Waiting for a buyer... Anyone want to join me?

hazyjo

Filo25 wrote: »

It just seems like the kind of market where a bit of patience will probably pay off.

Yes I did buy in HP in the end, coming up to our 1 year anniversary of moving soon, no regrets about the move either, apart from when the Overground randomly cancels trains !

Thanks for all your help at the time, it was much appreciated.

Time flies!


Glad to hear no regrets. Thought you'd end up there. You've probably come across the lovely Steve and his dalek, and hopefully tried the Indian Dining Club or 1 The Avenue which do pretty good food.


The overground hasn't been so great lately again - I was off sick for three days this week so luckily missed all the shenanigans on Tuesday morning where they weren't running at all for a couple of hours!


Enjoy!


Jx

ProDave

Right some feedback and a horrible dilemma.

Background. Our house is on the market at £285K having been valued, quite fairly based on a recent very local sale, at £300K As I have said before 2 years and 4 months now. It is definitely a buyers market up here for various (mostly political I believe) reasons.

The people that have viewed it, she likes it, he has some reservations, the only one for certain I know if is the wooden windows, but the windows are in good condition, pretty good windows and recently varnished.

They have discounted the other property they were considering.

Now they have told the agent they might be interested but only at a figure of £250K. That's much too big a drop, considering it was realistically valued at £300K and the press keeps telling me how much house prices are continuing to rise up here, nearly 10% in the time we have been on the market (I feel a lot of what you read about house prices is BS)

Me and SWMBO have discussed it and my bottom line is £270K but SWMBO says no less than £275K

I have talked to the agent and he does not believe they will go that far. But they don't have another house they like and are coming back the weekend after next to view more properties (they live over 100 miles and a ferry ride away) They might come back then for a second viewing, but that's just too fine for our "plan B" of renting the house.

The reason we don't want to budge any more on the price is we are part way through building a new house. I pretty much now know what the final cost of the new house is going to be and at £270K, if we sold that low, the new one is not costing much less, so we would be downsizing and getting very little equity out in the process.

The plan B is we have someone interested in renting for a couple of years (though it would be done on a 6 month rolling short assured tenancy) We have someone wanting to rent it and the plan had been to start that tenancy in a couple of weeks, the start of the new financial year,

The task I have set the estate agent (and I don't hold a lot of hope) is convince them they won't find a better deal. I know the very tight area they are looking in, and I know pretty much all the houses on the market in that area, and yes they will get something for £250K but it sill be a much inferior house.

The attraction of Plan B is it will give us a slow but steady income to spend keeping the build of the new house going, and then is say 2 years try again to sell it. I don't want to rent for more than 2 years, 3 at most, otherwise the taxable portion of the capital gain might exceed our joint CGT allowance, and we never expected to be in a situation of paying CGT selling what has been our main residence for so long. If we rent for 2 years, even allowing for tax, that's £20K of rental income which would sweeten the bitter pill if we have to drop the price then to sell it.

The gamble in plan B is Brexit goes horribly wrong, Scotland gets independence and that's another disaster and the market tanks even more than it has.

The situation I am trying to avoid with this potential buyer is for them to search the market for another couple of months, then decide our house is worth it after all only to make an offer and be told sorry you will have to wait 6 months before we can give the tenants notice to vacate. I have asked the agent to make it clear it will go to rental very soon if there is no offer.

Cinders:

Hi Dave, that is a horrible dilemma. If you don't want to accept less then 275k, then you shouldn't - especially given that you don't need to as you can rent the property out. Not sure what else to suggest, I have a tendency to make wrong decisions so am very reluctant to offer any advice (you only have to see my ex-husband to realise that, ha ha).

I just received a phone call from my Mum's EA, and we've had an offer on her house. I feel extremely sick as it feels real now, it's good that the house is being sold, but sad at the same time. Hopefully all will go well with the sale, so just our house to sell now!

smallholdingsister

Looks like you will go to the ball, Cinders.

ProDave I would say you will rent it if no deal and sit tight.

juniordoc

Becoming a landlord sounds like a lot of hassle on top of building a house, do you have the time and effort to fulfil the role? Are you sure that the tenants will up and leave at the time when it's convenient for you to try and sell? Will you evict them to put it on the market or will you try and sell with sitting tenants?

Josephiney83

Joining this thread...sadly.

We had a buyer, got almost to exchange, and the buyer cannot commit due to relocation at work. So we have put the house back on the market and really need to sell because we have a purchase going through (due to complete in June as vendors are awaiting a new build). Market feels sluggish though

ProDave

I have been a landlord before so I know the routine. This time will be different as it's been our home, not a property we bought just to rent. It will be a 6 months short assured tenancy so when we want it back, once the initial 6 months is up we only have to give 2 months notice for the tenants to leave. Wanting the property back for your own use, or to sell it is valid reason to serve notice.

Cinders:

smallholdingsister wrote: »

Looks like you will go to the ball, Cinders.

Hee, hee SHS, this made me chuckle, I certainly hope so :rotfl:

Cinders:

Josephiney83, that is a really rubbish thing to happen, I hope your stay on this thread is short

Mr_da

Not enjoying this selling process at all , like everything is on hold. Worse still when you have found the property you are now sure you want to put an offer in on. Had two earlier offers which I wish now I had excepted . Had another viewing last night and no news yet. Not one for wishing time away but really looking forward to when all this is done.