First time buyers - maisonette valuation

itsinina11

Hi everyone,

My partner and I are looking to buy our first property in Reading town centre and have found a 2nd floor maisonette which we both really like. I will post the link to the rightmove advert in the below thread.

The property has been recently converted and comes with a new, fully equipped kitchen and electric radiators throughout, as well as a new bathroom and 2 good-sized bedrooms. The location is very good with only a 10-15 minute walk to the Reading train station.

The property is listed with an asking price of £240k (which is within our budget) and the estate agent has informed us that the other two maisonettes in the same building recently sold for over £240k. This is the last property for the developer to sell in this block and the estate agent has also indicated that the owner is therefore keen to sell quickly to free up capital to move onto the next project. As we are first time buyers we are ready to move in straight away so I think this puts us in a good position.

Given that we have no experience in the market we would be grateful if anybody could offer some advice about a reasonable starting offer to take to the estate agents.


Thanks

itsinina11

I'm unable to post links.
The property number in the URL is 63773370 and the address is St. Giles Close, Reading, Berkshire, RG1

rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property XXX.html

itsinina11

use -63773370 in place of the XXX

Hopefully that works!

seven-day-weekend

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-63773370.html

The first thing I would say is to check on the length of the lease.

itsinina11

Thanks for your reply.

I checked with the agent yesterday and despite being advertised as a share of the freehold, it is in reality a 999 year lease with no service charge or ground rent charges.

itsinina11

The other property we are interested in is a two bedroom terraced house on Charles St, property number: -71065291

This was reduced in July but is still above our budget of 250k. If anyone has any thoughts on this property that would also be appreciated?

Thanks

seven-day-weekend

itsinina11 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.

I checked with the agent yesterday and despite being advertised as a share of the freehold, it is in reality a 999 year lease with no service charge or ground rent charges.

It is both. You have a share of the freehold and you also have a lease, as will the other freeholders.

But a nice long lease, so no problem there.

seven-day-weekend

I personally would go for the house every time.

Offer what you can afford. They can only say no.

Crashy_Time

Already had a 10k price drop but needs more IMO, you need to step back and think about the amount of money - quarter of a million pounds - and the economic situation - Hard Brexit extremely likely, China putting currency controls on overseas property purchase - this second one will impact markets up and down the UK, and the markets where people buy with equity pumped up by Chinese money, also the flat is unremarkable and IMO worth less than 200k. If you love it and don`t mind losing money go ahead, otherwise stay away (or try to get a proper discount for the times we live in)

Cakeguts

The first thing I would check on is the parking. There are a lot of flats in there and very little parking. I can see that people might park in spaces belonging to other flats if they can't see anywhere to park.

Yalpsmol

Crashy have you ever seen a house you approved the price of (not being facetious, genuinely asking)?