'Instant' property buying companies - has anyone had a good experience?

Albermarle

Normally should be not be a problem for someone to get a mortgage for a Doer upper, as long as there is nothing really drastically  wrong with it ( which it does not sound like) and as long as the tenants are gone.
So I would just list it with an EA 'priced to sell' 

ReadySteadyPop

sclare said:

I have had a nightmare of an 18 months of legal difficulties that my late parent left behind. The final thing that will need sorting is the disposal of a rental property, which has not been looked after, and when the tenants finally go, it will probably be down to bailiffs and it's likely they'll leave it in even more of a mess. But it's a reasonably newish property (15 years old) so there shouldn't be any structural or expensive problems. But it will definitely be a doer-upper and not look attractive in the marketing photos.

It's unlikely to be put on the market until autumn/winter, so the market will be pretty dead. And I just don't have any more emotional capacity to have it hanging around and costing me money for months on end.

I know that I'd lose a significant amount of value if I used one of these 7 day companies, but to be honest, it could be worth it to me to get my mental health back. What I'm more concerned about is one of these companies messing me about at the last minute and causing me more stress.

Has anyone dealt with one of these companies and had a good experience? Any hints on how to suss out a decent one?

Dropping the price and going the normal sales route would be better, there are price tracking apps (that we can`t mention) that show asking price drops in your area, undercut the pricing of similar houses by a small amount and you will probably get some views.

FreeBear

eddddy said:

FreeBear said:

From start to finish, the entire process took about four weeks.

Selling by auction generally takes a bit longer than that.

The steps involved are usually something like this:

• 1) Instruct a solicitor to prepare a legal pack. (Searches often take 2 to 6 weeks to come back)

• 2) Then Auction Marketing usually starts 2 weeks before the auction date

• 3) There is usually 4 weeks between the auction date and completion

But you also have to bear in mind that many auction houses have fixed auction dates, maybe once a month or once every 2 months or once every 3 months.

So maybe the searches / legal pack are finally ready today, but it is 4 or 6 or 8 weeks until the next auction date. 

(It might be a bit quicker, if you decide you don't care which auction house you use - you just go with whichever is soonest. But some auction houses are better than others for different types of properties, and different areas.)


You can 'cut corners' e.g. by starting the auction marketing before the searches come back - but that's a bit risky, and it might put off some buyers.

OK. Perhaps I should have said a little under 4 weeks from listing to the hammer falling. Completion usually takes another 28 days at most.

ReadySteadyPop

user1977 said:

sclare said:

The thing that puts me off auctioning it, is that it might not sell at all (or that's what I've been warned of) and I'd still have to pay the auction house.

If it can't be sold even at auction, then why would the house-buying companies be interested either? All they're going to do is flip it for a big enough margin to take a profit.

Good point.

ReadySteadyPop

Albermarle said:

Normally should be not be a problem for someone to get a mortgage for a Doer upper, as long as there is nothing really drastically  wrong with it ( which it does not sound like) and as long as the tenants are gone.
So I would just list it with an EA 'priced to sell' 

It is finding the money for the repairs that bothers most people, the banks are no longer throwing this money into the loan like they used to, most people are not looking for "doer uppers" or even old houses, that is how the developers got away with flogging overpriced boxes for so long.

GDB2222

@sclare What you haven't said is how much of a pasting you're prepared to take on price. Supposing that a sensible value for the property, given its condition, is £300k, how much less than this would you be prepared to sell it for in order to get a quick, fairly easy sale? 

If the answer is say £200k, I reckon someone will wrench it off your hands for cash, if only so they can sell it for closer to £300k.

If the answer is £250k as a minimum, then stick it in the auction, and it will probably sell.

If you want to get around £280k, then your best choice is to give it to a local estate agent to sell, but instruct them to put a guide price of £270k on it. At 10% below market value, you should get LOADS of interest. You don't want to choose the highest offer, just the one you think will complete with the least hassle.

ReadySteadyPop

GDB2222 said:

@sclare What you haven't said is how much of a pasting you're prepared to take on price. Supposing that a sensible value for the property, given its condition, is £300k, how much less than this would you be prepared to sell it for in order to get a quick, fairly easy sale? 

If the answer is say £200k, I reckon someone will wrench it off your hands for cash, if only so they can sell it for closer to £300k.

If the answer is £250k as a minimum, then stick it in the auction, and it will probably sell.

If you want to get around £280k, then your best choice is to give it to a local estate agent to sell, but instruct them to put a guide price of £270k on it. At 10% below market value, you should get LOADS of interest. You don't want to choose the highest offer, just the one you think will complete with the least hassle.

I `m not sure this works so well anymore, there has been a noticeable dip in demand for property.

Herzlos

ReadySteadyPop said:

Albermarle said:

Normally should be not be a problem for someone to get a mortgage for a Doer upper, as long as there is nothing really drastically  wrong with it ( which it does not sound like) and as long as the tenants are gone.
So I would just list it with an EA 'priced to sell' 

It is finding the money for the repairs that bothers most people, the banks are no longer throwing this money into the loan like they used to, most people are not looking for "doer uppers" or even old houses, that is how the developers got away with flogging overpriced boxes for so long.

Quite rightly banks are a bit more conservative with lending to allow people to get into financial trouble. 

They will also only lend on the current state, so if it doesn't have a working bathroom for example it wouldn't be mortgageable. But that doesn't mean a builder/flipper wouldn't want to buy it for £100k under market value, spending £20k + 2 months doing it up and then selling it for full market. 

ReadySteadyPop

Herzlos said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Albermarle said:

Normally should be not be a problem for someone to get a mortgage for a Doer upper, as long as there is nothing really drastically  wrong with it ( which it does not sound like) and as long as the tenants are gone.
So I would just list it with an EA 'priced to sell' 

It is finding the money for the repairs that bothers most people, the banks are no longer throwing this money into the loan like they used to, most people are not looking for "doer uppers" or even old houses, that is how the developers got away with flogging overpriced boxes for so long.

Quite rightly banks are a bit more conservative with lending to allow people to get into financial trouble. 

They will also only lend on the current state, so if it doesn't have a working bathroom for example it wouldn't be mortgageable. But that doesn't mean a builder/flipper wouldn't want to buy it for £100k under market value, spending £20k + 2 months doing it up and then selling it for full market. 

It is much harder to make money doing this now, cost of materials and time is up, demand for property is down.

sclare

GDB2222 said:

@sclare What you haven't said is how much of a pasting you're prepared to take on price. Supposing that a sensible value for the property, given its condition, is £300k, how much less than this would you be prepared to sell it for in order to get a quick, fairly easy sale? 

If the answer is say £200k, I reckon someone will wrench it off your hands for cash, if only so they can sell it for closer to £300k.

If the answer is £250k as a minimum, then stick it in the auction, and it will probably sell.

If you want to get around £280k, then your best choice is to give it to a local estate agent to sell, but instruct them to put a guide price of £270k on it. At 10% below market value, you should get LOADS of interest. You don't want to choose the highest offer, just the one you think will complete with the least hassle.

At a rough estimate, it's value is around £205k. It's a modern (under 20 years old) three bed semi, but it hasn't been looked after, though repairs have been organised when directed, and it had a new bathroom last year. I think the garden is going to be an issue though, going by the streetview aerial pictures. It's in an area of the country that I don't know at all, so I've no idea about the market there.