Can't sell my apartment GRRR

mr_eddy

Ok so I bought a 2 bed ground floor apartment on a peaceful street within walking distance of Nottingham City Centre and despite all my efforts I CANNOT sell - Lots of hits and about 15 viewing to date but nothing. For ref I bought as a repo for £70k and totally refurbished it, I have it valued by 3 different estate agents all of which said between £90-95k and I currently have it on offer for £87500. Its only 12 years old and sold originally to the 1st owner in 2003 for £122k !

The place is very well presented, All neutral colours (light grey / White paint & no wallpaper), Totally de-cluttered with no personal stuff only the bare essentials like Sofa / Bed / TV / Coffee Table etc. Other apartments in the local area are going for £90-100k and most are 1 big room type places with no en-suite , no separate kitchen, no residential parking etc.

You can walk into town within ten mins, Crime rate is low and there are no less than 10 bus services within 2 mins walk plus a huge Lidl and local shops 5 mins away.

I just don't get it ! It ticks every possible box for either a first timer or landlord.

Anyone in the industry who can offer advice ?

VTech

I have no advice as I am also in a similar position.
I am selling a property in Bewdley, one of the most beautiful areas in middle england and the property was worth £350k in 2008 and now I have got no offers above £187k.

I think its an issue with lenders not lending. I can't make head nor tail of it.

Bobbinogs

A house is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. If you are not getting people interested at a price point then you need to accept that you will need to lower the price or wait until the market level raises to make your house/flat the new price selling point.

What a house/flat was worth and/or what one paid for it is irrelevant when it comes to selling.

mr_eddy

Yep I get what your saying but I refuse to go lower than about £85k. Even that we buy any house website offered £75k and they take the p**s with their prices so I know I am at the right price.

I may consider dropping to offers over £84k but that is my lowest, if it does not sell at that point then I will just wait another year.

I have had some people moan at the viewings about the fact its ground floor or that the kitchen is only 3m x 3m but I have no time for these people - The floorplans and pics / description are all in the listing !

rick_chasey

Drop the price.

If it won't sell at that price, the price is too high.

mr_eddy

Yep as mentioned I will go down to offers over £84k if nothing after a few more weeks but if that does not get any interest I will just wait - I am not selling unless I can make at least £80k as this is the minimum I need to sell for to secure a mortgage according to TSB.

pblakeney

You have three choices.

Hold out.
Accept less than you want.
Gamble on becoming a landlord.

I never did accept the thinking that property was a guaranteed investment.

keef66

Rent it out till the prices start to pick up and / or the buyers start to appear (which may be related to the availability of mortgages)

Students are fairly predictable customers. Do it properly, get an agent to manage it / sort out the agreement / handle the damage deposits etc. Be prepared to muck it out / redecorate every summer.

veronese68

VTech wrote:

I think its an issue with lenders not lending. I can't make head nor tail of it.

Doesn't seem to be an issue round my way. There's usually a bun fight if a house on my road comes on the market and they sell for over the asking price. There is one exception but that is because it was valued at £600k by one agent but the family have put it on with another agent for £700k which is ridiculous. To be honest £600k is beyond ridiculous, but people are prepared to pay that kind of money. In good condition with a loft conversion they are now touching 7 figures. Which is an obscene amount for a small semi-detached house.
Sorry can't offer any help to the OP. The disparity in pricing is growing it would seem, it makes no sense to me.

rick_chasey

mr_eddy wrote:

Yep as mentioned I will go down to offers over £84k if nothing after a few more weeks but if that does not get any interest I will just wait - I am not selling unless I can make at least £80k as this is the minimum I need to sell for to secure a mortgage according to TSB.

What's the problem then?

I'm a bit at a loss.

Unless it's a whine that people won't pay a lot for a flat, in which case, go ahead.

Flâneur

No point comparing to a figure from 2008, times have changed. You would gain a better understanding by looking at what other flats in the area are going for and spotting the difference. Are people looking for studio apartments? Are they after high ceiling character type properties. Is your flat refurbed to the areas target market? You call it neutral but is it that bland that nobody can imagine their own life in there?

MountainMonster

My guess is also that it comes down to lenders. Unfortunately, it is very hard to get a mortgage unless you are very well off for the price bracket you are looking in.

If that flat was in the Cambridge area you would have no problem selling, but not every market is the same.

keef66

MountainMonster wrote:

My guess is also that it comes down to lenders. Unfortunately, it is very hard to get a mortgage unless you are very well off for the price bracket you are looking in.

If that flat was in the Cambridge area you would have no problem selling, but not every market is the same.

Yep, round here anything half way decent and you're fighting buyers off with a stick.

Bobbinogs

...whereas in Nottingham one uses sticks for fending off the muggers who cannot afford guns

norvernrob

A friend is looking for a house in the area I live, every house that goes up for sale is gone within a week, most within 3 days and most of them over the asking price.

It's a fairly unusual area though. It's towards the outskirts of Sheffield, there are a lot of ex-council houses so you get a lot for your money, but the vast majority are now bought and it's known as a decent area to live in. 3 bed semis with drive and good sized gardens are going for £110-£120k.

My wife's parents have just sold her grandads house as he died last year, 2 bed terraced in Harlington, no central heating, needed complete renovation, £350k! The disparity in prices across the country is completely mental. The only people that can afford to buy in a lot of places are those that already have a house to sell in the area that they bought cheap years ago.

veronese68

NorvernRob wrote:

The disparity in prices across the country is completely mental. The only people that can afford to buy in a lot of places are those that already have a house to sell in the area that they bought cheap years ago.

Completely agree. I'm incredibly lucky that we bought when we did (nearly 20 years ago) there is no way we'd be able to afford where we live now. We'd like a bigger place but that would mean moving out too far, we'd rather compromise on space and stay where we are. I really don't know how young couple can afford to buy houses round our way. But over a similar time frame my gran's old flat in Lytham has dropped slightly in price.
Mind you, the old guy that used to live next door said his mum paid £200 for the house new. I told him it was used now and offered to double his money, he told me to f@ck off.

natrix

How long is your lease on the apartment? A lot of lenders won't lend on what they consider to be short leases. Could you extend your lease so that you offer it to the market with a 99 year lease??

metronome

I sold a ground floor flat last year. It was a real ordeal.

The main reason, as mentioned above was the leasehold. If yours is at 88 yrs it shouldn't be a problem. Mine was at 74 and a problem.

From my experience. Buyers don't like short leases, the idea of upstairs neighbours and paying a service charge.

Never again!

Good luck.

sloppyschleckonds

mr_eddy wrote:

Anyone in the industry who can offer advice ?

A good local independent estate agent would probably be your best bet.

Anonymous

metronome wrote:

I sold a ground floor flat last year. It was a real ordeal.

The main reason, as mentioned above was the leasehold. If yours is at 88 yrs it shouldn't be a problem. Mine was at 74 and a problem.

From my experience. Buyers don't like short leases, the idea of upstairs neighbours and paying a service charge.

Never again!

Good luck.

You are making it sound way worse than it is. You should have been more careful and not let the lease fall below 100 years. As it costs a small fortune to extend the lease as it gets forever shorter (the shorter it is, the more it costs to extend), then you are doomed as the buyer or seller to extend it. You either get your asking price and you do it, or you knock the cost of the asking price and the buyer does it. Normally the former because the main issue is that banks won't issue a mortgage against a short lease.

If you have soundproofing clauses built into the leasehold agreements then upstairs neighbours won't be an issue.

Finally service charges are only included in large blocks. Most small houses only have a token amount of ground rent (£500 per annum, so 45 per month)

fatsmoker

If George Osbourne is to be believed the economy is picking up, but that doesn't seem to be the case for those at the cheaper end of the housing market - 1st time buyers mainly. The properties around me at less than £120k have been up for sale for ages. Others at £200k and above seem to sell fairly quickly.
Problem with the lenders or a problem with many people worried about job security?

What's weird is that the mortgage on a £100k house or flat on even a 90% mortgage is similar or even cheaper than the rent on a similar sized place. The 10% deposit must be hard to find.

rick_chasey

Pfft.

Could be worse.

House prices went up 13% this year where I live, 13% the year before that, and 11% before that. Saw a 1 bed flat go for £550,000 down the road.

Despite me and my mrs earning fairly well for our age, living in London means we cannot expect to buy a property untill we are probably in our 40s if house prices continue to rise.

It's fairly unsustainable, and basically anyone under the age of 30 needs to wait for a London property crash in order to buy, move out & sustain a 90 min + commute, or find work outside of London and accept much lower wages.

Or, continue renting for a long time, which is likely what I will end up doing.

Anonymous

I'm the same as rick although luckily we have some inheritance to put down.

With high rents, it's bloody hard to save for a deposit unless you live antisocially far out, and then by the time you've saved, prices have skyrocketed anyway

veronese68

coriordan wrote:

I'm the same as rick although luckily we have some inheritance to put down.

With high rents, it's bloody hard to save for a deposit unless you live antisocially far out, and then by the time you've saved, prices have skyrocketed anyway

This is a real problem and looks like it's going to get worse. Prices have gone up way too much and O know a lot of people in the same boat. Even though I have benefitted from it on paper, it makes no real difference to us as we are still living in the house and still paying the mortgage for the amount we borrowed. If property prices had gone up at the same rate as wages I wouldn't really be any worse off, but I know a lot of people that would be faring a lot better.

Anonymous

Can't you remortgage on a lower LTV and get better rates?

The concern is being the guy who paid £550 for that 1 bed then property prices normalising.....

rick_chasey

coriordan wrote:

The concern is being the guy who paid £550 for that 1 bed then property prices normalising.....

Ah..

Yeah.

Buying property is an investment, and prices can go down as well as up...

Basically, we're in a scenario where a fairly large portion of the economy is 'long' property, which is a bit awkward when everyone needs some form of property.

Anonymous

But is it not also buying a home, where you can live, change, reshape and grow up in the way you want, rather than renting somewhere and resenting every penny spent on the place?

rick_chasey

coriordan wrote:

But is it not also buying a home, where you can live, change, reshape and grow up in the way you want, rather than renting somewhere and resenting every penny spent on the place?

Yup yup very true.

Look, there are really only two prices that matter.

The price you buy and the price you sell at.

The rest is irrelevant.

Anonymous

Yes but some people insist that they want capital gain (i.e every purchase must be an investment) without considering that they are investing in their own quality of life even if the price may fall.

turbotommy

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

mr_eddy wrote:

Anyone in the industry who can offer advice ?

A good local independent estate agent would probably be your best bet.

This.

crumbschief

Better call Saul.