How to view a previous house listing?

michiko19

Hello, we are looking for our new home and unfortunately have been struggling to find something suitable in our budget. We have seen 1 property which is listed for £350k, it's a traditional 3-bed semi but with a garage conversion to a 4th bedroom downstairs. Now, the house next door (which has the same conversion) sold in Feb 2019 for £294 which seriously makes me question the asking price if the one we're looking at! It has an old boiler, single glazed windows and will need ~40k worth of spend, including new kitchen and bathroom. So already I know that this property is over priced compared to the one next door, so I wanted to understand why.

The story I have been told by the estate agent is that it was an elderly lady who has unfortunately gone into care, but I can see from RM that the property was bought in 2014 for £285k. I was hoping to find the 2014 listing so that I could understand the previous condition of the house, so if it looks even worse I could understand the asking price. We would like to make an offer on this property, but I'm not prepared to overpay on our next house when we could stay where we are. And if we do decide to make an offer I want to make it clear why our offer is low(ish).

Any advice and tips on how to find old listings welcomed!!

Caz3121

rightmove or Zoopla - not all appear
google the address?

silvercar

Zoopla. Under the house prices tab they often show precious archived listings.

HampshireH

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices.html

Usually shows photos

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/house-prices/

May show photos

Bossypants

You can look for it as above, but bear in mind that 5 years is a long time in house price terms, especially with the volatility we have seen recently. Finding the old listing probably won't help you much in that respect.

Slithery

What it sold for 5 years ago is irrelevant. You need to look at how it compares to the sold (not asking) price of recent comparable properties.

PasturesNew

It hurts to see past prices.... I try to keep perspective by comparing past prices with how much money/value I had at that time and ask "could you have afforded it at that price at that time?" the answer is usually "no".

The only real question is: Is this house, in this location, at this price, the best you can find right now? You then either wait for something better to come along, if you believe it will, or you buy this one and say "it's done".

There were some lovely places that sold last year, £10-20k under my top budget. This year nothing like them is for sale. I do not like the ones I could afford that are for sale right now - so I am waiting, risking the chance that something like last year's sales come up again soon.

Take the money, or open the box.

AnotherJoe

I've probably missed something but how is what condition next door (or this house, not sure from your post?) was in in 2014 relevant to what it sold for in Feb 2019, 5 years later?

HampshireH

For perspective.

I moved into my property 2013. My landlord made nearly 100k when they sold it to me in 2018.

They put a cheap bathroom in the they bought it and put a coat of maggie on the walls throughout.

No other works. In the last year we have spent the best part of 19k on improvements

hazyjo

Mine nearly doubled in price from 2013 to 2016. If someone tried telling me it must be overpriced cos it had gone up so much, I'd send them packing.

eamon

I think the OP wants to see some old pictures as a comparison aid. In some parts of the country rising inflation could be the only difference. Also factor that the vendors may be going with the highest valuation.