wouldn't leave us with a deposit.

Sorry to sound silly, this is the first house we ever bought and we dont know much about it all