Propoerty marketed as a 3-bed but in fact a 2-bed with loft room

cloo

I have always discounted houses where one bedroom comes off another one. IME the one that comes off a room is not usually listed in the number of bedrooms, so the agents have been dishonest.

I am also on the London market, about to buy my third place and things are definitely calming now - I've seen a few places, especially those that have a flaw, having their asking prices cut, so you can get under asking these days.

I would walk away from this house unless there is definitely a way to create a proper, separate access to the loft - if that can be done you're in a good position to make an offer matching the valuation.

dekoder

Avg asking price for London (by Rightmove Aug14): £552,783
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/files/2014/08/august-2014.pdf

Avg sold price (July14): £457,072
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/348543/HPIReport20140828.pdf

You can compare for the boroughs you're interested in.

kakasha

catshark88 wrote: »

Spot on. If you are going to choose to overpay (because you love the house), the place needs to be easily sellable. Housing markets are cyclical, even London's and you need to protect yourself in case you need to sell in one of the down turns.

We are considering arranging a separate entrance to the loft (and potentially transferring it into a bedroom no. 3) - and we are planning to negotiate the price down based on the cost of that work.

kakasha

dekoder wrote: »

Avg asking price for London (by Rightmove Aug14): £552,783
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/files/2014/08/august-2014.pdf

Avg sold price (July14): £457,072
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/348543/HPIReport20140828.pdf

You can compare for the boroughs you're interested in.

This is very interesting and thank you for supplying the links - but if I have ever offered to pay below the asking price I would have never been accepted. Fact.

kakasha

lincroft1710 wrote: »

You are unlucky. You're buying at a time of over inflated house prices.

How am I unlucky then? This is the current reality - if I'm unlucky so are thousands of others who have bought or been trying to buy a property in Ldn within the recent couple of years.

I wasn't able to buy before the boom, and who's able to tell when it will end so I know how much longer I'm supposed to wait?

And even if it ends and the market calms down - prices are very unlikely to go down, they might just stop rising so quickly.

dekoder

When the market calms down and there are more properties on the market the buyer has better chances of negotiating the price down.

There was a 6% decrease in asking price in August in London (according to Rightmove), though what will happen next is anyone's guess.

lincroft1710

kakasha wrote: »

How am I unlucky then? This is the current reality - if I'm unlucky so are thousands of others who have bought or been trying to buy a property in Ldn within the recent couple of years.

I wasn't able to buy before the boom, and who's able to tell when it will end so I know how much longer I'm supposed to wait?

And even if it ends and the market calms down - prices are very unlikely to go down, they might just stop rising so quickly.

Very simply, you're unlucky because the time when you are able to buy a property, prices are at their highest.

Prices do fall, 1995 house prices were more than 30% below those of 1988.

The trouble with property booms is that inferior or unusual properties (like the one you're thinking of buying) are sold for more than they are worth and then when prices drop, they drop even more.

As this is not to be your "lifetime" home, you need to think about how any prospective purchasers will view the property at a time when prices may not be so buoyant. Do be aware that "loft conversions" without building regs approval are a frequent topic on these boards and are not good news.

jaylee3

kakasha wrote: »

Hi all, my partner and I are in process of buying a property. It has been marketed as a 3-bed and we ended up paying just over £20k above the asking price as we have fallen in love with it immediately.

We have just received the property valuation and it came up almost £30k below the price we're paying. So we called the agent and told them about it - to what she's replied that this might have been due to the loft conversion being just an attic room rather than a 3rd bedroom... not sure if she really meant to reveal that to us!

We looked at the offer again and it does say it's a 3-bed house, however, in the description it only mentions 2 bedrooms and a loft room.

The loft room has two windows, looks like it's been done to a good standard, no door just a spiral staircase that you enter through the 2nd bedroom - which is relatively good size. The master bedroom is massive and I have seen similar houses in the area that simply had that master bed slashed into two to make the property a 3-bed (but the 3rd bedroom is tiny).

We really don't know what to do. We've already been really unlucky, lost two houses what cost us a fortune in solicitor fees, and this house we're buying now we simply love. We do feel like we're overpaying for it a bit due to the fact we used to think this was a 3-bed but everything is going really smoothly with this one and we're concerned that if we try to negotiate the price down, we might loose the dream house...

What are your thoughts? Thanks

I'm a bit confused. You seem to be saying clearly in your original post here that you're going to be paying £30K above the asking price, and yet as the thread has progressed, you are trying to tell us all that in actual fact; paying an extra £30K is a great thing, as supposedly, there's a house down the road, that went for more than you're paying, and that only had 2 bedrooms, and not 2 bedrooms and a [STRIKE]dodgy, dangerous loft conversion[/STRIKE] third bedroom.

You're also under the strange illusion that nobody ever pays over the odds for their property these days (not even in London.) Not true.

And why is a property with a clearly dangerous and ill-thought-out dangerous loft conversion your 'dream house?'

I would run a mile; this house sounds awful.

bouicca21

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy the 2 bed and convert the loft properly, rather than buy a 2 bed with a conversion that needs to be rectified?

kakasha

jaylee3 wrote: »

I'm a bit confused. You seem to be saying clearly in your original post here that you're going to be paying £30K above the asking price, and yet as the thread has progressed, you are trying to tell us all that in actual fact; paying an extra £30K is a great thing, as supposedly, there's a house down the road, that went for more than you're paying, and that only had 2 bedrooms, and not 2 bedrooms and a [STRIKE]dodgy, dangerous loft conversion[/STRIKE] third bedroom.

You're also under the strange illusion that nobody ever pays over the odds for their property these days (not even in London.) Not true.

And why is a property with a clearly dangerous and ill-thought-out dangerous loft conversion your 'dream house?'

I would run a mile; this house sounds awful.

I'm paying £20k, not £30k above the asking price. It is a dream house as everything except the loft is superb: location, garden, massive master bedroom, big kitchen and so on. The loft isn't dodgy, it's actually quite nice but not a bedroom - and that's my issue as it was advertised as a 3-bed property (as per my first post).

It's not an awful house. It's just overpriced for what it really is. And I'm feeling massively let down by the agency who has simply lied to us and made us think we were making an offer for a 3-bed house.

I will not agree with anyone who says the average property sell price in Ldn is lower than the asking price - not going to argue about it anymore.