Is this insulting?

irnbru_2

geordiepaul2001 wrote: »

The property has not been lived in for 3/4 months

So it's been on sale for 9 months.
It's been vacant for at least 3 months.
An attempt at damp repair looks to have failed.

You still want to pay over 100K for it?

Get a damp report done and tell the EA they're not being realistic.

geordiepaul2001

Can you get a report done before a bid is accepted?
How much should I be looking at spending on such a report?

To be honest, I am in two minds as to the cause of the slight smell, whether its just because it has been unused or becuase the damp is still an issue.

KiKi

When I was purchasing my current home, I asked the vendor for the damp-proofing certificates and guarantees that went alongside that - but they wouldn't share until my bid had been accepted. And then I got a full structural survey done (I live in a town with old Victorian terraced houses that are susceptible to falling down...).

Before you get a survey done, ask the vendor for evidence of the work that was done on the damp previously. Also, ask the EA if anyone has has put in a bid that was accepted...it may be that they've lost a couple of sales because of that just before you?

Ask to look at the property again (in the guise of evaluating what it's worth) and check those areas out yourself first.

A damp smell shouldn't be because the house is unused. Damp is quite specific and if it's been uninhabited for 3 months, I wouldn't expect *any* water related smells!

Re redecoration - to be honest, unless it's extensive, I wouldn't use that as a bargaining point. You expect to move into a new house and do some redecoration. (Plastering / damp / windows is a different matter) I'm not sure you can expect that to be dealt with...but maybe that's just me.

Seem to be a few warning signs on this place....!

geordiepaul2001

I have checked with the EA and they say that no offers have been previously recieved, the main feedback from viewers being the lack of a garden

angelfire

NSR2 wrote: »

Ok my understanding of IRs.
Basically you have inflation, which is the decrease in value of your money. It works like this:
1)Things cost more
2)You demand more money from your employer
3)Your employer has to charge his customers more money to pay your wages.
4) goto 1.

It's a cycle and it's evil. Its evil because your wages won't keep up with the increases in price.
So if this starts to happen, the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) of the BOE will increase IRs.

Now this happens:
1)Things cost more
2) You demand more money from your employer
3) Your employer tells you to get stuffed. The companies overdraft has just increased, all the other employers out there aren't hiring anyone, so the idea of paying you more money goes out of the window.


Obviously a bit over an over simplification there. Increased IRs also mean people save more money, rather then spend it, so your employer may have to decrease prices, to get more customers. There are load of other effects as well.

Now THE REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT THING IS THIS!!!! You don't borrow from the BOE, neither does your employer.
Instead the banks do. The banks also borrow from each other.
The banks lend that money to you in the form of a morgage.

So you go to a high street bank and borrow 100K. The bank charges you 6.75%, and borrows money from the BOE for 5.75%. So the bank makes it's money. If the BOE increases interest rates, your IR goes up to.

However there isn't anything stopping the banks from borrowing money from other banks / money markets. Now you see how they can make money from your debt right? Well they can bundle up your debt, and some other borrowers and create a "bond". This bond they sell on.

In the US banks have lent out to anyone. Including people who had no change of paying the loan back. These people are "sub-prime". The people seller the morgages worked on commision. So they didn't care who they were selling to. The banks lending the money didn't care either, since they could take their debt, turn it into a bond, and sell the bond on the open market. British banks have bought these bonds.

Now all the british (and european) banks are worried. Their money has been loadend out in the US to subprime borrowers. So all the banks don't know how much money they are going to lose. They don't know where the bad debt is. And they don't know if any banks are going to go bankrupt.

This means british banks don't want to lend to each other. You need to look at something called the LIBOR rate. It's the IR rate the banks lend to each other. The LIBOR rate has skyrocketed, it's way beyond the BOE base rate.

So banks now can't get money to lend to you.
This means:
1) They need to get money from savers. So they will have to increase their savings rate, which in turn means your mortgage rate will go up.
2) They have to increase the IR on Bonds, which means your morgage IR will go up.
3)They have to borrow from other banks using the LIBOR rate which means your morgage rate will go up.

Now you see those three points up there? Well none of them are related to the BOE base rate. The big !!! point is this. The financial world is currently all screwed up, and your morgage rate will increase as a result.

So if I were you I would stick to your intial offer*. If they ask for more money, just mention the key phrase "My morgage IR has gone up because of the LIBOR rate, so I'm strapped for cash".

*Of course I'm not you, so if it's a nice house and you really want it,do your own thing. In fact I would feel bad if you didn't get it now, so just ignore me .

Also do some calculations, and make sure you can afford the house when morgage IRs go up....


Oooh one last thing, inflation is currently low (1.9%), and the banks want cheap money from the BOE, so they are all screaming for the BOE base rate to be lower. However a lowered BOE base rate may not go through to you

What a fab post! :T

Nenen

geordiepaul2001 wrote: »

Property price advice give an adverage of £130,000, whilst the nationwide website gives a price of £90,000

I think (but this is an educated guess not a statement of knowledge) that the two sites work in different ways.... (if anyone knows differently please advise) :beer:

1) Nationwide looks at the avergage price increases in particular periods of time within a geographical area and then, given your knowledge of the price paid and date of last sale, for that particular house, uses this information to calculate estimated current value.
2) Property Price Advice looks at the average current selling price of properties matching certain criteria (eg number of bedrooms/reception rooms) within the postcode area.

There are pros and cons of both ways of estimating, hence the differences.

The advantage of using Nationwide is that it is based upon a known sales value for that particular property. However, although you know its previous value when it was last sold, you don't always know the state the property was in or what extras have been added since then (eg extensions, new kitchen/windows). Similarly you don't know the situation of the previous vendors/buyers eg were vendors desparate for a quick sale and hence took a lower offer or were the previous buyers so in love with the property they paid over the odds?

In contrast, with Property Price Advice, you are looking at a narrower geographical area (based on postcode) of average current sold prices for similar properties irrespective of how much they were sold for previously. The disadvantage of that method (as far as I can see) is that although it considers condition of property and number of bedrooms/wcs/reception rooms etc there is no way of knowing how big these rooms or what the 'kerb appeal' of the property is. There can be a vast difference in appeal (and price) between two different 3 bed semis for example, even within the same postcode. The PPA cannot take into account size of rooms/garden/layout/attractiveness of the property. The accuracy of the estimation using average current prices for the area will depend to some extent upon how many houses have been sold in the area recently (the greater the number sold the greater the chance of average values being accurate, hence their statement of confidence level).

Personally, whenever I've used NW it has been somewhat closer to my own (or EA's) valuation that PPA but YMMV! The house we are currently renting for example was recently valued by an EA and LL advised he could hope to achieve 230K. NW estimated value was £227,813 (so under 3K difference) whereas PPA average was £260,000 (30K difference) :eek: with upper and lower valuations of 225-305K!

HTH... have you had any news on your offer yet?

geordiepaul2001

I have only placed one offer so far, which was rejected.

The Wife and I are now trying to decide whether to stay where we are, or to increase our offer.
We wouldn't be looking for somewhere new to live if the loft was big enough to convert to a beroom.
Apparantly the height is few inches off the minimum.
The thing is the loft was only ever going to be a kids room, so I am not sure whether I could change it into a kids room but without going through the motions of building regs etc.
Is that a big no no?

Nenen

In our incredibly long search for a suitable property to buy (which we can afford) we've seen lots of houses that have a 'loft room'. These have generally got one or more velux roof windows, a ladder entrance (sometimes static, sometimes pull-down) and been fully floor-boarded, roof timbers clad etc. They do not meet regulations for fire safety etc to use as a bedroom as they don't have proper stairs and/or fire-proof doors etc. I don't think they've had to get planning permission either as they are not classified as bedrooms.
Maybe you could look into doing something like that. My biggest worry would be children sleeping up there wihen the fire-safety is an issue. If I was going to do that I think I'd get the children to share a downstairs bedroom for sleeping but use the loft room as day-time playroom (or place where one could go while the other had sole use of 1st floor bedroom during the day time).
If you ring and speak to your local planning dept I've found them to be very helpful regarding what the regulations are.

geordiepaul2001

Thanks for that, I will give them a call in the morning.
Obviously for two small children the height of the room is not an issue, but I don't want to end up carrying out illegal work on the house.