Help any advice appreciated, were selling the old mans house in the West Mids,
its on the market at 90k low price because it needs a lot of work, plastering, garden
etc etc bloke said yes I'll buy it at the listed price now he's saying it needs a lot of work
that needs to be done before his bank will give him the mortgage
Were expecting to be asked to pay for the work.....now my first impression is to tell him
get stuffed if I'm going to do the place up then the price has to go up
does this sound right or is that the way things are done in the UK

Tar

Zig "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana
Puts away his cloth cap and donkey jacket
Goes and sits in the naughty corner

In England and Wales, the final price agreed for a house purchase can change right up unil the day before Solicitors exchange contracts.

There are so many variables which have an influence such as buyers mortgage company doing a valuation half way through the conveyance process, market fluctuations seeing people 'gazump' other buyers, surveyors finding defects, local property legal searches throwing up issues in the locality or past building history etc etc.

In short any agreement on price is worth nothing much the same as any agreement to pay a higher price after you do the work is not binding on the purchaser.

I recently dealt with a Client who like everyone else agreed to sell his house for x. Unlike you he was also using the house sale to fund a new purchase. The chain was four properties long. My Client was at the bottom with his purchaser being a first time buyer. everyone spent a lot of time and money having surveys, mortgage valuations solicitors fees etc. My Client packed his house into boxes in readiness for the removals van on the Friday. Last thing on Thursday night the first time buyer got cold feet and pulled out. The whole chain collapsed over night!.


Its not unusual for mortgage firms to either refuse a mortgage or retain some of the advance until works are done. In the normal course of events your purchaser would fund the improvement works and then be reimbursed by his mortgage firm when they release his retained funds.If he can't get a mortgage thats his problem.

My advisce is stick to the 90 k sold as seen. any required works are a buyers problem. If on the other hand you are minded to do the work, then do it and place the property on the market for an increased figure. Don't get tied up sucking up to one buyer who is trying to force you to do the work. They can disappear overnight.

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^ Good advice. Buyers are a real PITA and tend to think they have all the power. It's not uncommon to receive a revised offer on the day of completion when everyone in the chain is committed to the move. As said above, don't be pushed around by a buyer, especially if you have no critical time pressures.

Thanks no were in no hurry to sell, but beginning to think spend another 6 months or so over in the old mans house bring it up to speck then re list it if this buyer is going to play silly

Just gotta convince the cook now

Zigg "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana
Puts away his cloth cap and donkey jacket
Goes and sits in the naughty corner

Have a good think about it, you're going into autumn and winter so working on a house in the UK is not the greatest thing (cold, damp, dark).

See if he plays silly and just put it back on the market as is. In Holland a lot of people will modify a house anyway and I'm expecting the same in the UK. Sell it as a house with possibilities that people can modify the way they like. I mean wouldn't it be a wast of money and time if you do it up and then the buyer is going to undo some of your work to make the changes. Plus the cost of travelling to the UK, plus missing the Oz summer  MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

As a former Central London estate agent and current property developer I would advise anyone selling to declutter the property and decorate it neutrally. Buyers have little imagination and will always look for excuses to pay less or renegotiate down the line. Try to make it look as clean and bright as possible.

Remember that your taste is yours and not necessarily anyone else's, so don't take anything personally. You have to remember you are trying to make your property appeal to the largest market.

Also try to maximise the number of bedrooms and stage it so it looks like a home. A single bed in a large bedroom makes it a single in the average buyer's mind. Dumb I know, but the public are like this. Change a home office back into a bedroom etc.

If possible I also advise against entering chains, but I guess it is easier in Central London than elsewhere. I have had sellers lose tens of thousands of pounds because they would not move into rented when I had a good cash buyer for them. They wanted to wait until they found their next home. So the next buyer offered less just at the time they found their dream home and they had to take it as the chain limited their options. Tom

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I buy and sell residential property regularly, focussing on buying houses that need work.

You need to take advice of your agent - is it priced at £90k (based on other similar properties in the immediate vicinity) to reflect the fact that it needs work ? A quick check on rightmove.co.uk and zoopla.co.uk will confirm this.

Given that it needs a reasonable amount of work (and you can't / don't want to do it), then you probably need to try and find a "developer type buyer" who will have funds available and can move quickly - you'll need to accept that they will drive a hard bargain, but the benefit will be that you should have a quick and clean sale.

If you can secure a sale to this type of buyer, and they can complete in 4 - 6 weeks, then it's probably worth taking a lesser price to get the money working for you elsewhere and get the liability of an empty (?) property off your hands, especially given that you aren't local to it.

Completely agree with the above comment; think carefully about letting this run into the winter - the property could deteriorate over winter and will be harder to sell.

Also, as above, I definitely wouldn't get into a "complicated deal" - sell as seen, and take a lower price if needed - don't get involved in doing work on the "promise" of a sale - the problem with selling this type of property to an "ordinary buyer / owner occupier" is that most just don't have the "cash" for both a deposit and to do the work - otherwise do the work to a good standard and sell at a premium.

It's often said that if a property isn't sold (offer accepted) within 6 weeks, then something isn't right, i.e. price, etc

Last edited by CEEGEE on 12th Aug 2015 2:36pm. Edited 3 times in total

If you do decide to come over Zig let me know and we'll get some laning done.

Dom.

Thanks again guys, the house is pretty run down the old man was 93 when he went on his last patrol, I left home in the early 70's and basically nothing was done on the house sense.

a house sold in the same street for 130 k but it was very nice house....dads place has been on the market now sence the end of last year, we started off at 110k then 100k and now 90k even the condition its in its worth the 90k so I don't think we will come any lower.

If it were only me in the equation I would keep the house for when the cook and I are in the UK, but it has to be sold...

The rules are so different to selling a house in Oz we'v had 3 buyers that have said yes we'll buy it only to pull out
later on. so there's been months when the house was not on the market because of them.

Dom

I'll hold you to that coming over to work on the house is only an excuse to convince the cook to go back to the UK so I can buy a defender 90 this time.....But as EB says I don't think thats gonna happen because of the weather cook wants to spend summer here this year

Zigg "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana
Puts away his cloth cap and donkey jacket
Goes and sits in the naughty corner

Any property that's been on the market for that length of time and with a series of price reductions, becomes harder and harder to sell as it develops a "there must be something really wrong with it " feel to it.

If you are serious about selling and given what you say and the length of time on the market, I'd seriously consider putting into auction - you can always put a reserve on it, so that it doesn't end up being given away - likelihood is that you'll sell it, fall of the hammer is contractually binding and you'll have your money in 28 days.

If you don't want to auction it, I'd definitely be looking at changing agents - because not only will you be sick of trying to sell it by now, so will the agent - you need a fresh pair of eyes and some fresh enthusiasm on it and lets be honest, the agent clearly over valued it (based on the markets response) in the first place

Auction it. A good auctioneer will have a ready supply of room regulars who buy this kind of kit and will know the likely price. May well guide it much lower to encourage bidders. Private treaty in your circumstances is a hassle you don't need.

Where abouts in the West Midlands is the house Ziggy? The difference between theory and reality is that in theory it will work.

Pm Sent Dave..........


The auction sounds good but just too hard to do from over here had a long exchange of emails with the
estate agents yesterday, expressing our concerns, boils down to and I quote "that's the way it rolls over here"
I was gob smacked.....

Hey-Ho if it sells it sells if it don't I still have somewhere to kip when were in the UK win win


Ziggy "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana
Puts away his cloth cap and donkey jacket
Goes and sits in the naughty corner

I just sold a property recently, it was competitively priced (very) but still took 6 months. I could have rented it out immediately (it was a flat in Leeds) but I just didn't want to be a landlord. It was slightly more than you are looking for but still in first time buyer territory, get a good estate agent working for you and wait would be my advice unless you have a pressing need to sell. I had to shell out £500 every month so the quicker the sale the better, my estate agent reckoned I could have got £5k more but that had to be offset in my mind against the £500 per month. Geoff