I actually took a brave step towards finally flying the nest today and looked round a house for sale. Agent was a stunning blonde which was a bonus!

I remember a TV prog about selling cars and a memorable quote was "polishing-in the value". Basically cleaning it put the value up.

Now I don't know about you but if I was trying to sell an over-priced house at a bad time of year in a crap area I might actually bother to clean it first.
The place was filthy: dirty toilet, used glasses/cutlery/food lying around kitchen, rubbish etc. etc. around the place.

Talk about how to garantee you don't sell*!



Cheers,
James

*Or in my case put in an offer 25% below the asking!


EDIT: Oh, and the sellers run a cleaning company!

[Edited on 17/12/05 by James]

i dont envy you, problem is even if you get it at that price its still 25% more than its worth if the housing market does crash

ah young james you have a lot to learn,my garden shed is worth millions for the ground it sits on,anyway housework is what women are for
retires for flack jacket

Build a dingaling

The wife worked for a estate agent & letting office, she went to a house for rent before they advertise it & the cleaners remove about 5 bags of cat cr@p from the house. He previous owner just kept putting behind the telly & wall units

you can buy my place £180,000,2 beds/garage and ill leave the light bulbs

quote:

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Originally posted by froggy
i dont envy you, problem is even if you get it at that price its still 25% more than its worth if the housing market does crash

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quote:

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Originally posted by James
EDIT: Oh, and the sellers run a cleaning company!

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Its more common than you would think. In my daily job we sometimes have to do work in customers homes to repair their telco services and you get quite a lot of RIPE houses......wipe your feet on the way out pal!

For £250K you can buy mine, I'll even throw in the wife as well!

it just doesnt add up to me, i built a pair of semi-s which doubled in value between getting planning and selling one of them this may. unless i missed out we arent earnind double what we were two years ago and the poor sods next door have to fund a 110k mortgage. all it takes is for interest rates to get to about 8% and its game over imo. if you look around now the big housebuilders are building cardboard shacks for 60k to try and create new business .

your right that wages arent going up fast enough to maintain any sort of boom, but most areas are largely manageable still. Admittedly darn sarf is/was getting a bit daft.

i cant see interest rates hitting 8% imminently. Id guess them to be steady for a while. I cant remember how it all ties into manufacturing and exporting, but since 8% rates would destroy the housing market, i think the BoE wouldnt dare, (almost) no matter how bad other affected sectors get.

8% is bugger all nothing!!!!!!!!!


when I bought my first house in 1980 it was 15%. When I bought my third (still in it) in 1989 it was also back up at 15%.

I had a 'low start' mortgage that was suposed to ramp up over 3 years - in fact it didnt - the rates dropping made it go DOWN! I even got letters from the BS telling me that 'unfortunatly' my payments were changing for the next year, when they were actually going down!

thing was, i took a mortgage when the rates were high, and it was hard to afford. Now, in comparison, with my rate at 5.8% its stupifyingly LOW! compared to what it should have been when i took the mortgage out.


If rates ever go back to 15% it would be a disaster for many .

atb

steve

[Edited on 17/12/05 by steve_gus]

yes - 0.25% is 50 quid for me

James,how rare it may sound but let dirt be the last of your worries when you buy a house!
Everything that can be fixed by cleaning is a bonus!!!!
A rotten gutter with a nice paint job or a roof that is about to collapse but looks straight and firm are far worse than some dirt!
Nice painted windows that are held together by the paint will cost you a fortune to replace aldo they look good!
The biggest problem is to guestimate how the area will be like in another 10-15 years.


Cheers Cita

James

You have to lighten up a bit and look at the whole picture (even if it is covered in shite) the only way i could afford a bigger house dan sarf was by buying a complete shithole and spending best part of 10K clearing it up.

Next time you are around at mine i'll show the before and after pics,believe me it was frightening as the house had been rented out for some years.

Someone had even fly tipped in the back yard

[Edited on 18/12/05 by bob]

Repossessions are up 61% on this time last year

Could have had a tenant in who doesn't give a sh*t whether it sells or not (probably would rather it didn't) rather than owner occupying.

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Originally posted by stevebubs
yes - 0.25% is 50 quid for me

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quote:

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you must have a BALLISTIC mortgage.

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even worse than trying to buy a first house,try and find something with a garage for sensible money thats the main reason for biulding my own place as a decent size garage never comes with a reasonably priced house

James, as Bob said......Look beyond the grime.
Cita has hit the nail on the head, much better just to have dirt then to have the roof/windows/damp/dry/wet rot hidden by a quick slap of paint.
Think of all the parties!....clean up parties, painting parties...etc
ATB Fozzie

quote:

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even worse than trying to buy a first house,try and find something with a garage for sensible money thats the main reason for biulding my own place as a decent size garage never comes with a reasonably priced house

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your not wrong i bought a pair of derelict houses for 18k in 2001 at the moment people want 50k round here for half of the garden. this property rubbish has put the kybosh on a lot of selfbiulds as well , when i bought my land a proper detatched plot of 1/3-1/2 an acre was around 50-60k which would leave a 30% profit margin for the selfbuilder but now its at around the 150k mark!

i think i've got my folks used to the fact that unless i manage to marry into money or the housing market takes a massive dive then i'll be with them for the long term.

we've actually got enough of a garden here to build a reasonable 2 bed bungalow on. neighbours 2 doors up built 2 detached 2 bedroom bungalows on roughly the same size of land, small inside, garage that i wouldn't dare to call a cuboard and they still sold early this year for 200k each.

My sister just bought her first house.
Filthy doesnt come close to describing it, the previous owner was disabled and had no access to upstairs. He also smoked about 200 fags a day going by the completely brown and orange decor, which used to be white, and the overpowering stench of nicotine.

She got it for a good price though, and its all cosmetic really. Yeah, we have to spend some time and effort cleaning and redecorating, but thats all it is. Apart from 1 section of guttering needing fixed, there is nothing structural needing done, it has decent, well fitted windows and doors etc.
I am changing the kitchen and bathroom suite too, but she had allowed for that in the budgets as it was all funky 70`s stuff originally.

You have to see how the house will look once the current tenant has moved out, taking their junk with them.

I was 30 before I got round to actually saving enough for a decent deposit

I bought an ex-rental which was in a state but luckily it was all cosmetic but I still got a decent lump off the asking price. I was lucky I suppose as I bought right before the prices went stupid.

My more cautious colleauge at work kept holding off on making the move and ended up buying a similar property to mine at almost double the price last year!!