buying an airey house at auction

kunzite

ive seen an airey house in a lovely location thats up for auction in suffolk any advice on how to proceed and what problems i could encounter?

LisbonLaura

What on earth is an 'airey' house????

Toto

a house that has air in.

PasturesNew

If you are planning on buying at auction with a mortgage, it wouldn't be a good move. It's hard enough to get a mortgage on an auction property because of the time it takes to arrange. You'd need a survey ahead of the auction for starters, just to get to stage 2 of the mortgage process so you stand some chance of completing on time.

Check out financing.

These are tricky things to mortgage. They can be long-winded to find a lender. Deposit often has to be a lot lot larger than a traditional construction.

If you're paying cash and know what you're buying into, then fine.

Remember that when you buy at auction, you've got a MAX 28 days to complete (might be less/see legal pack). It's unusual if anybody would allow you an extension, they'd just keep your deposit and it'd be bye-bye money if you couldn't finance it.

siren13577

It seems to be a house of 'non standard construction', made of precast concrete blocks and sometimes rendered with pebble dashing, according to what I've read. I can't offer any other advice, approach your solicitor and I should imagine the mortgage company would be a good port of call. I'd assuming you'd still have to have it surveyed or the seller would have to provide a HIP. There are things you need to look out for, like the concrete columns cracking and wear and tear around windows etc. Many people who have bought these seem to be 'bricking them up' which seems to increase the mortgability of the property. I think you need to tread carefully and check everything in relation to this, including bricks and mortar insurance etc. Good luck and I hope you get the result you're looking for.

LisbonLaura

PasturesNew wrote: »

These are tricky things to mortgage.

Ah the concrete panel houses. Unmortgageable with the society I worked for

1) Buy for land value only
2) less huge discount as all is priced at least twice its worth
3) less huge 'at auction' discount.

rdpro

I bought a Waites PRC house for 70k (3 bed, large garden, off-road parking, reasonably nice area) and had all the external concrete removed and repaired according to a structural engineering company for 30k (new block and brick walls all around). Identical properties in the area are on the market for between 125-145k depending on internal condition, and luckily aren't suffering large reductions at the moment.
Buying a PRC today is extremely risky unless you're a cash buyer like me - even pre-crunch, any lender would stipulate that the repair costs be included in the mortgage, and that's if you could find one to take it on!

On the good side, the PRC repair companies are desperate for work now, and the market's flooding with unemployed brickies - wish I'd waited 6 months, I could've got a real bargain on the repair work.

Be aware that some styles of PRC house are much more liable to concrete cancer than others - a lot of surveyors won't even look at them to begin with - luckily Waites was a better type. If you want to buy and repair, be very careful about who you get in to do the job - check around the area for other repaired houses, knock on doors, ask for recommendations. Some companies offer a 'brick over' of the concrete walls and resin treatment of the joints underneath - this isn't acceptable to most of the high street banks for mortgage purposes, although it'll be cheaper than a 'full' repair.

Try http://www.mdyson.co.uk/company/about.shtml for advice - I didn't use them, but they were involved in the early days and run one of the main repair licences nationally.

One more note - the internal walls of most pre-fabby type houses are cinderblock, a very weak type of breezeblock, so don't be surprised when large cracks appear underneath wallpaper! I'm forking out an additional 15k for internal renovation on mine (mainly because the previous owner was a DIY nut)

epz_2

its for auction as its pretty much unmortgageable, not necessarily a bad thing but i would expect it to be MASSIVELY cheaper than comparable sized properties.

if you are planning on living there a long time it could be a great idea as you will save a fortune on interest . essentially you could treat is as though the house is a depreciating asset but the capital depreciation over say 25 years will be less than the interest on the extra borrowings of a similar sized standard house.

remeber with the current market it may well be unsellable for 5 years plus and if its a flat/semi etc that would make you reliant on a neighbor paying vast amounts of cash for your house to stay upright i would run away.

minimike2

AVOID!!!!

There are only a handfull of lenders that will lend on these, making them difficult to sell on. Even when they have had the conversion works done it makes them difficult to sell. It usually involed underpinning, which has a detrimental effect on the availability of buildings insurance.

The availability of mortgages on them also effects the value, but the main issue is the saleability in the future.

If it was to be a "for life" home, then that doesnt come in as so much of an issue, but you want to make sure that the correct conversion works have been carried out (AFAIK there is only one company licensed to do this to the official government standard, called Dyson, who contract out usually to Tarmac) and that the appropriate PRC certificate is in place (usually stored with the deeds).

If it has not had the works carried out and is still concrete, then you may encounter "concrete cancer" in the future. The insurance cost on these can be huge. You cant just go and buy any old house insurance policy without discussing it with the insurer first.

rdpro

minimike2 wrote: »

AVOID!!!!

There are only a handfull of lenders that will lend on these, making them difficult to sell on. Even when they have had the conversion works done it makes them difficult to sell. It usually involed underpinning, which has a detrimental effect on the availability of buildings insurance.

The availability of mortgages on them also effects the value, but the main issue is the saleability in the future.

If it was to be a "for life" home, then that doesnt come in as so much of an issue, but you want to make sure that the correct conversion works have been carried out (AFAIK there is only one company licensed to do this to the official government standard, called Dyson, who contract out usually to Tarmac) and that the appropriate PRC certificate is in place (usually stored with the deeds).

If it has not had the works carried out and is still concrete, then you may encounter "concrete cancer" in the future. The insurance cost on these can be huge. You cant just go and buy any old house insurance policy without discussing it with the insurer first.

It doesn't involve underpinning in the normal sense, but it does involve extending the original foundations outwards and tying them to the originals under supervision of a structural engineer - the house walls become thicker with the addition of the new brick skin, hence the 'extension'.

Dyson were the original company involved in creating a 'certificated repair scheme' with the banks and NHBC in the 80's - several different licences are now available from about a dozen engineering companies, depending on house type. The original certificates were run by PRC Homes Ltd, a subsiduary of NHBC - they seem to have dwindled to nothing though, and the title is held by a Swindon company who have no association with NHBC.

It *is* extremely important that any repairs are certified, or your money's as good as burnt.

Btw, be careful at the insurance comparison websites - the drop-down for construction type includes concrete, but the insurance companies don't consider it as traditional construction (took them 6 months to tell me though!)

Richard_Webster

If OP can buy cash then go ahead but massively discount the price because it won't sell easily in the future.

If a mortgage is needed, forget it unless:
a. Auction in many months time so that you have time for all the surveys etc needed to arrange a mortgage;
b. You are prepared to spend out on all the investigations beforehand on the chance that you will be successful at the auction.

As long as it is in reasonable condition then it will probably be bought by a cash BTL buyer who will see that the ratio between investment and return will be higher than normal. The rental income will be the important thing so as long as it is bought cheaply enough, the eventual sale price might not matter.