Selling a high value house quickly

maisie1234

Hi All

My single parent needs to go into a care house. He owns outright a house worth in excess of £1m. Classic hoarding and we will need to clear it. It hasn’t been well maintained. Once cleared should we sell at auction. I know about normal house buying but how do auctions work please?

AdrianC

Does he have no other assets at all, to fund his accommodation until such time as the property sale completes?

Will the care home or local authority plug the funding gap?
Can a family member plug it?

A £1m house in prime central London should sell fairly quickly, if priced correctly, whether at auction or otherwise.
A £1m sprawling mansion in the boonies won't.

Bossypants

How quickly a home sells tends to be less about its monetary value and more about how big the pool of prospective buyers is vs how many other homes are for sale in that bracket. Your best bet is to get three or four respectable local estate agents in and get their views. If it has no issues which make it unmortgageable, you'll likely do better selling it through an EA at a cut price than selling it at auction.

maisie1234

It’s prime West London. Similar houses have sold £1.5 m. He has about £300k in various shares/cash. You cannot really get through the front door

guccininja

Which location within West London, please?

maisie1234

Kew/Richmond/Chiswick area

SandraX

An early Feb auction gives auction house chance to market it properly chose an auction house in london, set a realistic reserve and at times at auctions they can sell for more than they would have as people get carried away, plus you get your money quickly.

Type in London auction houses in google and give one of them a call early Monday

Almost everything you need to know.

https://www.allsop.co.uk/our-services/auctions/selling-at-auction/

ATB

AdrianC

maisie1234 wrote: »

It’s prime West London. Similar houses have sold £1.5 m. He has about £300k in various shares/cash. You cannot really get through the front door

If he has £300k in other assets, then they'll pay for his care in the short-to-medium term. Hell, even at the top end of the care market, they'll pay for it for years...

Clear the house, then sell the house normally (but with price set for a quick sale to somebody to renovate it)

Not on that scale (gawd, I wish!), but I've had to sort a parental home when dementia has caused it to become... chaotic. You could get a house clearance firm in, but it'll be VERY worth while taking the time to DIY. You have no idea what's lurking. There could be substantial value that you miss, both financial and sentimental.

MysteryMe

You don't need to rush, the cash and shares will easily pay for care home fees for quite some time. Take your time, I'm sure it must seem daunting but try and be methodical about it. Once you have one room clear you have a space to put items that are not to be chucked or not sure of. Anything that is obviously rubbish put in a skip.

eddddy

maisie1234 wrote: »

Once cleared should we sell at auction.

Is the property mortgageable? (Or could you make it mortgageable by spending a bit of money?)

Realistically, it's very difficult to get a mortgage if somebody is buying at auction. So you'd be targeting people with £1m in cash.

That's a very limited target market. As a result, it might sell very cheaply.

You might do much better to ask a conventional estate agent to sell by informal tender (i.e. people submit sealed bids by a deadline.)

That way, people needing a mortgage could make a bid/offer - so you're likely to get a better price.

LABMAN

SandraX wrote: »

An early Feb auction gives auction house chance to market it properly chose an auction house in london, set a realistic reserve and at times at auctions they can sell for more than they would have as people get carried away, plus you get your money quickly.

Type in london auction houses in google and give one of them a call early Monday

ATB

Incoherent rubbish. Ignore.