Wanting to sell...and just wasting everyones time..

Billie-S

ilikewatch wrote: »

Surely for the sake of a penny £120K "sounds" better to the vendor than £119,999

It's a pound actually, But I do see where you're coming from.

Good idea.

ClareTeaches

Totally agree with Eejay and Billie-S and many others above.

You can't approach every house with a formula of 10% off, you have to consider what is this house in this area worth and what are you willing to pay for it? When offering, we've always decided what would be the absolute maximum we'd be willing to pay for this property and used that to help decide our starting offer, so we had a bit of room to increase from our initial offer, if we needed to.

It does sound like the work needed has already been considered in the price. Though leading on from Billie-S's comments on equity after doing work, when working out how much work will cost, I think it's fair to add some for the hassle of getting the work done - buying a house with a new boiler, etc is not the same as buying somewhere and getting that work done yourself!

Alias_Omega

Thanks for the replies, I thought this thread would have died of death.

Points noted. Still dwelling on the costs of things, and what to offer. As we venture up to full asking price, we are moving within £5-8k of the 4 bedroom houses..

justjohn

You have too look at things from all angles.


Some houses prices are increased X amount to compensate for buyers that think every house should get a discount.


Some houses offer no discount for hassle, others are in sought after area's and there is no discount for work needing done or hassle.


EA's and sellers are there to get the max sale price the tactics they use are dependant on the house/area and seller. All this has to be considered by buyer to get the best discounted price. However many houses do sell for the asking price.

Yorkie1

Also, assuming that when you mention the £140K houses you mean asking price, bear in mind that they are likely to actually sell for less than that. What are usual selling prices for similar houses recently?

Billie-S

ClareTeaches wrote: »

Totally agree with Eejay and Billie-S and many others above.

You can't approach every house with a formula of 10% off, you have to consider what is this house in this area worth and what are you willing to pay for it? When offering, we've always decided what would be the absolute maximum we'd be willing to pay for this property and used that to help decide our starting offer, so we had a bit of room to increase from our initial offer, if we needed to.

It does sound like the work needed has already been considered in the price. Though leading on from Billie-S's comments on equity after doing work, when working out how much work will cost, I think it's fair to add some for the hassle of getting the work done - buying a house with a new boiler, etc is not the same as buying somewhere and getting that work done yourself!

LOL, so I did make 'some' sense then!

Yeah, what I was trying to say is that people don't want to spend all that time and money doing the house up to not make a penny on it. And they need/want to make sure that they allow for a drop in value.

In addition, I think if for example, you buy a house for £125,000 that needs doing up a lot, and the ones that are 'done up' are worth £140,000, it seems a bit of a waste of time (to me anyway,) to spend £15,000 on it, and actually not make anything on it at all, after all that work.

And I think you do need to make sure you make something on it, because you can bet that it will take more than you estimated anyway. EG; we bought a doer-upper, around early 1990s, and it was £33,000. The others in the road were around £40,000. We were in our element; we had got it for about 20% less than the others. It would be like getting a £120,000 house now for say £85-90,000 (sorry if my figures are a bit off!)

But then we found it costing a LOT more than we thought it was going to. We had dozens of trees that needed chopping down, the garden needed shedloads doing to it, it needed a new kitchen, a new bathroom, the garage rebuilding, a new heating system, new electrics, new windows, and new doors. It had been 'let go' and neglected far worse than we had first thought.

We spent about £12,000 to £14,000 on it, (in the early 1990s!) and we only got it for £7,000 less than the others in the road that were all done up already! We may as well have got one of the houses that were already done up, and paid £40,000 for it, as we ended up paying £33,000 for the house, and then spending about £12,000 to £14,000 on it. So we spent about £46,000 to make it the same quality as the £40,000 ones. So we ended up losing out quite a bit.

Looking back, I wish we had only offered £26,000-£27,000 for it. But realistically, the vendor would not have accepted that. Like someone selling a house for £125,000 now that needs doing up wouldn't dream of selling it for say £95,000, even though it would be better and more ideal for the buyer, to make it worthwhile them buying it.

Good point from Yorkie too (above me.) There is no guarantee that you will get £140,000 for your house when it is done up. You may only get £135,000! So you do have to be careful, and question whether it's worth it.

Tricky one.

Alias_Omega

Yeah Yorkie..

Also, this house has been on the market for 12 months, without a price shift. Nicely priced under stamp duty. When we went last night, we could not park in the close, we had to park elsewhere and walk through.

Its in the right place for us though, Mrs AO can walk to uni, and the kids can walk to school which means we can lose the 2nd car.

Alias_Omega

Billie-S wrote: »

LOL, so I did make 'some' sense then!

Yeah, what I was trying to say is that people don't want to spend all that time and money doing the house up to not make a penny on it. And they need/want to make sure that they allow for a drop in value.

In addition, I think if for example, you buy a house for £125,000 that needs doing up a lot, and the ones that are 'done up' are worth £140,000, it seems a bit of a waste of time (to me anyway,) to spend £15,000 on it, and actually not make anything on it at all, after all that work.

And I think you do need to make sure you make something on it, because you can bet that it will take more than you estimated anyway. EG; we bought a doer-upper, around early 1990s, and it was £33,000. The others in the road were around £40,000. We were in our element; we had got it for about 20% less than the others. It would be like getting a £120,000 house now for say £85-90,000 (sorry if my figures are a bit off!)

But then we found it costing a LOT more than we thought it was going to. We had dozens of trees that needed chopping down, the garden needed shedloads doing to it, it needed a new kitchen, a new bathroom, the garage rebuilding, a new heating system, new electrics, new windows, and new doors. It had been 'let go' and neglected far worse than we had first thought.

We spent about £12,000 to £14,000 on it, (in the early 1990s!) and we only got it for £7,000 less than the others in the road that were all done up already! We may as well have got one of the houses that were already done up, and paid £40,000 for it, as we ended up paying £33,000 for the house, and then spending about £12,000 to £14,000 on it. So we spent about £46,000 to make it the same quality as the £40,000 ones. So we ended up losing out quite a bit.

Looking back, I wish we had only offered £26,000-£27,000 for it. But realistically, the vendor would not have accepted that. Like someone selling a house for £125,000 now that needs doing up wouldn't dream of selling it for say £95,000, even though it would be better and more ideal for the buyer, to make it worthwhile them buying it.

Good point from Yorkie too (above me.) There is no guarantee that you will get £140,000 for your house when it is done up. You may only get £135,000! So you do have to be careful, and question whether it's worth it.

Tricky one.

We understand, and we don't want to take the hit if we had to sell it in the next few years either. We are not buying to make some £££, we need a bigger house, the garden is bigger and the area is slightly nicer than ours.

The owner is a smoker, the ceilings are yellow. The wall paper is peeling, the carpets are stained. The bathroom is green and years old - however its huge.! Its so old, the corners of the chimney are curved.

Outside, the driveway to the garage is concrete but broken up, the dividing wall to next door has come away at the top. The rear roof area over the patio door has a few tiles missing/slipped tiles.

The electrics are old school, probably 1990's - 15th Edition. The driveway cant be extended easily, it needs a lamppost moving which is £1200 minimum..

Its not sold over a year, therefore it cant be worth the asking price now, its just a case of the right price and ensure months of building work..

The location is not very well known to have a high salary, all factory work. Another few more years, sell both and move to Llangollen.

Billie-S

Alias_Omega wrote: »

We understand, and we don't want to take the hit if we had to sell it in the next few years either. We are not buying to make some £££, we need a bigger house, the garden is bigger and the area is slightly nicer than ours.

The owner is a smoker, the ceilings are yellow. The wall paper is peeling, the carpets are stained. The bathroom is green and years old - however its huge.! Its so old, the corners of the chimney are curved.

Outside, the driveway to the garage is concrete but broken up, the dividing wall to next door has come away at the top. The rear roof area over the patio door has a few tiles missing/slipped tiles.

The electrics are old school, probably 1990's - 15th Edition. The driveway cant be extended easily, it needs a lamppost moving which is £1200 minimum..

Its not sold over a year, therefore it cant be worth the asking price now, its just a case of the right price and ensure months of building work..

The location is not very well known to have a high salary, all factory work. Another few more years, sell both and move to Llangollen.

I get where you're coming from. However, I'm not implying that you're in it purely to 'make money:' I'm just saying that a buyer who is contemplating buying a doer-upper needs to be careful and cautious that they don't end up losing money.

If the already 'done-up' houses are are going for £140,000, and the house that is going for £125,000 needs about £15,000 spending on it (for example,) then you could end up losing out financially, as there no guarantee you will get £140,000 for it if you tried to sell in the next few years. (And you may want to...)

You may even having to take out additional finance to do repairs and maintenance. From your postings so far, this house sounds like it needs quite a lot doing to it.

If you never intend to move again - ever - then I guess it's not a massive problem, but if you 'did' want to move on in the not-too-distant future, you could find it a problem if you cut it so fine financially.

Just a thought.

Alias_Omega

I did have the same thought,

however... £140k moves into Redrow Phase 1 2002 era 4 bedroom house with internal garage. A small garden, with no storage in the house..