Help Sell Our Flat

pmlindyloo

My thoughts (for what they're worth!)

Who do you see as your kind of buyer?

Without a larger bathroom I think couples with children are not your target buyer.

Therefore I believe you have to think of a couple as your only possible buyer.

You might be lucky and find one that will put up with such a tiny shower room but my suggestion would be............ turning the second bedroom into a lovely bathroom.

Another suggestion would be to have plans to show with different options - loft conversion etc.

If you look at other 2 beds in your area you will quickly see that your garden is a big advantage but does not outweigh the downside of the tiny shower room.

Good luck!

SellMyFlat_2

Errata wrote: »

That's very true, but in today's very tight market are you confident that a surveyor would consider the washing facilities to be adequate? I appreciate yours did, but times change.
What has your EA said about it?

Nothing at all.

SellMyFlat_2

pmlindyloo wrote: »

My thoughts (for what they're worth!)

Who do you see as your kind of buyer?

Without a larger bathroom I think couples with children are not your target buyer.

Therefore I believe you have to think of a couple as your only possible buyer.

You might be lucky and find one that will put up with such a tiny shower room but my suggestion would be............ turning the second bedroom into a lovely bathroom.

Another suggestion would be to have plans to show with different options - loft conversion etc.

If you look at other 2 beds in your area you will quickly see that your garden is a big advantage but does not outweigh the downside of the tiny shower room.

Good luck!

The 2nd bedroom is at the front of flat, the soil pipe is at the back. We would not even be able use pumps to get the waste all the way from the front to back.

How much would it cost to get plans etc?

I don't want to spend £1000s on putting in a bathroom when we wont see that money back, it seems like a pointless exercise?

hazyjo

SellMyFlat wrote: »

We have bought the free hold with the downstairs flat so the lease is non issue now, thank god!

You'll still have a lease on it! Was it extended?

Jx

pinkshoes

It's probably just a price thing...

Searching within half a mile of your postcode, there's quite a few cheaper flats, some with parking and communal garages, some that need doing up...

I would assume that it's just not priced competitively enough for the local market compared to what else you could get for your money.

I'd rather spend £10k less and buy a flat that needs some work doing, one that has a bigger bathroom...!

The private garden is lovely though, and should be a big advantage.

It doesn't really emphasise it being freehold either i.e. no service charges unlike other flats?!?!

pmlindyloo

SellMyFlat wrote: »

The 2nd bedroom is at the front of flat, the soil pipe is at the back. We would not even be able use pumps to get the waste all the way from the front to back.

How much would it cost to get plans etc?

I don't want to spend £1000s on putting in a bathroom when we wont see that money back, it seems like a pointless exercise?

Major job then - without a floor plan difficult to tell room layout.

Understand completely about not wanting to spend out loads of money.

So, next option, plans.

If you haven't got a builder friend then you could ask a builder to come round and suggest possible different layouts. Might cost you a bit but would be worth it. Give some local ones a call, explain the position and see what they say.

The difficulty is that someone could spend a lot of money building a loft conversion/knocking down walls and never get their money back on resale because every house has its 'ceiling' price.

Willowpop

SellMyFlat wrote: »

We have bought the free hold with the downstairs flat so the lease is non issue now, thank god!

It is still an issue even if you have bought a share in the freehold.
At the end of may the flats that I live in collectively bought the freehold and we are now extending the lease terms to 999years. Extending the lease will make the lease a virtual freehold, rather than the 70odd years that we have on the lease....but it still needs extending. If you don't extend it you may have a share in the freehold, but you still have a short lease.
It is costing just over £500 to do this for each of our flats.



Regarding the flat itself, I think most things are covered, I would be put off by the location (junction, by a school), lack of parking (especially when there is activity around the school...I'm a mum and the roads near my daughter's school are just crazy mad), the shower room wouldn't be adequate for me either I'm afraid. Unless it was really cheap there is no way I could compromise on these points.
However, you will eventually find someone who hates baths and has never lived near a school before who will buy it...like you said, you bought it and the people before you did too...it just might take a while. Just get all the other areas looking as good as they possibly can and be honest on the adverts, then people don't have a surprise when they come round to view.

SellMyFlat_2

It will extended during the purchase going through.

Thats kind of my thinking. We need to price it so that someone who thought they couldn't afford a 2bed with a big garden could afford it, but have to compromise on the bathroom. But how low do we go??

Yep I understand the ceiling price bit, which is why we are relunctant to just throw more money at it. The freehold cost us £20k which we had to get a loan for, and we won't get that back when we sell.

Willowpop

SellMyFlat wrote: »

It will extended during the purchase going through.

At the buyer's expense then? Or in with the purchase price?

SellMyFlat wrote: »

Thats kind of my thinking. We need to price it so that someone who thought they couldn't afford a 2bed with a big garden could afford it, but have to compromise on the bathroom. But how low do we go??

I don't really know the prices in your area, but I would expect to pay the same as a flat that doesn't have something that yours does...eg the same price as a flat with no garden. So when I compare them I can say 'these 2 are the same price..this one has a lovely bathroom and is in a nice street but has no garden, but this one has a beautiful garden but the bathroom and positioning are a less than ideal'. Then I would decide which points I would want more.

Errata

It looks like this is the competition you're up against, I appreciate it's leasehold, but even so .... http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41883743.html