Private property purchase - swimming pool/value?!

retepetsir

Evening everyone
Hope you are all well and staying safe. I have a query regarding a potential house purchase as my mind is full of different thoughts! 

Bit of background, apologies for the length - We put our home on the market in mid August due to the stamp duty holiday, with the aim of upsizing in the local area. We live in South East England and really like our location, but could do with a bigger home for our growing family. Our home sold within a day to the first people that viewed it. It does make me think it may have been under-priced compared to others as the market seems to have ramped up at a mad rate over the last few weeks!

Anyway, we haven't seen many properties come up in the local area which tick the majority of our boxes. Following some research on this forum, I decided to drop some notes round to the local houses which were the type of thing we were looking for, saying that we were proceedable and if anyone was thinking about selling their property. It would also mean cutting out estate agents at one end and saving their fees. Having covered around 30 houses I didn't have too much hope of a response, until two weeks ago when a very friendly gentleman called me. The house we dropped a note into was his parents and they have lived in a home for a few years now. The children had been keeping the house maintained and staying every couple of weeks to clean, etc.

Due to the mounting care bills they said they would have been looking to sell in 2021, but my note prompted them to think about doing it this year. They invited us round to view, it was lovely and we spent quite a while chatting to them about the house. My partner also fell in love with it as it's somewhere we would stay for a long time! It had been built in the late 70's and much of it was still original, but it was very well maintained and in good condition. We feel new carpets and decoration would make a very nice improvement. We did not discuss value in any detail as they had not looked at valuations. 

Now what we didn't expect was what we found in the garden. From Google maps it looked like a pond. No, it was an unheated but fully pumped and filtered swimming pool, finished to look like a pond! Their parents had used it almost daily until going into a home. It was still running and had been used by the family in the warmer weather.
We weren't looking for a property with a swimming pool and were only after a second toilet and an extra bedroom! 

They are having a valuation report undertaken this week but our buyers are now putting pressure on us to get a move on (it's been 4 weeks since accepting their offer). We therefore need to decide what we are doing and hope that we could potentially afford this property.

So...
- Do you think an outdoor unheated swimming pool could devalue the property at all? I would think many people are scared of the potential ongoing maintenance and costs. As its unheated I hope it could be run fairly efficiently with the existing equipment. Also things like insurance? It probably measures 8m x 6m but is an odd shape. 
- Would the decor have an effect on value or do you think its irrelevant nowadays?

The prices seem to have gone rather crazy around here since the stamp duty holiday came into play, at least 10% has been added onto the properties we've seen recently which is making us worry, we are quickly getting priced out compared with the offer we accepted. Not many houses have sold in this road recently so it has been difficult to judge value.

The family seem really nice so it would be great if we could proceed with a private purchase if the price is right and avoid dealing with Estate Agents and other buyers!

Thanks for reading. 

AdrianC

retepetsir said:

- Do you think an outdoor unheated swimming pool could devalue the property at all? I would think many people are scared of the potential ongoing maintenance and costs. As its unheated I hope it could be run fairly efficiently with the existing equipment. Also things like insurance? It probably measures 8m x 6m but is an odd shape.

I'm not sure it'd make much difference either way. There's pros and cons - maintenance vs temptation.

- Would the decor have an effect on value or do you think its irrelevant nowadays?

Repaint the place afresh, put it on the market, and people will say "Oooh, not sure about the colours". Paint's cheap.

TallGirl

I bought a house with a small unseated pool last year. I was not looking for a pool it would have been the last thing on my mind. I got a pool maintenance guy out to look at the pump and state of the pool to see what state it was in. It was ok and changing the pump set up relatively cheap so no concern. Property got down valued by £5k on to
 of the £15k we had already got off. (£400k asking price). 

Apparently it is expensive to fill it in that is the biggest cost as you cannot just fill them up they need breaking up. 

Anyway fast forward we have used the pool a lot went in last time last week and it's being closed up next month so no cost of running the pump until spring.  Cost of the pump not sure as we also have a hot tub but it's set on a timer for 8 hours a day. 

Hope this helps I love my house its garden the it's location and yes the pool. 

retepetsir

Thank you very much for the replies. 
Decorating with regards to paint, fair comment. It probably needs all the wallpaper stripping too but I'd do that myself. The kitchen is also original and fairly warn, but they replaced both bathrooms last year with the view to renting the property out. The debt for the care getting to a certain level effectively forces them to sell next year, it would be nice if we could potentially get the property we like without too much hassle!

That's a good suggestion regarding a pool maintenance company taking a look. It seems to be well maintained so far and I managed to spot a Triton sand filter system in a separate shed which seemed to house all the pool equipment. I even started looking at pool heat pumps but my partner told me not to get ahead of myself!

Sounds like you got a good deal for £380,000 TallGirl. Not many properties have sold in this particular road recently. The last sale was October 2019 but for a bigger house with huge garden and double garage, also it had all been modernised. It sold for £593,000. I was hoping a smaller 4-bed with single garage but in need of some modernisation would come in a fair bit less?! I guess my hope was that the pool could make it a little less again!

I'd also read that about filling in as it can cause more damage if you don't remove the liner, you can get subsidence, etc. If we had one I'd rather keep it if possible although it takes up 1/3 of the garden. 

Thank you again, lots to consider! Fingers crossed for this valuation. 

tom9980

Pool maintenance isn't rocket science, the presence of the sand filter is good to hear. You typically backwash regularly to remove contamination and you lose water in that process, that may well see a 1/5th of the water being replaced. I imagine that will be at least every 14 days.


https://www.pwtag.org/ will be of interest to you.

pinkteapot

The family (if they're sensible) will get a few EAs round to value the property, pretending they're interested in marketing it. This is assuming they don't feel like they know what it's worth. 

Meanwhile, you do what you'd do with any house you saw - compare it to other things on the market to get an idea of what you'd be prepared to pay for it.

A dated kitchen and bathrooms can knock a bit of value off a house because they're expensive. Paint and carpets not so much, although an overall dated place will lose a little because some people just don't want the hassle of doing all that work, even if it's just cosmetic.

If you wouldn't want the pool then get a quote to fill it in to give you some sense of how much you're talking and factor that into the maths. 

House prices aren't an exact science though. Ultimately it's going to come down to how much the family think they can get for it (which may or may not be realistic), and how much you're prepared to pay for it based on other things you've viewed. I wouldn't go in with an offer - I'd ask them what they'd been thinking of marketing it at, and offer from there.

I have noticed a greater tendency for houses being sold by relatives (e.g. following a death) to be overpriced. Don't be surprised if this family try for a high price as they'll be worried about care costs and will want to wring every penny they can out of the house. 

Aranyani

pinkteapot said:

I have noticed a greater tendency for houses being sold by relatives (e.g. following a death) to be overpriced. Don't be surprised if this family try for a high price as they'll be worried about care costs and will want to wring every penny they can out of the house. 

If they have a power of attorney then they have a legal duty to get the highest price possible. 

GDB2222

Did you say that you have young children? At the very least, you’ll need to fence off the pool. 

We nearly bought a house with a pool, and my wife was adamant that it would have to be filled in. That would have been a major cost, in our case, as it would have needed to be done by hand because of access restrictions.

Comms69

Aranyani said:

pinkteapot said:

I have noticed a greater tendency for houses being sold by relatives (e.g. following a death) to be overpriced. Don't be surprised if this family try for a high price as they'll be worried about care costs and will want to wring every penny they can out of the house. 

If they have a power of attorney then they have a legal duty to get the highest price possible. 

The legal duty is to act in their best interests, that is usually, but not always, getting the best price

davidmcn

Comms69 said:

Aranyani said:

pinkteapot said:

I have noticed a greater tendency for houses being sold by relatives (e.g. following a death) to be overpriced. Don't be surprised if this family try for a high price as they'll be worried about care costs and will want to wring every penny they can out of the house. 

If they have a power of attorney then they have a legal duty to get the highest price possible. 

The legal duty is to act in their best interests, that is usually, but not always, getting the best price

Yes, it doesn't mean doing any more to get a decent price than a normal vendor would.

getmore4less

The owners may not have lost capacity.