We found the house we r buying is ex-council just a week before exchange. What to do?

cavework

kinger101 wrote: »

It's B18 4NE

Now I am bored..
I know Brum.. I have lived in Brum..as for Winson green?
That is your take on the area..no different from Yardley Wood.. Aston..

LittleMax

I really wish OP would come back and tell us where it is. Not specific street if they don't want to, but which district of Brum.

kinger101

cavework wrote: »

Now I am bored..
I know Brum.. I have lived in Brum..as for Winson green?
That is your take on the area..no different from Yardley Wood.. Aston..

Sense of humour failure.

PixelPound

SkyeKnight wrote: »

And I'd be furious at the seller for not informing me it was an ex-council house. I wouldn't buy an ex-council house and loads of other people wouldn't either so it does seriously effect the price.

Isn't it a pity there isn't some way of checking, like looking at the deeds, it would be worth paying a couple of quid to do it too.

SnooksNJ

patfunk9 wrote: »

We are FTBs and really nervous about buying a new house as we are putting a lot of our savings in this and also it is a big commitment. We liked this property in an up and coming area of Birmingham. The property is a good sized 3 bed semi-dethatched with good front and rear gardens. We put in an offer that was accepted and was slightly lower to the asking price. The price we got I think is good for the area.

Since then we have had the Homebuyer's report done and there were a few minor things, which we spoke to the seller about and he knocked off another £1000 off the price, as he did not want to go through the hassle of rectifying the issue. We gladly accepted it.

Now that we are close to exchange of contracts, I have just found out through a conversation with the agent that it is an ex-council house bought from the council in early 80's. Also, that triggered something in my mind to check the area a couple of streets away where there is definitely a row of council owned flats. Statistically I checked the specific area and couple of streets around the property and found that around 35% of the properties in that area are still 'rented from the council'. However, the street our property is in, have very few properties on it and don't seem to have any council properties immediately around. But just a street across there are a few block of council flats. So I think the reasonable price initially was because of the proximity of this estate and also it being ex-council.

But now I am contemplating on this, I am afraid that we may have been hasty, with the market moving quickly, and probably could have negotiated a better price. Now in the light of this new information, do you think it is worth negotiating the price down further? We still like this place, but am worried about the resale ability potential and the future price ceiling due to the surroundings and hence the renegotiation. And if so, what would be the best way to approach this?

Thanks in advance for all your advice.

Since the listing price was based on being ex council you should up your budget by 30% and move to non ex council area.

cloo

Wealthy upper middle class areas can have a lot of crime and thefts too. Comes with being in a city, basically. No one would live in London if they looked at the crime stats as a basis for living there!

patfunk9

The area I am looking at is in Harborne. I used the 'Streetcheck' website and also the Local Stats section of Zoopla. Both of them show that within a radius of about 200-300m of our property, there are a very high level of about 40% 'socially rented - council' properties and also the demographics is not necessarily predominantly 'older aged', so probably a lot of the properties are not lived in by retired folk. This is generally unusual for this area I think, as I have only lived around this area and not lived near these streets.

There wasn't a way of checking whether property was ex-council (as it didn't look like one and the owner has maintained it well and bought it off the council over 20 years ago, so not necessarily selling with the intention of making money out of it) and the owner did not mention it at the start. So as one of the posts mentioned that ex-council houses still sell of lesser than non ex-council properties in general, hence my worry, whether I am paying the right price for the property, still remains. Because my longer term intention would be to re-sell after a few years and move on to bigger property, so I am looking at re-sell potential.

So I don't necessarily mind living in this house and we still like it, but just worried about the safety aspect and the price aspect, as there is also not enough to go on from the prices of the 'previously sold' properties on this street to make a fully informed judgement on the price.

And as one of the posts mentioned, it may be pre-buying jitters and I may be over thinking. But the comments here have surely helped me progress my thinking and check for the right things. I am still on erring on the side of going ahead!

As I am a FTB, the inexperience clearly shows.

I did visit the area a few times at different times of the week and day/night. Only on a few occasions I saw some shady characters lurking around the streets but not creating any trouble at that point. So difficult to judge. We still have a couple of weeks to complete now as waiting for seller's solicitors to respond to some queries and this is taking a lot of time (as expected).

patfunk9

BTW the property was built in 1950s

JPB123

It's going to be the same issue anywhere on that side of Birmingham. If you go up the Hagley Road from 5-ways (this runs roughly parallel with where you're buying) for about 3/4 of a mile you'll come to a set of lights.


Turn left and you'll go onto Norfolk Road and this runs down to Westbourne Road. You're then looking at £500k plus for a cardboard box.


Turn right onto Rotton Park Road and you'll soon come to Gillott Road. This was an area notorious for ladies of the night. It's full of sh*tty bedsits and quite grotty.


All of this is half a mile apart

dirty_magic

I don't think I'd be worried tbh, Harborne is a nicer part of Birmingham. I wouldn't worry too much about resale because I don't think it will hold you back. It might even work in your favour, because people who can't afford a non ex council house in Harborne are likely to prefer it over a non ex council house in a worse area. That's what seems to happen around here anyway.