Help required

seng1984

I was hoping someone could offer a few suggestions on my options to end the ongoing nightmare of selling my property!

I am planning to move in with my girlfriend and we both have our properties on the market with the intention of buying a larger property between us.

My property was bought for 109k in 2011, I placed a deposit of 25k and have now paid off a further 7k of that's totalling 32k. It's currently up for sale for offers over 115k having been dropped from £125k since first going on the market

My girlfriend's property was bought at a similar time for 53k, an 8k deposit was paid and in total a further 2k has been paid off totalling 10k.

My property has been on the market for 18 months and despite viewings on a weekly basis I've never had an offer. I get nothing but positive feedback about the property but people stop short of making an offer! The property is in a popular student/young professional area and I would expect to make £650-700 PCM by renting the property.

My girlfriend has had a handful of offers but the area isn't as popular and would bring in about £450 PCM

I was initially against the idea of renting either out but I am now thinking it is my only option as we are losing a lot of money each month which is making life every expensive. I contacted my current mortgage dealer several months ago about remortgaging in order to rent the property out but they said they would not let me do this. Would it be possible with other mortgage companies though?

We are looking to buy a property around about 160-170k but we require a deposit to do so, the only capital we have is tied up in the houses (about £42k).

If anyone could help to suggest possible options based on the information I have given that would be massively appreciated to end this ongoing headache
Thanks

nubbins

Doesn't appear you have enough equity if you are looking at changing to btl mortgages and freeing up some cash for a deposit. All the extra expense and stamp duty costs would wipe that out anyway, selling both looks like your only option to me or save a decent deposit.

foxy-stoat

I was always led to believe that everything sells at the right price.

Its either too much money or theres something up with it. If you have had no offers I would re-visit the marketing photos, do any quick decorations or work and engage another Estate Agent.

The price you paid for it 5 years ago may have little bearing on the final sale price now, you may of bought it for too much money at the time for instance. What our other houses selling for in the area and who sold them? I would do some more research.

AnotherJoe

Your houses are priced too high. Lower the prices. Consider that if you buy another house now you'll have to pay an extra 3% SDLT on the £170k which is about £5k, so you could lower the prices across those two houses by that much and break even.

Or, move into one, sell the other. Then sell the one you are then in and replace with "final" house.

cajef

seng1984 wrote: »

My property has been on the market for 18 months and despite viewings on a weekly basis I've never had an offer.

Which says one thing, it is overpriced.