National Home Buyers

meanmachine_2

cleo13 wrote:

like everyone else it seems i'm interested by this, my house has been on the market since january and i've dropped the price by £10,000 due to the lack of offers. the way it's looking for i'm wondering if i should use this company before i need to drop my price further. the website has lots of happy customers but do you think that they are true cases?

I can't understand how national home buyers will be able to find buyers for your property, if you can't. That's unless they offer, say, 50% of its market value.

And would you be happy with that?

As suggested on here, sounds to me like they make most of their money from hugely overpriced surveys.

Avoid.

The fact is, there are just too few buyers and far too many sellers right now. The ratio has gone crazy. Ask yourself this, if you had to buy your property today, without the aid of equity in another place, would YOU be able to afford it? If the answer's no, how could anybody else.

rammell

For all those interested in National Homebuyers, I've just found this news story on The Telegraph website:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2004/11/24/psale24.xml&sSheet=/property/2004/11/24/ixpmain17.html

Seems that going with NH is taking a BIG risk!!

ilovefreebies_2

Having read the telegraph report and spoken to a residential surveyor I can say 'a drivepast' would cost around £42 inc VAT and includes a photo and a two page report consisting of 5 paragraphs and comparable evidence (3 x similar sold houses in the area)

Seems extremely expensive considering a full homebuyers survey costs £295 + VAT

I'll stay well away!

turquoise_2

I have just had a survey done from this people, National Home Buyers the survey cost £695.00 the surveyor did not even enter the house, took some pictures, compared to others of similar! we live in a small development of 18 house, they compared us against estate of several hundreds, then use'd information of another house near us for sale, our house was valued at £325,000 earlier this year, they offered us £190,000.
I feel they are preying on people who need to move qucikly, or are unware of the true worth of there home, don't be tempted like me, you are probaly better to reduce your price to a level that you can accept, and not be taken for a ride.

Mr_Proctalgia

They have just been on Watchdog - Don't touch them with a bargepole! I seems they will offer at least 30% below market value and when you are ready to exchange they will gazunder you again!

Stay well away!

greenwich

Do a search. This topic has been discussed at least twice in the last month.

Jorgan_2

We had a client who used one of these companies, house for sale for £130,000 and were offered £80,000.

theGrinch

nationalhomebuyers seem more interested in selling drive by "surveys" than buying property.

saloysius2

I used national homebuyers when i split up from the ex. the deal is they offer under market value and complete immediately. they sorted my problem.

I got 10k less than the market value, and that suited me - just needed to get rid of the place quickly and not deal with or see the ex again. If i add up the mortgage payments and estate agent costs i would have had, I reckon i got a really good deal!

:xmassign:

rammell

saloysius2, sounds like you were the lucky one. From the recent press coverage and first-hand reports on the internet, most people seem to be offered substantially less than the market value. The result is, they don't proceeed and National Home Buyers get a minimum of £400 for a drive-by valuation that only cost them about £50 to execute.

I'm only guessing, but I would imagine that NHB only offer higher amounts for those properties that it either already has people waiting for or that it reckons it can re-sell very quickly.

I contacted NHB several times with genuine questions about their service but they failed to respond.