Diary of a house sale....post covid

[Sasquatch]

2 minutes ago, Democorruptcy said:

Original price was £600k, then you dropped to £550k, they just offered £525k agreed £535k?

Presumably they only pay stamp duty on £35k now, so they could have paid the £550k. You have given it away!

I'm hoping that's how it will feel to the buyers. Our agent initially thought £550,000 when he valued it last year but we were still painting and finishing off a couple of rooms at the time. We had two other valuations, one at £600K by a known Gordon Gekko type outfit (we had no intention of using them - an odious bunch of tossers) and another agent who wanted us to tell him what it was worth (a complete waste of space - how do these people get jobs?).

I would have been dancing down the street banging pots and pans together if we had achieved near asking price. In the end, perhaps we are only £15,000 to £20,000 lower than where I had hoped we would be. We can live with this. If the sale goes smoothly (no chain either end) and we are out by October we will be very happy. Our next purchase (after the temporary rental) will be the big one. We are likely to be pooling resources with the in laws and buying a house with annex. It will be an expensive long term buy. 

Just need to economic/covid sentiment to hold steady for the next 3 months.

[CVG]

47 minutes ago, spygirl said:

South of IOW rather than South of England?

In which case - Ahh.

Bear in mind that outside of the economically active areas, which are few n far between now - housing market is driven by local wages/employment and probate numbers.

 

South of England.

I'm retired so I can move to less economically (and more attractive!) areas. I can easily buy for 150-175K and I'm more than happy for prices to crash 50% to 75K after I purchase. That would be good for everybody including me when I trade up.

I'm popping down to Devon next week to check out a couple of houses. You're really missing out if you think that all the bargains are up north.

[spygirl]

Just now, CVG said:

South of England.

I'm retired so I can move to less economically (and more attractive!) areas. I can easily buy for 150-175K and I'm more than happy for prices to crash 50% to 75K after I purchase. That would be good for everybody including me when I trade up.

I'm popping down to Devon next week to check out a couple of houses. You're really missing out if you think that all the bargains are up north.

 

South of England.

I'm retired so I can move to less economically (and more attractive!) areas. I can easily buy for 150-175K and I'm more than happy for prices to crash 50% to 75K after I purchase. That would be good for everybody including me when I trade up.

I'm popping down to Devon next week to check out a couple of houses. You're really missing out if you think that all the bargains are up north.

 

OK.

Go back to what I said earlier.

No go for 2 people n 3 dogs for less than 300kish.

[CVG]

1 minute ago, spygirl said:

OK.

Go back to what I said earlier.

No go for 2 people n 3 dogs for less than 300kish.

3 people 3 dogs and temporary. Entirely doable. Just before Covid I was about to exchange on a house for 135K. Luckily the vendor played stupid buggers with me and the sale fell through.

[CVG]

Don't forget that sighthounds just lie on the sofa asleep for 23 hours a day!

[Wight Flight]

46 minutes ago, spygirl said:

OK.

Go back to what I said earlier.

No go for 2 people n 3 dogs for less than 300kish.

You are talking out of your arse.

If the budget is raised to £175k, this is a nice doer-upper.

Plenty of room, and could end up as a very nice house.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-81663337.html

[spygirl]

6 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

You are talking out of your arse.

If the budget is raised to £175k, this is a nice doer-upper.

Plenty of room, and could end up as a very nice house.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-81663337.html

Id not put IOW in Southern England. Its the Isle of Wight.

The poster wants easy access to visit family in a couiple of hours. Daily travel is not great or cheap to/from the IOW.

I used to work with someone who lived on the IOW and bought a garage in Soton, for the last 30 miles of a commute.

The logisitics and expense were not trivial.

 

 

[Wight Flight]

4 minutes ago, spygirl said:

Id not put IOW in Southern England. Its the Isle of Wight.

The poster wants easy access to visit family in a couiple of hours. Daily travel is not great or cheap to/from the IOW.

I used to work with someone who lived on the IOW and bought a garage in Soton, for the last 30 miles of a commute.

The logisitics and expense were not trivial.

 

 

Depends where the family live. If they are in a certain area, we are much nearer than Norfolk, Devon or many other places. As an example, to get from where I am to Hindhead takes 1 hour 45 minutes by car. When we lived in Woking, we would leave at least that time for the journey because of the traffic jam potential.

You would be mad to commute daily, but once a week is easily double. And it isn't that expensive. £12 as a foot passenger (the train to London cost more than the ferry) or £27 each way with a car and up to five passengers.

My lads and in-laws hop backwards and forwards all the time. 

The other aspect of our decision is that the in-laws really should give up driving in the next year or two.

By cab, train and fastcat they can be here in about 2 hours. That is much quicker than any other 'affordable' area in the South East by public transport.

 

[Sasquatch]

The buyers are coming back today at 1pm for a chat and some measuring up. 

I hope they're not checking that they've made a hasty decision 

[CVG]

20 minutes ago, spygirl said:

Id not put IOW in Southern England. Its the Isle of Wight.

The poster wants easy access to visit family in a couiple of hours. Daily travel is not great or cheap to/from the IOW.

I used to work with someone who lived on the IOW and bought a garage in Soton, for the last 30 miles of a commute.

The logisitics and expense were not trivial.

 

 

I'm sorry Spy, but you're not right. With a railcard I was easily able to hop over to Ryde on the Hovercraft in a couple of hours for less than £30. I'd only be making the the trip once or twice a month. Because I'm SE, Devon will be a little longer and more expensive (travel-wise) but at 3.5 hours still fine for my purposes.

[CVG]

5 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

The buyers are coming back today at 1pm for a chat and some measuring up. 

I hope they're not checking that they've made a hasty decision 

Excellent. No, they're probably serious. Just have all your details ready, e.g. Council Tax, Water, Bills, Boiler Service details, Electricity certificates, FENSA for any windows and doors, HENSA(?) for any woodburners, nearest this, that and the other

[MrXxxx]

5 hours ago, Sasquatch said:

I think the stamp duty freeze will definitely boost sales. Nothing gets people more excited than 'sales' and 'bargains'. The fact that someone might be paying £500,000 for a house that's really only worth say £350,000 will go by the by. The £10,000 tax saving will be key thing. 

Although we have done a deal I'm already worrying that they will back out at some point but I suspect they will have the FOMO if they do this.

We'll miss out on the stamp duty holiday as we are going into rented but we are not at all bothered. I suspect that the world will be a very different place in 2 to 3 years time with rising inflation, rising interest rates and ongoing economic gloom.

I think this budget give away has just strengthened your sale...they will be thinking "Great, we negotiated the deal/price just before the announcement yet will benefit from it...and everyone knows what happened the last time they reduced the stamp duty, the prices went up!"...

...in fact if they come back after the survey and try to knock you down again i would mention this and say "Ok, we'll put it back on the market as prices are rising again"...this should get them signing!...

If it all goes through without issues now, I would say everything has fallen in place perfectly for you.

[MrXxxx]

5 hours ago, Sasquatch said:

Our next purchase (after the temporary rental) will be the big one. We are likely to be pooling resources with the in laws and buying a house with annex. It will be an expensive long term buy.

....and so the little `loss` on this one will pale into insignificance to the money saved on the next purchase, and all because you placed yourself for the future purchase rather than fixating on the present...this is where most go wrong.

[CVG]

2 minutes ago, MrXxxx said:

....and so the little `loss` on this one will pale into insignificance to the money saved on the next purchase, and all because you placed yourself for the future purchase rather than fixating on the present...this is where most go wrong.

Yep. Spot on. This is my plan too apart from the fact that I'll be moving to cheap house temporarily rather than renting.

[Sasquatch]

21 minutes ago, MrXxxx said:

....and so the little `loss` on this one will pale into insignificance to the money saved on the next purchase, and all because you placed yourself for the future purchase rather than fixating on the present...this is where most go wrong.

Absolutely. We talk about doing an 'Ivan' when we observe people selling houses. Ivan was a neighbour of ours back in the 90's. He had his house on the market for about 4 years before it sold. Refused to take a single penny off the asking price and only got it sold because the marketplace eventually caught up. He was trading up so I'm sure lost out in real terms.

If things go according to plan, we will rent for a couple of years and be in a strong position to buy, hopefully in a more depressed housing marketplace. If the market is still buoyant it will still not matter too much. We can keep an eye on auctions, informal tenders etc.

[Sasquatch]

31 minutes ago, MrXxxx said:

I think this budget give away has just strengthened your sale...they will be thinking "Great, we negotiated the deal/price just before the announcement yet will benefit from it...and everyone knows what happened the last time they reduced the stamp duty, the prices went up!"...

...in fact if they come back after the survey and try to knock you down again i would mention this and say "Ok, we'll put it back on the market as prices are rising again"...this should get them signing!...

If it all goes through without issues now, I would say everything has fallen in place perfectly for you.

They were perfectly pleasant on their second visit. Happy with the house, really pleased about the stamp duty cut (nice bonus for them). Most importantly they asked to exchange contact details. This is always a good sign from my perspective. Also recognised that we might be locked down again at some point and wanted to seize the opportunity now.

Fingers crossed.

[Wight Flight]

20 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

They were perfectly pleasant on their second visit. Happy with the house, really pleased about the stamp duty cut (nice bonus for them). Most importantly they asked to exchange contact details. This is always a good sign from my perspective. Also recognised that we might be locked down again at some point and wanted to seize the opportunity now.

Fingers crossed.

What is the availability of rentals in your neck of the woods?

 

[Sasquatch]

9 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

What is the availability of rentals in your neck of the woods?

 

Not too worried about this. Not much in the city but we're going to go for a semi rural house, probably a big one and work from it as well. Our current office rental is quite high so we will be saving a lot per month by giving that up.

Happy to be within a 20 mile radius. There are 3 or 4 good candidates out there right now but they'll probably be gone by the time we can commit.

[Wight Flight]

27 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

Not too worried about this. Not much in the city but we're going to go for a semi rural house, probably a big one and work from it as well. Our current office rental is quite high so we will be saving a lot per month by giving that up.

Happy to be within a 20 mile radius. There are 3 or 4 good candidates out there right now but they'll probably be gone by the time we can commit.

Just keep in mind that most rentals contracts don't allow this.

[Sasquatch]

33 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

Just keep in mind that most rentals contracts don't allow this.

Good point. We can work below the radar quite easily though. No visitors, we're only computers/paper, no employees and can keep our current business address as a virtual post box if we pay £250pa. I'm not sure why a landlord would be unhappy about this but I can see that it would be a standard exclusion. We last rented a house back in 1995!

One of the houses we've spotted actually has an office in an outbuilding (although it will probably let before we can go for it)

[stop_the_craziness]

39 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

Just keep in mind that most rentals contracts don't allow this.

That's going to prove tricky in the New Normal 

[Wight Flight]

1 hour ago, stop_the_craziness said:

That's going to prove tricky in the New Normal 

Yes. But it is what it is.

[CVG]

2 hours ago, Sasquatch said:

I'm not sure why a landlord would be unhappy about this but I can see that it would be a standard exclusion.

Possibly invalidates their buildings insurance

[Wight Flight]

3 hours ago, CVG said:

Possibly invalidates their buildings insurance

Nah. They just like having the power to tell you what you can and cannot do.

[Sasquatch]

Our buyers have changed their mind and pulled out of the purchase 

That's after a second one hour visit with us sharing coffee and biscuits, chatting away about all sorts of things and even exchanging contact details.

FFS!

I'm a massive cynic and sceptic, but now and then I'm genuinely surprised at how people can behave. I would never do this to a seller.

I could send an email/text full of expletives but what will that achieve?

Anyway, back to the drawing board. Maybe we'll sell it again at a higher rate?