Selling A Retirement Flat

Slithery

jturt83 said:
Like I say if we all thought that a tenant would not leave or sabotage a potential move, nobody would rent out properties.

Not true. Professional landlords don't ever want or need to evict tenants - they want them in the property for as long as possible as a constant source of income. To get the best price for the property you are trying to sell you'll need to first get rid of the tenants before even putting it back on the market and then sell it via a normal EA (not the modern method of auction). You need the largest possible pool of interested buyers whereas what you've done has restricted this massively to maybe 1 in 100 that would otherwise have been willing to put in an offer.
Have you worked out how much tax you'll be paying on your rental income? You can't deduct the service charges from this - you'll be paying tax on the full rental amount that you are receiving...

Madmel

Our experience wasn't ideal but we did sell in the end.

We bought one for MiL to live in in 2002. She had 10 happy years there and got to spend lots of time with her granddaughters. Then she had some falls and ended up in hospital then a nursing home before she died. I got the local agents in to value it and was pretty fed up to find it had barely risen in price in all that time. However, I also spoke to the resident manager who shows people round who sell via Retirement Homesearch. She told me the price 1-bed flats in that development sell for and it was quite a lot less than the local EAs. She suggested clearing it, repainting and new neutral carpets so it was in move-in condition.

Very long & stressful story short, we did sell via RH but due to their incompetence, they knocked some money off their fees. Bear in mind, you might end up paying some of the final selling price back to the developer - ours was Peveril and we got stuffed for that too. What we did do when things were stalling was go & see the manager with some chocolates and told her how it was difficult to move on blah blah. She was quite pro-active and when people did come to look at the flats for sale, she knew we would be open to an offer as we didn't have fees to find for MiL's care. She was also brilliant at shoving the buyer forwards when things were stalling. At the end of the day, like you, we were shelling out money but getting nothing back so it was in everyone's interest to get the new owner in.

Does the manager offer anything like that? It is definitely worth a chat with them.

jonnydeppiwish!

If you’re not getting viewings then it’s simply too expensive.

As you now have tenants, you’re even more unlikely to sell. They don’t have to sign another 6 month contract, rather move on to a rolling contract. 

Have you given them notice to leave at the end of the current 6 months?

Wait for it to become vacant, find a new local agent and then price to sell - whether you believe it’s worth £135k or not is irrelevant as nobody is willing to pay that price.

NameUnavailable

Maybe think about keeping it as a rental property, or would the tenants be interested in buying (at a suitably reduced price?).

eddddy

From my experience, the retirement property market is not like the rest of the property market.

With the blocks I'm aware of, it seems that if somebody wants a retirement flat in a particular block, they'll pay whatever it's on the market for. 

(They're often downsizing from 4 bed houses, and the mortgage has been paid off - so price isn't a major issue. It's more of a case of "this is the flat / block I like, so I'll pay whatever it costs".)


So maybe reducing the price might not make much difference. If nobody is interested in buying a retirement flat, knocking £20k off the price isn't going to suddenly make them interested.

Demand seems to be very 'lumpy'. With one block I know of... 2 or 3 years ago, the manager had a waiting list of people who wanted to be informed if a flat went up for sale. But more recently, flats in that block seem to be hanging on the market.


Having said that, there may also be some 'price sensitive' buyers. Maybe there are people who want a retirement flat, and they'll look for whichever one is the best value.

koalakoala

I guess the service charge is too much for some people to consider ?  Where I live retirement homes sell really quickly, there aren't enough of them. But they don't have service charges that high. What do you get for the £250 ?

theoretica

I see very little prospect of it selling in the next few months with the tenant in, so it might be time to take it off the market for a while.  If the tenant is leaving after 6 months, then take the time to reconsider which agent or selling method you will use and totally refresh the pictures to think through each one from the potential buyer's point of view.

GDB2222

eddddy said:

From my experience, the retirement property market is not like the rest of the property market.

With the blocks I'm aware of, it seems that if somebody wants a retirement flat in a particular block, they'll pay whatever it's on the market for. 

(They're often downsizing from 4 bed houses, and the mortgage has been paid off - so price isn't a major issue. It's more of a case of "this is the flat / block I like, so I'll pay whatever it costs".)


So maybe reducing the price might not make much difference. If nobody is interested in buying a retirement flat, knocking £20k off the price isn't going to suddenly make them interested.

Demand seems to be very 'lumpy'. With one block I know of... 2 or 3 years ago, the manager had a waiting list of people who wanted to be informed if a flat went up for sale. But more recently, flats in that block seem to be hanging on the market.


Having said that, there may also be some 'price sensitive' buyers. Maybe there are people who want a retirement flat, and they'll look for whichever one is the best value.

We’re thinking of downsizing, but I don’t think that we would be prepared to overpay significantly, just because we like a particular flat or block. However, if one of us becomes infirm, we would probably have to be far less picky. So, maybe the op just needs to wait for a sufficiently desperate buyer?

Robin9

eddddy said:

From my experience, the retirement property market is not like the rest of the property market.

With the blocks I'm aware of, it seems that if somebody wants a retirement flat in a particular block, they'll pay whatever it's on the market for. 

(They're often downsizing from 4 bed houses, and the mortgage has been paid off - so price isn't a major issue. It's more of a case of "this is the flat / block I like, so I'll pay whatever it costs".)


So maybe reducing the price might not make much difference. If nobody is interested in buying a retirement flat, knocking £20k off the price isn't going to suddenly make them interested.

Demand seems to be very 'lumpy'. With one block I know of... 2 or 3 years ago, the manager had a waiting list of people who wanted to be informed if a flat went up for sale. But more recently, flats in that block seem to be hanging on the market.


Having said that, there may also be some 'price sensitive' buyers. Maybe there are people who want a retirement flat, and they'll look for whichever one is the best value.

That's rather like me. My wife have spoken of what happens "when" as it will do . I have said I (now 73) would sell our 4 bed and go to retirement.  I have my eyes on a couple of set-ups. One is an older block and there are 8 out 50 vacant - some for years at £120- 135K The second is newer and a bit more luxurious with 2 out of 40 at £230 -250K

I would be a cash buyer and not wanting to be in a  chain - once that decision is made.

What the property is worth when I pop up my clogs I don't care 

Loza2016

My Nan had a retirement flat. 

Took my mum 2 years to sell went on the market Feb 2020. My advice is if there are few for sale on the development price it as low as the cheapest. 

Unfortunately this type of home do take longer to sell but they are great for the person living there and keeping their independence.