'Unsellable' house

cloo

So now we have done with the sale of my old house, we are ready to sell where we live now and in a position to make offers on our next place. I was hoping that things here (North London) had slowed a bit, but evidence is that places are still escalating a lot from asking price on the whole. Hopefully we will find what we are after (which is not plentiful) but I am worried about being repeatedly outbid/gazumped and wondering if we should consider a plan B, a house we saw a couple of months back.

My husband loved it... I was concerned a) that the sloped ceilings upstairs lose one quite a lot of storage, but more importantly b) it would be really difficult to sell on.

Basically it is an attractive house in an odd location; the owner rebuilt an old caretaker's bungalow behind a block of flats into a very pretty large cottage style house, so you have to effectively drive through an archway into the grounds of the flats to get to it. It has a pleasant enough front view onto the lawns behind the flats, and a lovely back garden. It backs onto the grounds of a primary school, but only the administrative blocks of it and the trees shelter the garden from being overlooked by it, and it's near shops, tube etc so the wider location is good. We could probably extend it quite a lot at the back, as there shouldn't be anyone to object to it really.

So it should have a lot in its favour, but the owner said he'd had dozens of viewings but no offers which confirmed my fear it would be hard to sell on. This was reinforced when my husband talked to a local agent who said the owner has been putting in on the market occasionally for about four years now. I never totally dropped it but figured (correctly) we could wait to reconsider potentially... so if we were really stuck, we could reasonably make the owner a significantly lower offer and buy a larger place while reducing our mortgage (given the lump sum from my old house).

We are looking at the next place as a long term home, so saleability isn't an immediate problem, but we'd have to understand we could probably never sell in a hurry. Though I do wonder if by taking the plunge and actually buying it from the original owner we automatically increase its sellability, though that might fade over time.

Does this sound potentially worth the risk? It probably won't come to it, but I'm interested what people think.

silvercar

First thing is to check that there are the correct planning permissions and building regs sign off for the house. Download the deeds and check that they match where you think the boundaries of the property are. Also check for access rights through the flats to get to the house. It is these sort of legal issues that put buyers off.

cloo

Those did occur to us a possible issues, but thanks for reminding to review that if we consider it. I think my husband may have asked the vendor about access rights and he suggested there were no issues (which he would I suppose!)

Argghhh

put in a cheeky low offer - if its only one he has ever had he might bite your hand off and if you are staying for a while it will offset the later problems if any by being able to market for less

Lord_Baltimore

Don't like the sound of that 'access through an archway'. Flying freehold? Ugh.

silvercar

Lord_Baltimore wrote: »

Don't like the sound of that 'access through an archway'. Flying freehold? Ugh.

Flying freehold is generally more of a problem for the "flying" than the ground traffic.

anselld

cloo wrote: »

so if we were really stuck, we could reasonably make the owner a significantly lower offer

Vendors who put their home on and off the market over a few years are generally in no hurry to sell so they are unlikely to accept low offers.

cloo

Well he's a retired gent, widower we think, planning to move to countyside near his daughter. We could make him a lower offer that would still leave him plenty of money to make that move.

In the meantime, an interesting wreck has come on the market on our road, so we're looking at that on Saturday.

lmwarr21

Check out all the points the others have mentioned first. However with regards to saleability it is a house that can sell as you want to buy it. It just may take a little longer than usual. If you love the house then go for it.

Lord_Baltimore

silvercar wrote: »

Flying freehold is generally more of a problem for the "flying" than the ground traffic.

It can get complicated for both parties with potential expenses for each.

I would avoid because of the unpredictability.

getmore4less

Planning apps for the school is another block of flats about to be built.