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

ReadySteadyPop

sheramber said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

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.

Not in my locality

 A big difference from the OP`s area then, why do you think that is?

Herzlos

We don't know, that's why it's bad advice to just assume everything is overpriced.  You'll have to be right eventually but after 23 years of crying wolf is it today?

ReadySteadyPop

GDB2222 said:

The first house I bought, the garden was incredibly overgrown, but it didn’t put me off. I guess I had more energy then! 

I doubt the garden would be an issue, but I would take the agent’s advice on that. If they need a machete to get to the front door, they will advise getting someone in to do a bit of clearance, and I’m sure they can introduce a gardener. 

Most buyers can see beyond a few weeds I think.

Herzlos

ReadySteadyPop said:

GDB2222 said:

The first house I bought, the garden was incredibly overgrown, but it didn’t put me off. I guess I had more energy then! 

I doubt the garden would be an issue, but I would take the agent’s advice on that. If they need a machete to get to the front door, they will advise getting someone in to do a bit of clearance, and I’m sure they can introduce a gardener. 

Most buyers can see beyond a few weeds I think.

Do you have any experience buying and selling houses in the last 20 years?

GDB2222

Herzlos said:

GDB2222 said:

Herzlos said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Herzlos said:

If you don't want to travel over to spend a long weekend on it yourself then It may be worth contacting an estate agent local to the property, getting them a key and trying to coordinate with someone to do a garden and house clearance, repaint etc. Not full home makeover type work but an empty house with clean floors/walls and any glaring issues solved will sell a lot better than a messy one. 

They'll probably know local companies that can do the stuff you'd need for staging and it'll make selling it easier. Even if you give them a relatively large comission (say 5% instead of the normal 1-2%) you'll still be vastly better off than selling to a house selling place. Failing that they may be able to put you in touch with a handyman or property management company that can coordinate it. 

"Staging" isn`t that effective now, people can tidy gardens etc, themselves, they are looking at price, size and location.

Staging is massively important even now. People have virtually no imagination, no patience, and will use anything as an excuse to beat down the price. 

A clean well presented house will sell a lot faster and for more money than an idential house that's a mess. 

 My recent experience of selling a 1970s property that had had nothing done to it since it was built: we had a queue of buyers offering the asking price. Most of them were in the building trade. They wanted the house to live in, but they could do a lot of the work themselves, and get the rest done at mates rates. 

I could have got the work done myself, but I would have had to sell for much much more money to cover the cost. And these buyers would not have been interested. There might have been other buyers who wanted a house ready to walk into, but I didn’t try that route, so I don’t know how much they would have paid. 

What state was the property in? There's old but well maintained, and there's messy. I certainly don't think it's worth spending money modernizing anything to sell it, but clean walls and a tidy garden will give buyers a much better impression. 

Everything worked, but for example it had the original kitchen (which was pretty basic when new) and the original Marley tiles on the floor. 

sclare

I think the garden is way beyond just a few weeds. When I look at street view aerial shots, all the other houses have green gardens. This one has a dark brown and grey one. I'm concerned that it might just be earth and rubble/rubbish.

Unfortunately no photos were taken when it was inspected, so until the tenants go, I won't know what to expect, which is disconcerting. But yes, I'll ask the agent for recommendations. I just feel that it will cost a lot to get the garden looking even close to manageable. Which will put people off as much as it's concerning me.

sclare

Speed of getting rid of this property is the most important thing for me. I'm prepared to lose a fair bit if it means a quick sale. I don't think that people wanting to flip will care  much about the state of the decor. But the garden could be a long and expensive job if it's as bad as I fear. And I'd have thought that would put off the flippers/landlords etc who want it sorted and earning quickly.

GDB2222

sclare said:

Speed of getting rid of this property is the most important thing for me. I'm prepared to lose a fair bit if it means a quick sale. I don't think that people wanting to flip will care  much about the state of the decor. But the garden could be a long and expensive job if it's as bad as I fear. And I'd have thought that would put off the flippers/landlords etc who want it sorted and earning quickly.

They can probably get it all cut back for a few hundred pounds. Then, they'll have to make a decision whether to get it landscaped in order to get a premium price for the house. But the house will sell quite easily with a very scruffy garden. Indeed, there are keen gardeners out there who'll prefer a blank canvas. I really think you're worrying far too much about this particular aspect.  

RHemmings

sclare said:

I think the garden is way beyond just a few weeds. When I look at street view aerial shots, all the other houses have green gardens. This one has a dark brown and grey one. I'm concerned that it might just be earth and rubble/rubbish.

Unfortunately no photos were taken when it was inspected, so until the tenants go, I won't know what to expect, which is disconcerting. But yes, I'll ask the agent for recommendations. I just feel that it will cost a lot to get the garden looking even close to manageable. Which will put people off as much as it's concerning me.

I'd prefer something with earth and rubble/rubbish over something that is completely taken over by weeds such as brambles. But, if I was looking at such a house, I would still want a discount. 

Herzlos

sclare said:

Speed of getting rid of this property is the most important thing for me. I'm prepared to lose a fair bit if it means a quick sale. I don't think that people wanting to flip will care  much about the state of the decor. But the garden could be a long and expensive job if it's as bad as I fear. And I'd have thought that would put off the flippers/landlords etc who want it sorted and earning quickly.

If that's the case I'd just get a local EA to list it at about 75% of the value and see what happens. Realistically a home buying company will try and get you down to more like 50% so anything above that is going to be a win. 

There's also a high possibility that the local EA will already know some flippers who'd snap it up.