Fustrated seller needs advice

macman

Selling it at 125K is going to save the buyer £1,250 in SDLT, which might provide some more interest. Can you price up some of the fixtures (curtains/carpets/washing m/c etc) as a separate sale to get back nearer to realising £130K? Obviously you cannot hugely inflate their actual value, but since you are talking about only 4% of total value, something should be possible.

hazyjo

Just to add a note re Zoopla, it 'overvalued' the house we bought by nearly £200k! It's rubbish. It just makes a bit of a calculated stab in the dark - which is basically useless. I seem to remember a Zoopla bod on here saying the same thing. Because of the price we paid, it's now ignored the higher 'value' and shows it as valued under what we paid (even though we know we got a good deal and the owners only paid £30k less 8 years ago!).

Jx

hazyjo

macman wrote: »

Selling it at 125K is going to save the buyer £1,250 in SDLT, which might provide some more interest. Can you price up some of the fixtures (curtains/carpets/washing m/c etc) as a separate sale to get back nearer to realising £130K? Obviously you cannot hugely inflate their actual value, but since you are talking about only 4% of total value, something should be possible.

On a selling price that low, it's highly unlikely they'll be able to get even near to £2k for all that. Second hand goods aren't worth a lot! And, as a buyer, why would I want to pay another few grand for something which would basically be worth £125k once I moved in? Really can't see anyone paying a penny over the £125k level.

Jx

macman

I disagree. Carpets and curtains (unless they're old tat) cost a lot. And these days many people like to have a house 'ready to live in'. If the buyer pays say £3K for fixtures and fittings, then the actual cost to them is only £1.75K with the SDLT saving.
Obviously if the house without F&F is not worth £125K in the current market then that's another matter.

GDB2222

I glanced through the RM listing, and "SCHOOL ACCESS ROAD" jumped out at me. Other people might not notice it.

I would say that nobody will offer over £125k if that means they pay stamp duty, but are FTBs exempt up to a house value of £250k still?

GAH

SDLT still exempt for FTB's until April 2012

GDB2222

Next question: Is £125k+ a realistic price level for FTBs in Huddersfield?

hazyjo

macman wrote: »

I disagree. Carpets and curtains (unless they're old tat) cost a lot. And these days many people like to have a house 'ready to live in'. If the buyer pays say £3K for fixtures and fittings, then the actual cost to them is only £1.75K with the SDLT saving.
Obviously if the house without F&F is not worth £125K in the current market then that's another matter.

No offence to the OP, but the lounge curtains don't look like they were particularly expensive, there's no carpet downstairs that I can see, the oven is built in anyway, no idea about the washing machine but that's not likely to get more than say £60, and I can't see carpet upstairs being worth much as second hand goods (possibly third hand or more - no pics apart from the loft room so can't comment). I still think to get anywhere near even £2k for 'extras' is somewhat optimistic in that house. I'd tell them to whistle if I were buying it and would stick £125k on the table and wouldn't pay a penny over (if I were paying up to the SD threshold).

I'm still not even sure if that's actually a conversion, or just a boarded loft room. Makes a pretty big difference, IMO.

Jx

googler

Notamondayfan wrote: »

The EA said they generally don't do bedroom pictures. I never really questioned this as they are the experts.

Doesn't sound very 'expert' to me.

I look at the listings for houses and flats in my area - they all have pictures of the bedrooms. Do the same for your area, not just your agent's listings, and see if your agent is the only one who does this....

Mallotum_X

House looks fine, so if its not selling its the price. As someone pointed out potential buyers wil see what you paid for it and know prices have fallen since then. You really need to get the price lower. If you are going to drop dont bother with a couple of k, as buyers will expect that anyway, unfortunately you need to be realistic and decide if you really want to move. If so then you need to be thinking under the stamp duty and probably something like 122k as an asking price.

As you have had nothing so far it may well be you have to consider that you will get under 120k.

The housing market always dies off in the run up to Xmas so it may well be worth taking it off the market and relaunching in January with a new agent.

I would not hold any hope that a price drop will generate a bidding war, if people were interested you would have had some cheaky offers already - at 130k people know they can offer under 125 as a reasonable first step already.

Also drop the "offers over", it can put some people off.