How to check the sale history of the property I want to buy?

mooncake

I only know zoopla and have checked the sold prices in the area. But how do I check the sale history of the house I want to buy? What else statistics should I look into? Is this part of the lawyer's or surveyer's job for me when making offers to a property?

PasturesNew

All research about sold prices, disputes, problems, flooding, riots, murders, etc is entirely up to you to discover.

Have you googled the address?

Checked the police crime website?

Addiscomber

mooncake wrote: »

how do I check the sale history of the house I want to buy? What else statistics should I look into?

http://www.nethouseprices.com/

http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/

http://www.police.uk/

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/37793.aspx


Do lots of research for yourself. Visit property/area at different times of day/weekend. It costs a lot to buy and sell, and making a mistake is expensive.

nonnie44

https://www.ourproperty.co.uk. It's free, though you have to log in and it gives you dates, prices and name of buyers since 2000 I think. You just need to enter the postcode, hope that helps.

mooncake

Thank you for all of the information above. They are very helpful. Got some other questions here.

How to make an offer? Some people said you should ask 20% off at first, but some suggested at most 10%. And I also saw people get less than 1% off the asking price.

What are the criterions?

Addiscomber

There are no hard and fast rules. That is why you do your own research. To enable you to decide what you are prepared to pay.

If I had a house for sale and you offered 80% of asking price I would not regard you as a serious buyer.

geoffky

Addiscomber wrote: »

There are no hard and fast rules. That is why you do your own research. To enable you to decide what you are prepared to pay.

If I had a house for sale and you offered 80% of asking price I would not regard you as a serious buyer.

WHAT if your asking is 30% more than any house had sold in the street..;)

jbainbridge

You need to look at the sold prices and work out what the vendors will expect given the condition of the property. Don't worry too much about the asking price ... though it may give you an idea to their expectations.

There's no logic to it though - some vendors may desparate and will accept lower offers; others will have high expectations - especially if the property is new to the market.

Addiscomber

geoffky wrote: »

WHAT if your asking is 30% more than any house had sold in the street..;)

We could well be, but our house is one of a very few semis in a mainly terraced street. We also extended the house in 1999. This showing that research of sold prices in the same street can be misleading. One needs to be sure that one is comparing like with like. If anyone tried to beat us down because they had found out from the Land Registry what we paid in 1991/2, they would be wasting their time because it now bears very little resemblance to what we bought.

In the unlikely event of us selling I would also be doing my research and we would be priced to sell. Just as we were when we last sold and bought in 1991. Prices had fallen, folk were trapped in negative equity in one bedroom flats and we were determined not to be trapped in our small terraced house when prices started to rise. The EA was somewhat shocked when we told them what to offer it at but we sold it quite quickly without any feeling that we were giving it away.