Don T Pasgo

1:00pm Wednesday 30th June 2004

In the interests of balance ... We had a full structural survey done recently on a 1920's timber-framed house we were interested in. The survey was done by an independent, RICS registered surveyor, not through a bank or building society. He was on site for over 4 hours, discovered several major problems with the construction and condition of the property and produced an in-depth report with colour photos to highlight the various problems. It cost £550 plus VAT and I consider it money well spent - saved us a fortune in the long run.

<Taps side of screen> Hmmm... my monitor appears to have developed a fault. The colours have gone all screwy.

At the risk of stating the obvious - are you sure they were actually open ? A lot of the ones around here, especially the small, indpendents, are closed for Good Friday.

That's excellet. I remember reading that one, but can't remember where ? "House prices are softening" seems to be a popular one. Such a lovely fluffy word. So much nicer than "dropping" or "falling"

I've heard of the Emperor's new clothes, this must be his new house.

I'm saying I can follow the logic used by the estate agent to arrive at a valuation of £450K if it was worth £430K last March (and it was 'worth' £430K last March because that's what someone was prepared to pay for it). I think the logic is reasonable, not the price. At least it's reasonable when you compare it to the £535K valuation that the vendor seems to have plucked from thin air. Is that house worth £450K to me ? No - that's why I'm not buying it. But it's on a road that I would like to buy a house on eventually and, of course, I take an interest in all properties that come on/off the market there so I can try and keep tabs on what's happening to actual prices where I want to buy. Incidentally, the estate agent mentioned that the vendors had already turned down one offer. She wouldn't say exactly what the offer was, only that it was 'under £500K'. I got the impression it was significantly under £500K. PS Just one final point regarding my conversation with the EA yesterday - when I asked the EA to justify the £535K price, she mentioned the work they'd done and then said "... and the vendors are getting divorced, so they need as much as possible for it". "Oh why didn't you say earlier ?" I replied* "That explains everything. Wait here, I'll just nip home to get my cheque book" * strictly speaking that should read 'would have replied if I'd have thought of it at the time rather than 10 minutes later when I was walking down the street'. I believe my actual resonse was something along the lines of "Errr...?"

You're a pizza delivery boy ?

Blimey - very bearish. But it's an oldish article : > (Filed: 15/01/2005)

Delivery of our local property rag is a bit hit and miss so I often call into the local estate agents to pick one up. I've been doing this for the last few months (during which I've been the only punter in the shop on all but one occasion) so they recognise me in their. When I called in a few weeks ago, the estate agent told me of a house just about to come onto the market on a road that I'm interested in. Full details were not available but the EA expected the price to be about £450K (right at the top end of our budget). She promised to post the details to me as soon as they were available. When I got home, I had a quick tinker on nethouseprices.com and was surprised to see that the house had only been purchased in March 2004 for £430K. So, £450K seemed a fair reasonablish asking price (well given the market movements since then - not in the overall scheme of things obviously) Anyway, no details arrived but I kept an eye on the EA's website and the property duly appeared but with an asking price of, wait for it, £535K ! I called into the EA's again today and mentioned the property to her. I asked why it was priced at £535K when the vendor only paid £430K less than 12 months ago. She said "Oh, you've seen that website as well have you ?" I asked if the website was causing some problems for them and she said "Well, it is for that property, yes" I asked what improvements they had made to justify the 25% price increase and she said "well, they had to pin a couple of the walls and they've decorated the lounge...." at this point her voice tailed off and she looked a bit sheepish, probably because she caught sight of my raised eyebrow. It turns out the vendors are getting divorced and "need to get as much for the property as possible". The EA had actually valued the property at £450K but the vendor insisted that it be marketed at £535K. To be fair, I've no idea of the costs involved in pinning walls. But I'd be surprised if it cost £100K. Judging by the EA's reaction - I think she agreed with me. Anyway, no real point to my post - just an anecdote. Not a very good one, I'm the first to admit (I don't expect to be dining out on it) but I thought it was interesting that nethouseprices.com and similar sites are already being used by buyers as a bargaining tool.