'Ouses, Greenbelt and stuff
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Would disagree with this. With a share of freehold you have some agency in ensuring maintenance is completed regularly and to a good standard. As just a leaseholder you are reliant on the quality of the building management that the freeholder provides. Some are good, others indifferent. Of course building maintenance is expensive but there doesn't need to be deliberate attempt to overcharge for there to be a poor service.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
If you own a share of the freehold, you are still a leaseholder, but you also own shares in a company which owns the freehold. Leaving aside the difficulties this can create when residents don't have the skills necessary to run a company, you would then have some form of influence over the selection of the managing agent. However, this right could also be obtained through other routes eg. right to manage or even just have a leaseholders association.
Also, when the residents are also the freeholders, it has the potential to be messy as it will be neighbours disputing neighbours.
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I have had dealings with quite a few "management agencies" and they almost all are only interested in fleecing everybody. Leaseholder freeholder and anyone doing the maintenance work.
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I’ll stick this in here rather than starting a new thread. I’ve been casually looking at houses for about 18 months with vague thoughts of moving with a view to having more outdoor space and / or being more in the countryside. In that time I’ve only seen a handful of houses that interested me and the wife has maybe liked 2 or 3. I’d actually stopped looking as she didn’t really seem keen on moving other than to West Wales which she knows isn’t really practical for several reasons.
However, this evening she has seen a place she likes. It’s about 5 miles from where we live now and not much further for her to go to work with most of the other stuff we do being as close or closer. The house itself is effectively semi-rural with a 60m long garden, a 100 acre community woodland on the doorstep and direct access up onto mountains yet is only a 400m walk from the edge of a decent size town (50,000 population) with the town centre about 1.5 miles away. The house itself is a renovated cottage (it’s in the middle of a small terrace which is the only thing that isn’t perfect).
However, having not moved in 25 years I’m not sure what the process is like if we did want to move. I don’t really want to put our house on the market as we only want to move for something we really like (and this is the first time in 18 months that has happened) but I know some estate agents won’t let you even view a place unless you have your home up for sale and a mortgage approval in principle. A friend was recently looking to view a place having sold her house and only got a viewing due to knowing the agent as they already had 20 people booked in. Does anyone have recent experience/ thoughts about the best way to proceed if we decide to go for it? The last thing I want is the hassle and cost of moving somewhere we think is OK at best because we’ve sold our place and can’t get what we want.
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We recently sold our house, no estate agent ever asked our position prior to viewing I don't think (although a lot knew after a previous viewing anyway) but they will probably ask during the viewing and if you like somewhere, you can't put forward a meaningful offer unless you are proceedable (ie have an offer on your current place, can get a mortgage without selling or have a load of cash in the bank)
Pre Truss/high inflation etc, things were going very fast. If we saw a house we liked then there would be 10+ viewings on a Saturday and often multiple offers on Monday morning so you needed to move fast.
More recently, things slowed down a bit but the flip side of that is that it may take a few months to get an offer on your house and in the mean time, the place you want may get snapped up.
If you sell your place, you can pull out at any time up until you actually exchange contracts.
I think the only way it works is for you to put your place on the market and hope to get an offer/find a new place in a reasonable timescale. If you don't find a place then either your buyer has to wait or they give up, drop out and you try to find someone new. Quite a few chains fall apart that way, there is one house we looked at that has gone back on the market 3 or 4 times.
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There will always be "no riff raff" estate agents - they are usually blonde, about 28 and like driving around in the firm's viewings Mercedes SUV. There are also a lot of "no riff raff" sellers. My suspicion is that people are advised to try to give the impression of lots of interest when something is first listed.
Getting approval in principle for a mortgage is quick and easy. If you want to do a thought exercise and avoid putting half your belongings in storage to improve the feng shui, just make some shit up, like "yes, we have approval in principle" and "we are getting the photos done next week".
And be patient. If you really are looking at a place with a genuine frenzy of interest, there will not be any value in it. What we did learn was that a lot of the frenzy can die down, and sales fall through. We saw several very nice houses come back two or three times.
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Having sold and bought 8 times and are currently on the market. We wouldn’t let anyone view unless they were in position to buy. I.E they’ve sold their house or are a cash buyer. We let some friends of a friend view who put in offer of the full asking price which is meaningless as they are not in position to proceed as they haven’t sold their house.
My opinion is you have put your property on the market and have an offer or have the funds from somewhere else to start viewing.
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That's not true, sorry, or chains wouldn't exist. It really depends on the market. If it is hot, yes, but it really isn't right now. We were looking during the summer last year in Devon and Cornwall. The market was still warm. For the most part, if we said had our house on the market, (i.e. if you can say you have it on the market without blushing, OP), we got a viewing.
There were a couple where that wasn't the case, but one was still for sale when we had concluded 4 months later, and another went for over £150k less than initial asking. Like I said, patience.
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Chains exist because most people selling need to buy somewhere etc. I did say in my opinion. When we have not stipulated that people who want to view are in position to proceed. You get people who are bored with going to the seaside on a wet day who now go and view houses on sale.
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Well yes, there are people who do this as a hobby.
For the OP, don't you think the schedule, snooping on Google earth and street view (older images can be useful as well) and a drive-by would tell you enough to know if it can be ruled out?
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It all a balancing act:
You can probably get a viewing without the hassle of putting your house on the market but then if you like the place, you would be on the back foot compared to another offer and you could miss out on even being able to offer. You're relying on nobody else offering on it for as long as it takes for you to get an offer on your place.
On the other hand, you could go to all the effort of putting your house on the market, get an offer and then not find anywhere you like for 6 months, possibly involving you having buyers drop out and having to do it all again.
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I know the place quite well as I regularly go past it to walk the dogs or do a trail run in the adjacent woods and mountains. It's a fantastic spot and the images of the interior look very nice. It's the hassle of getting ours listed that is more of an issue for me especially if it subsequently sells as we probably won't see anything else we genuinely like for quite a while. The one downside (other than in being mid-terrace) is that it has solid fuel central heating.
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Surely if everyone took that approach hardly any houses would be viewed let alone sold and a first time buyer wouldn't get on the ladder (unless a mortgage in principle offer was acceptable)?
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Being ready to proceed definitely helps and it's probably how (with a bit of luck) we managed to bag our current house.
Back in 2021 when the market was pretty hot we had our seller pull out less than 2 weeks from exchanging. Luckily our buyers had nobody below them in a chain and were happy to stay in their place until we found somewhere new. Went back out and found the current place, which seemed to have a fair bit of interest and had just come back on the market after their buyer pulled out (but they were committed to buying their new place). We put in an offer a little below the asking price but not too far off, expecting to be drawn into a bidding war. Made clear to the agent that we were as ready to proceed as we could be without being outright cash buyers. Next day our offer was accepted because they needed to sell sharpish (and we did the whole thing from viewing to completion in exactly 8 weeks).
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
It is tricky and I can assure you that putting your house on the market is a massive pain in the arse. Once it is on, and the junk you never use is in the loft or garage or your mum's house, viewing are more about having a whip round beforehand.
At least for us we'd been deferring some decorating and maintenance and had to do some cosmetic stuff beforehand.
Costs up front for the actual estate agent aren't that bad. We spent about £1200 up front (including home report, whereas you only need energy performance certificate) We also paid for drone footage (because we were selling the garden and natural setting as much as the house) and a 3d walk through.
I think the extras in our case got a few people a bit giddy and paid for themselves 20 times over.
By contrast, we have a house in an AONB and world heritage site, with a river view and surrounded by some of the UKs best woodland. The seller here didn't bother with that walk through or drone stuff and the stills didn't do the place justice. So we got help at both ends.
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This is the place (the white one next to the bare stone one)
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Can't comment on your tolerance of neighbours to each side etc. but in a place like that your garden is basically anywhere outside and endless, and you don't need to mow the lawn.
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Yeah, that's the real appeal of the place especially when the actual garden is such a good size too and yet it is a short walk to a bus route and 1.5 miles to a decent sized town centre and railway station. I'll see if the wife is still enthusiastic in a couple of days and will then think whether it is worth all the stress and hassle (something I said I was never going to do again). Getting a mortgage shouldn't be any issue as it is only about £20-30k more than our current place is likely to be worth.
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A first time buyer with a mortgage offer is in a position to proceed.
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Possibly preferred as no chain.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Above a certain house value, first time buyers don't exist, or are uncommon.
I'm guessing that's a £400k house at least, and not in second home shire, so most people will be selling as well. Not many people are first time buyers at that level, although they do exist.
You just don't know unless you try, and you can't change your circumstances much so why worry.
Some vendors are all about the ultimate price. Others want rid quickly, like if Auntie Betsy has died and they are arguing about the inheritance.
We were cash plus mortgage plus proceeds, in competition with a proceedable second homer with a similar offer. We still got it, in the basis we were actually planning to live here and didn't walk round telling the seller who had just lost her husband how much work needed to be done. Turns out saying things like wow and this is beautiful actually helps more than poking your finger through a rotten window frame and saying that will need to be factored into the price.
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I’ve got friends who refused a sale because the potential buyer made reference to some cobwebs they had missed when cleaning for the viewing.😂
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On the other hand, I have seen sooooo many properties that appear in good repair at first glance but actually need £200k spending on them because the windows are at the end of their life, the roof needs re-tiling. The electrics and plumbing have been adapted and extended to their limits and just need ripping out and starting again. The bathroom and the kitchen are a bit tired and all the walls are covered in lining paper so the re-wiring also means replastering and redecorating. And we haven't even started thinking about that extension.
You do need to bear that in mind, but there are ways to do it without pissing off the vendor.
Have you considered selling up and renting for 6 months to remove the whole chain thing. You will only need to chuck all your clutter away once unless you hoard like a magpie.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
That’s where a survey comes in surely? “My surveyor says it needs £50k of work so can we discuss the price again please?”
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Exactly.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Most vendors will say it is already factored into the asking price.
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Buyer then has a decision to make. I suspect in most cases it isn’t factored in, the days of estate agents being Chartered Surveyors are long gone. Being prepared to play hardball at that stage will probably scare a vendor.
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A quick reference to similar properties will prove or disprove that. Unless there's something like 'in need of some modernisation', I'd suggest it hasn't. Some vendors have unrealistic expectations, which only a prolonged period of the property not selling despite five different agents will dislodge.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
isn't that because you're buying in the arse ends of nowhere?
Not suggesting Pross isn't either, but markets more move more quickly in desirable (or popular if you'd prefer) locations.
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I'm not sure anything in the property market could be described as fast.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0
