Flat not selling. Borrowing more options??

Ferndog

My Flat which i have been renting out for the last 6 years is currently on the market for £160K which is what it is valued.  I have only had 3 viewings so far and no offers.  I currently owe £88K on the mortgage.  The flat needs work, it has old storage heaters and some damp on one side of the building.  I would need to get this work done before renting it out again.  I don't have the cash to do this work and looking at taking out a personal loan or borrowing more on the mortgage. Another option maybe to re-mortgage and borrow more but I still have 3 years left of a 5 year fixed deal? 

swingaloo

Why not drop the price to reflect the condition?

Ferndog

The price is already dropped. Similar properties have sold for between £170-£180k 

Albermarle

January is a quiet month for property. Probably best to hang on until the Spring.

StarkCouzens

Although January is often a quiet month for property, its actually quite busy this January due to the Stamp duty changes coming into effect in April.

We are in an era where people dont want to have jobs to do in property. They want to move in to a nice house and enjoy it in my opinion.

Ive bought and sold a lot of properties over my time and my opinion is to get the work done. my first point of call would be to the mortgage company, if you still have 2 years left then maybe they would loan you a second mortgage to do this work over a 2 year fixed to bring this in line with your current mortgage.

But if you still have 2 years left, why are you looking at selling it now? You will most likely have redemption penalties to pay the mortgage company so you would be walking away with less money.

If your Storage heaters are very old, they may contain asbestos, something that I am aware of as many others might be as well. what sort of damp is it, is it a ground floor flat? which means it the damp is staying under 1 m from ground level it may well be rising damp, plaster and render would have to be removed back to bare brick, damp proof injected and re rendered and plaster and decorated etc. not a small job and not that cheap if dont with a guarantee. Even if you did manage to sell it, that would be picked up on a survey.

If the other properties are selling for 170-180k and yours is on for 160k than this is a bit high for the issues you have. Full new heating system £7-8k, sorting the damp possibly upto £2.5k depending on the size and if it's rising. people will want to make a profit from this work.

I would either get the work done, or put the property into an auction and see what happens, you can add a reserve, but speaking to an auction house first would be a good call.

Good luck