What reasons for house being sold way below market value?

[Deleted User]

a widower did exactly that in my village, lovely but messy house with a big s facing back garden. He nursed his wife through cancer and was heartbroken and needed to get back to his home base, to his family. He sold very fast, no point staying. Same for me really, I will be selling soon, also widowed and at 70 am not going to hang on to get a profit, no point, limited time at my age.

Smodlet

It could be it was falling down at the time and has since been underpinned but I would have thought there must be some record of that somewhere and/or some legal obligation for the seller to disclose this... Unless they chose to lie. Could have been money laundering.

There are several things EAs are now supposedly under a legal obligation to tell buyers that they used to get away with lying about. In practice, they still lie; one admitted as much to me less than a year ago, saying if asked outright they might mention an issue but would not include it in sales particulars. Why would they? What are the odds of them being caught out? Minimal. They could just plead ignorance, couldn't they?

molerat

As mentioned above, most likely a divorce settlement. Looking at Zoopla one day I saw the house next door to me was showing as sold at a low price, strange as we still had the same neighbour, the husband moved out a few years previous and the kids were now adult. Another by where I used to live showed similarly.

robatwork

Indian Burial Ground

Chancel Tax

Right of Way

Moider

Rats

Just make sure your solicitor is on the ball

Linton

Misleading historic prices can occur on the buyout of a tenant in common. On the death of a TIC someone such as the other TIC could buy the part ownership of the house from the estate. The price of half a house would appear in the listings.

Cakeguts

A parent selling to a child at a reduced rate?

knightstyle

We had this, a house two doors down, identical to ours sold for about £15 or £20k below normal. the reason was that the owner deceased and her son was going through bankruptcy. He took a low cash price so he could hide the money.
It depressed the price of our street for about 10 years, we are only now just over the price we paid 12 years ago.

AnotherJoe

There is no way the prices in your street exist in a bubble hermetically sealed from neighbouring streets whose value soared as those in your street remained depressed due to a one off low price. Not.Gonna.Happen.

Davesnave

knightstyle wrote: »

It depressed the price of our street for about 10 years, we are only now just over the price we paid 12 years ago.

I don't believe it. I agree with Joe above.

We sold our house below normal value in the early Crash of 2008. One reason for our low price was that we kept a plot of land, which was sold eventually in 2012. The plot doesn't show as part of the earlier transaction, so it looks as if we sold very cheaply.

Prices in our road didn't somehow collapse. They contunued to fall in line with the general trend until around mid 2009, then started to recover. By 2013 they were back at 2007 levels.

Some other places in the country still haven't returned to 2007 levels. It's all about demand, not some individually peculiar sale.

kirtondm

ok the estate agent may not reveal the answr but just ask the question offically to the seller as part of the pre - contract enquires

i.e. I note you bought this house for £x 3 years ago and now you are selling if for £y this would seem to be a large increase compared to local pricing . Is their any specific reason.

Then you can judge the response.