Our buyer can't get mortgage for our above commercial flat. Does no one do them?

tipofthetree

We accepted an offer on our flat, but our buyer says he can't get a mortgage as we're above commercial. We're on the second / top floor. Apparently it's that other flats in our block of 6 are directly above food places, whereas our flat is 2 floors above a nail salon. It's a communal door to the 6 flats. The door is on the high street with the nail salon to the left and a kebab shop (not a particularly horrible one - sells itself as a restaurant) to the right.


The estate agents suggests all we can hope for now is a cash buyer as no one is likely to be able to get a mortgage for it. We live in London, where there's loads above commercial. Does this sound likely? Does he need to look harder?


Any suggestions on how to shift this place? We have a mortgage on it with HSBC. We did have about 50% deposit if that made a difference and got the mortgage in 2007 I think. The words "cash buyer only" are the complete opposite of what we need to hear :-(

ACG

It is difficult, there may be lenders but your buyer needs a broker who will put in the ground work.

tipofthetree

What does that mean? You can get them, it's just 'difficult'? I don't know how being a broker works. I assume you're not just ticking boxes and getting results of which lenders will lend.

I just think of the number of properties that are above commercial in London. They can't all be cash buyers. It makes me feel like our flat is worthless as only a cash buyer could ever buy it. So all flats above commercial should be going for peanuts and traded between cash buyers. But this isn't what's happening. Really struggling to get my head round it.

Anyone got any tips of someone to get in touch with? I have HSBC (my lender on this property) calling back tomorrow morning, and will probably speak to London and Country as well as i don't know any other brokers.

Thanks!

AnotherJoe

tipofthetree wrote: »

I just think of the number of properties that are above commercial in London. They can't all be cash buyers. It makes me feel like our flat is worthless as only a cash buyer could ever buy it(

They could be. There's a lot of cash about. And a lot of ways of getting cash that don't necessarily involve having cash. For example i bought a house for cash by using the offset facility on my mortage. As far as anyone was concerned I was a cash buyer, but I had borrowed the money

And I paid full asking, not peanuts. To be fair I was in competition with people with mortgages, but until a month ago there were a lot of wannabe landlords out there borrowing from here there and wherever and quite possibly stil being cash buyers. They could borrow against existing BTLs for example,.

ACG

You can get them, but it all comes down to the detail.
Take aways, off licenses, launderettes, pubs are all problematic. Thats not to say it can not be done, but they are not for every lender.

Its not really a tick box system, it is knowledge built up over time which is why a broker is your best bet as your buyers could end up speaking to 20 lenders and get nowhere or they could get lucky or they could do the research themselves but it is not really information available in the public domain, even on lenders intermediary sites.

It is for your buyer to find a lender as there could be other things that are causing problems for them.

tipofthetree

So it's gone from estate agent saying "no one can get a mortgage for this flat. You need a cash buyer" to:


- A residential mortgage (i.e. to live in property) shouldn't be a problem.
- Buy-to-let (what our buyer is) is more difficult, but possible. Apparently Santander will consider it for 31% deposit and slightly more rent than we had it bringing in before. Both of which seem possible as he was planning 25% deposit and the rent we used to get was nearly what they're looking for.


So a massive swing from "your flat is worthless!" to "this sale might go through". Estate agent putting us through the ringer here... I imagine the buyer thinking "this is just too stressful" and pulling out.


Keeping everything crossed.

ACG

The estate agent is there to sell houses, a Mortgage advisor is there to get a Mortgage.

It would not surprise me if the agent had a mate who just happened to have the money to go and buy it on the cheap, I do not really trust estate agents.

kidmugsy

ACG wrote: »

It would not surprise me if the agent had a mate who just happened to have the money to go and buy it on the cheap

Sometimes cynicism is the only rational policy.