Would this help sell our house and is it legal?

moneyistooshorttomention

spenceeyftb wrote: »

Not quite sure how 180k is FTB property? Unless they are yet to earn a property and on good money.

My house is obviously "first time buyer" territory and I duly got it as a "first time buyer" 25 years ago now.

The thing is that there is now this distinction between property that is quite obviously "first time buyer" territory (ie 1/2 bedroom flats or 2 bedroom terrace houses) on the one hand and property that "first time buyers" can afford on the other hand. The two don't "match" any more.

That doesn't make, for instance, a terrace 2 bed. house any less a "first time buyer" property than it ever was. What it DOES mean is it's gone down the "How the heck are first time buyers supposed to be able to afford to buy it though?" level.

I wish I knew the answer to that one personally - as I'm in the position that it will soon be time to pass my "First Time Buy" property onto the next-in-line First Time Buyer and I simply don't know how many of them are supposed to be able to pay me what it's worth. From my point of view though I obviously have to sell it for "what it's worth" - as it wouldn't be worth my while to sell it for less (as "less" wouldn't fund my next "step up the housing ladder").

Yorkie1

reheat wrote: »

What if we did something more like some of the EAs advertise, where the vendor pays the buyer a cashback (typically £1000, but we could do £2000) on completion. Maybe some FTBs could could stretch their deposit if they knew £2K of it would only need to be on a short term loan?

Makes no difference. The seller is still contributing to part of the buyer's purchase price albeit just a little later in the process.

reheat

Yorkie1 wrote: »

Makes no difference. The seller is still contributing to part of the buyer's purchase price albeit just a little later in the process.

Yes, I've now realized from all your posts why it is EAs who support cashback schemes, only do it if the buyer goes through their mortgage broker. I assumed it was just a hook to get the buyer into their mortgage deals, but I can now see that it is more than that - the mortgage provider has to be involved for it to be legal.

reheat

We've dropped the price by quite a lot, and hoping just might get more than one offer. At the end of the day we don't have to accept any offer, and if we have to we'll pull the plug on it all till next year. Many thanks to you all.

reheat

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Are you in one of the areas of the country where houseprices have stayed static or gone up then? Or have you improved the house - so that it's in an obviously better condition?

I'm saying this because it's not possible to tell whether your house (in very much the same condition as you bought it in) would be worth more/the same or less than the price "a couple of years ago".

In most areas of the country I expect the houseprices to be the same (or lower) as they were in 2007 (all else being equal) as I have tracked prices and it's now usually the case that houses increased in value in large leaps per year steadily until 2007 and then started falling. Hence I know I won't be paying more than the 2007 price for any house I go for unless a lot of work has been done on it.

Basically we took a gamble, and it didn't pay off - but that's gambles for you. We believed the previous owners had moved fairly quickly due to family circumstances, and felt the property was priced a bit low because of that - so this time round decided to go for the higher end of what seemed the sensible range (excluding the EAs with even higher valuations). Almost impossible to assess recent selling prices of similar properties in our area because a) not many sold, and b) all are ex-council sales with major discounts.

Our house was priced very similar to other similar ones in general area, accounting for fact we have a very big garden (deemed to be worth about 10K, though more of a niche market).

Anarchist

Obviously depending on area, but £180k is extremely expensive for a FTB. I'm looking at buying my first property next year. I'm on above average wage, and it would take me about another four years to save up a deposit big enough to be able to get a mortgage on your property!

Iamdave

I was a first time buyer. Few months ago and bought a house in similar price range to what your're asking but with a 25% deposit

Can't see a FTB with a 10% deposit being your target market though as that's probably looking at a £1000+ a month mortgage and if a FTB could afford that I'd have thought they'd be better off saving for a year more and having a much larger deposit.

Either sit tight, make your house more desirable or drop the price is my suggestion

inmypocketnottheirs

How bout a Rightmove link so we can make a constructive assessment?

kloana

Crikey, FTB land? I'm jointly FTB'ing a house worth approximately 41% of this one, and it was top of our self-imposed budget. Not a dingy flat, not a fixer-upper, and not a temporary home that we aim to 'ladder up' on in a few years. Potentially and hopefully a home for life, and we're not ultra-young either, at 30.

We saved for five years with the aim of securing a mortgage with monthly payments that wouldn't cripple us. Ended up putting down 18%, but this 'only' amounted to 14k. Could have borrowed more and deposited a little less, but even that small extra on the mge would have impacted upon our quality of life, and essentially made home ownership a burden. No point 'owning' a home if the mortgage payments sap the life out of you.

Very glad not to be living in an area where properties going for 180k could realistically be considered FTB fodder!