Studio for sale BUT only for cash buyers?

scottishblondie

slimg wrote: »

To be honest the mortgage is the last of my worries...As i mentioned 100K is ready...and the rest 150K I will ask my brothers to lend me. Then I will get a mortgage to pay my relatives back.

Is it a bad investment to get a concrete block?
What's that "50% owner occupied" means?

Don't count on getting a mortgage to pay your brothers the £150k back - you might not be able to get one at all! This is why the owner is looking for a cash buyer, they are clearly aware of some reason that a buyer won't get a mortgage to buy the property. If it is non-standard construction, that would be a big stumbling block.

50% owner occupied means that 50% of the properties in the block are rented out.

dannim12345

OP I would also consider how long will you be looking to live in a studio flat? If they are having difficulty selling now, when the market is pretty crazy in London, you'll properly have the same problems when you come to sell.

bouicca21

You just don't get it, do you? You will not get a mortgage to buy it. You will not get a mortgage to pay your relatives back. As and when you want to sell, your prospective buyers won't be able to get a mortgage either. The place is a white elephant.

Annie1960

slimg wrote: »

To be honest the mortgage is the last of my worries...As i mentioned 100K is ready...and the rest 150K I will ask my brothers to lend me. Then I will get a mortgage to pay my relatives back.

Is it a bad investment to get a concrete block?
What's that "50% owner occupied" means?

It is likely you will not be able to get a mortgage.

Annisele

slimg wrote: »

To be honest the mortgage is the last of my worries...As i mentioned 100K is ready...and the rest 150K I will ask my brothers to lend me. Then I will get a mortgage to pay my relatives back.

Is it a bad investment to get a concrete block?
What's that "50% owner occupied" means?

The mortgage issues are telling you that it's a bad investment.

It's been on the sale for about nine months, in a hot market, it looks "cheap", and yet it still hasn't sold. So - why isn't the rest of the world beating a path to the estate agent's door? Probably because it isn't actually cheap, and it's actually an unmortgageable money pit.

If you buy this, I'd be surprised if you can get a mortgage to pay back your family (and if you can get a mortgage, just do that - don't put your family at risk). It's also possible the service charges are horrendous, or that you'd get a £50k bill for a new roof and new lifts a few months after moving in.

Plus, it's tiddly - and if/when prices fall, you'll struggle to shift a studio flat (even if it was mortgageable).

Stay away!

kaya

The term " cash buyer" can simply be estate agent speak for " not in a chain" , it doesn't nessecarily mean you need £250k in your bank account . We are in the process of house hunting ATM and have come across this term used in this way. It can simply mean that the seller has no interest in waiting for somebody who is in a chain to complete their sale first ,most estate agents round here ( watford) won't even allow us to view a property unless we tell them we have accepted an offer on our property already or are a first time buyer with no chain

Snakey

In the context of council flats, what you're describing as "owner-occupied" actually means: what percentage are still owned by the council?

The concern is partly the depression in value due to stigma/snobbery on the part of future buyers (who won't want those sort of people living next door!) and partly that there is a correlation with higher rates of crime and anti-social behaviour that would make the most liberal of buyers think twice in the worst cases.

In actual fact, many of the properties that have been bought from the council will probably be rented out (as opposed to literally being occupied by their owners) as it is a popular BTL investment.

davidmcn

Annisele wrote: »

It's also possible the service charges are horrendous, or that you'd get a £50k bill for a new roof and new lifts a few months after moving in.

I think this is the main risk with high-rise social housing - you'll have no control over what investments the landlord wants to make for the benefit of their tenants, or what it has to spend because of problems caused by non-standard construction etc.

Or the block gets redeveloped - you might get some cash from a compulsory purchase, but who wants the hassle of that?

Annie1960

kaya wrote: »

The term " cash buyer" can simply be estate agent speak for " not in a chain" , it doesn't nessecarily mean you need £250k in your bank account . We are in the process of house hunting ATM and have come across this term used in this way. It can simply mean that the seller has no interest in waiting for somebody who is in a chain to complete their sale first ,most estate agents round here ( watford) won't even allow us to view a property unless we tell them we have accepted an offer on our property already or are a first time buyer with no chain

http://www.tpos.co.uk/downloads/TPOE27-1%20Code%20of%20Practice%20for%20Residential%20Estate%20Agents%20(Effective%20from%201%20August%202011).PDF

See this link para 17b for the TPOS definition of 'cash buyer'. It means the buyer will not need a mortgage.

hazyjo

May also be rumours of them being knocked down/compulsory purchase order on the horizon. Google the name of the block, street, etc.

Jx