Unable to sell our house

Davesnave

going_nowhere_fast wrote: »

It is politically incorrect to say anything negative about rental properties

I don't think it is. Plenty of areas which have been turned into HMO ghettos, thanks to the opening-up of universities for all. People of all political persuasions involved there!

Eventually, some councils wake up and put a cap on HMO density, but it's typically too late when they do.

Rental properties come in all flavours though. This is just one example:

going_nowhere_fast

Davesnave wrote: »

I don't think it is. Plenty of areas which have been turned into HMO ghettos, thanks to the opening-up of universities for all. People of all political persuasions involved there!

Eventually, some councils wake up and put a cap on HMO density, but it's typically too late when they do.

Rental properties come in all flavours though. This is just one example:

The rental properties I'm referring to a terraced housing because they tend to be the cheaper type of housing in traditional working class areas.

Terraces are cheap for landlords to buy and the renters (in my area) pay nothing in rent because they are cheap enough that their housing benefit covers 100% of the rent.

stator

I haven't read all of this thread but:

• No floor plan
• No garden. There's no photo so I assume "courtyard" means about 3ft x 6ft of concrete. If you have anything resembling a garden get a photo of it!
• The map is in the wrong location. They might have typed in the wrong postcode but it shows on the wrong street.
• First photo isn't great. It's zoomed in on the ground floor. Would be better to see the whole house. Then perhaps all the sky/cable wires wouldn't be so obvious and look a bit untidy. (is there anything you can do to tidy those cables up?)
• Remove guide price. Many people think this means it's going to auction and will not even look at the details!
• White UPVC doesn't look great. You can get people in to spray paint it a more attractive colour. Dark brown isn't too bad. They had this on that Sarah Beeney show a few months ago, looked alright.
• Get them to add more details. It's in walking distance to a nice park? IS there a good school near by?
• How are the transport links? Looks like it's 5 mins drive from train station, 15 mins walk!
• Oh and get a door for that alleyway, would look much smarter and more secure

going_nowhere_fast

Am I wrong here, but when selling a very cheap house like the OPs (please don't interpret that as being rude) as long as its well maintained and decluttered like the OPs house is I really don't think new photos or adding a gate is going to make or break a sale. Like in my area there are dozens of terraced houses for sale all the time and they all sell for around the same price. Landlords are buying them all up and they will not pay more than the price of a rundown house even if the house is in great condition.

Painting the window frame and fixing a gate won't attract a home owner buyer if the area is not the best. A landlord can clearly see the house is in move in condition so they can rent it immediately.

Surely the only real options are to:-

Reduce the price even though it feels hard to do
Look for a developer that is willing to accept a part exchange or
Stay put and hope that someday someone will pay the price you want.

going_nowhere_fast

An afterthought that might be of interest to the OP.

I've noticed where I live that some sellers are using estate agents in a completely different area, one where people have money.

Obviously no one from that area buys the house to live in themselves, it always get sold to someone who is happy to add a cheap two up two down to their rental portfolio. The houses that have done that have sold very quickly. I know of one that sold in two weeks by taking that route.

Davesnave

going_nowhere_fast wrote: »

The rental properties I'm referring to a terraced housing because they tend to be the cheaper type of housing in traditional working class areas.

Terraces are cheap for landlords to buy and the renters (in my area) pay nothing in rent because they are cheap enough that their housing benefit covers 100% of the rent.

So you were really referring specifically to social housing, whether council-owned or privately provided, not "rental properties" in general.

moneyistooshorttomention

going_nowhere_fast wrote: »

You did the right thing. It is politically incorrect to say anything negative about rental properties but the reality for a lot of rental areas is that the landlords don't live in that area themselves so don't care about the street, the area or what kind of tenants they rent to. All they care about is they get the rent. The tenants stay for 6 to 12 months then move on so don't care either.

I envy you being able to move, I'm trying to stay positive but its hard.

I hope the OP finds a way to lower their asking price and move.

I certainly am aware that it does seem to be politically incorrect to say this. I'm not sure where I stand personally on whether I thought the area would go down or no from swopping to a higher proportion of renters, as many renters are "home owners" who simply cant get to own a home because they cant afford it (and I fully sympathise with that, as my own starter house came years later than it should have done and I spent many years having to live in rented accommodation after I had reached the age I should have been able to buy a home).

However, what I did know for certain was that landlords tend to look to pay less than a house is worth to an even greater extent than the more "optimistic" of would-be home owners. My estate agent quite specifically told me that I should take a home-owner buyer, rather than a landlord buyer, if I possibly could and explained this fact to me. I studied the facts and it looked to me as if they were right. I worked out what price a landlord would need to be able to get my house for in order to get a "reasonable return" on their investment and the figures showed me that they would need to pay me less than my house was worth and would therefore be likely to be rather "forceful" in trying to do so (eg a much greater chance of them trying to gazunder me than with a home-owner). Landlords don't do "falling in love" with a house and paying the proper price for it.

Since I moved, I have kept an eye on Rightmove re the type of starter houses I moved from (ie across the city as a whole and not just in the area I was in) and it looks to me that, overall, terrace houses pretty much across the city have stayed pretty much the same price (or, at any rate, just a small inflation increase in line with general inflation). Higher up the ladder houses, on the other hand, have shot up. There is a perfectly ordinary ("my level") of house (yep - its pretty much identical to my parents' one, so definitely not "aspirational" at all for me or many of us then) recently gone on the market there. Bog-standard 3 bedroomed detached with ordinary size garden in ordinary condition in reasonable (but not special) area. I swear I recall one of them that was on the market about a year ago and too dear for me at £230,000, but this house is on at £300,000.

That's what is happening in my city. I think that could be happening in a fairly wide stretch of the country? I have only been closely monitoring my city and the area I live in now, so cant be certain on that, but my guess would be that that is the case.

moneyistooshorttomention

going_nowhere_fast wrote: »

An afterthought that might be of interest to the OP.

I've noticed where I live that some sellers are using estate agents in a completely different area, one where people have money.

Obviously no one from that area buys the house to live in themselves, it always get sold to someone who is happy to add a cheap two up two down to their rental portfolio. The houses that have done that have sold very quickly. I know of one that sold in two weeks by taking that route.

Hence my saying earlier on thread that the set-up needs explaining re that alley/photo of back yard to be shown, ie for people looking from the standpoint of not being used to that sort of set-up and wondering how it "works".

Yep..investors do look from outside an area. One of my viewers was an out-of-area investor that had driven there specially to do so (they had come from quite some distance away at that).

I_have_spoken

Rotherham. Sadly for OP, the 1st thing that comes to mind is '1400 children abused in Rotherham'.

For a BTL LL, a pcm rent of £325 should be doable, so a purchase price of £45,000 would give near 9% yield, a bit less allowing for voids and costs. To my mind, £45,000 is a reasonable price to a LL for walk-in condition they can let from day of completion.

Does the EA have staff who speak Urdu and Punjabi to assist in sales to the likely purchasers?

moneyistooshorttomention

But then...there is something "nasty in the woodpile" about many places.

The "nasty in woodpile" in current area (ie fairly rural Wales) is there are a few people with a racist attitude even towards other British people (as in English/Scottish/Irish). But vast majority are fine and non-racist and I've had other Welsh people complain to me about those few and apologetic about it.

The "nasty in woodpile" in my home city and an (even more expensive) area I also like the look of and cant afford is the "superior attitude" of a few residents even towards some other people who wouldn't qualify as "chavs" by the remotest stretch of the imagination (and that's before they open their mouth and out comes an obvious middle-class voice). But...what the heck...and I just made sure I "opened my mouth" asap and said something/anything in order to get that look off their face.

There's "something" wherever you go I would guess.