Prices For Big Houses In Nice Areas Won't Fall

[Rachman]

God knows who would think that the faux-non-Georgian one is nice - though the lawn is a nice size. And I guess the farmhouse with hangar is attractive, though difficult to tell. But OP's one is a pile of rubbish and would be better bulldozed.

one man's pile of rubbish etc.

Like I said, it's cheesy, but it offers great space, privacy, and a good sized house (large....) - what's wrong with it apart from being 'mock grand' - a modern incarnation/facsimile of the Guildford one with a lot less maintenance. In all seriousness, I know it's footballer bling, but are you saying you'd not bother and that it's worse than a 50's/60's monstrosity ?

BTW I agree about the original one, it looks like one of those council houses specially extended for the single mother of 6 (at least one brahhhn) who feature in the Daily Mail frequently. It's awful.

Edited May 12, 2008 by Rachman

[stevebrowne]

I think that these:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-202...=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-146...=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-164...=2&tr_t=buy

match the kind of thing you would class as Big and Nice. None of these have dropped in the last month whilst I've been watching them on propertybee.

steve

[Rachman]

I think that these:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-202...=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-146...=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-164...=2&tr_t=buy

match the kind of thing you would class as Big and Nice. None of these have dropped in the last month whilst I've been watching them on propertybee.

steve

Jesus H, they are spectacularly cheap (to what I am used to seeing). I like 1 and 3 - 2 is too bitty and on a small (0.4 acre) plot.

[Sonic the Hedge Fund]

That's not a nice house.

I never actualy said it was nice house.....

Edited May 12, 2008 by Sonic the Hedge Fund

[rxe]

HEY - converting a lurker through one of my posts makes it all worthwhile - welcome!

Thanks....your post struck a nerve after this mornings news.

congrats on holding £750k + in the bank BTW.

If I were in your position I would be holding off buying for a little while.

Unless you are an big city banker or something

then again

If I were in your position........

No, not a banker - just lucky enough to buy (by accident) at the bottom of the last slump, thus spending many years mortgage free, lucky enough to have a good job and be moderately frugal. I would love to wait a few years....but "the house buying department" has got the bit between her teeth if you know what I mean.....

[Guest sillybear2]

I never actualy said it was nice house.....

"big house in nice area" brings with it certain expectations

[Sonic the Hedge Fund]

"big house in nice area" brings with it certain expectations

Nasty houses can be fixed, but it's only worth it if it's in a decent area.

With hindsight I can see why I got the reaction - the house does look sh1te. But I guess unless you know the area you only have that to judge it by!

[stevebrowne]

Jesus H, they are spectacularly cheap (to what I am used to seeing). I like 1 and 3 - 2 is too bitty and on a small (0.4 acre) plot.

Search Telford on rightmove, there's loads at very good prices indeed. There's also some over priced tosh, but nothing like the levels elsewhere in the country. Not seeing much dropping around here, but it's starting at a lower point anyway. If you go a bit further out and have big bucks, then :

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-202...=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-198...=1&tr_t=buy

A real mansion for £4m. Although "Principal part being offered" is slightly worrying. Maybe there's a small cottage on the grounds that's been sold off or something.

[xux42]

It's when people start chucking straw men that I know that I have rattled some cages.....

Yep - STR, HPC and the coming recession/deep recession/depression are high stakes games and feelings do run high on this forum.

Hard to get a handle on this particular thread though. We lack objective measures of property size, plot size, surroundings so arguments go round in circles and we get strange comments like an 0.4 acre plot being too small.

Errm - I'm not sure what planet that poster lives on but the rest of us live on Earth:

"Housing density in the great swathes of suburbia that went up in the 1920s and 1930s is typically between eight and 10 houses per acre. On the estates built in the 1980s and 1990s, it is about 10 to 12 houses per acre. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.j.../27/pesse27.xml

Those 30s Semis you can see all over are certainly not crammed together, so large houses can comfortably fit 5 to an acre with lots of elbow room.

So there you go. Suggested description of a large house that exists in significant numbers is a 5 Bed detached on 0.2 of an acre.

Yes I know 6-8 bedders in 2 acres exist and I realise there are a few salivating posters/lurkers here sitting on 20 kilos of Gold waiting to pounce, but they are not really statisitically relevant in a market analysis are they?

Fell free to counter or add further types but please back up with links.

[bendy]

think some here are getting houses and nice area mixed up with mansions and dreamland.

[bendy]

similarly though i think we should all put a few cheeky bids in for these 3m+ gaffs

90% discounts?

[Sonic the Hedge Fund]

think some here are getting houses and nice area mixed up with mansions and dreamland.

Agreed!

And what kind of pikey house refurb only costs 25-30k? Especially for a 5 bed detached, that's nothing.

we refurbed a largeish 4 bed detached house - it cost £74K to do it properly. I have just finished refurbing from top to bottom (inc kitchen extension) a 3 bed terrace - that cost £42K..... - and I am tight on labour, preferring to do what I can myself.

As for refurb costs, some of the posters here sound like all those tw@ts on 'Property Ladder' who say things like 'but you couldn't possibly do a decent bathroom/kitchen for less than £10K'. Well I'm afraid I could, and have done, some very expensive looking bathrooms/kitchens for much less than half that. The EA and the people who brought my last 2 houses certainly couldn't tell the difference!

But hey ho, I guesse some people will have to learn the meaning of cost management the hard way, and no doubt they will in the next couple of years.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Sonic the Hedge Fund

[Rachman]

As for refurb costs, some of the posters here sound like all those tw@ts on 'Property Ladder' who say things like 'but you couldn't possibly do a decent bathroom/kitchen for less than £10K'. Well I'm afraid I could, and have done, some very expensive looking bathrooms/kitchens for much less than half that. The EA and the people who brought my last 2 houses certainly couldn't tell the difference!

Sonic,

this is the main job list for the terrace - tell me when your £10K runs out

reroof

rewire

new floors

damp proof

central heating

replaster

new windows

remedial works to existing brickwork

new fireplace

new kitchen extension (single storey (pitched and veluxes))

new kitchen and bathroom inc. branded appliances (full set inc built in FF, dishwasher, dryer and washer), granite tops

new staircase

new fitted bedrooms

new flooring

new ceilings

hard landscaping front and rear

new drainage and water

all cosmetic woodwork replaced

new brick porch (double glazed and pitched roof)

new oak front door and rear gates

But go on, tell me you could do it down Aldi for a tenner. There's a big difference between a refurb and a new kitchen bathroom and some paint. The 4 bed included some new floors, asbestos removal, 400sq foot of extension, hard and soft landscaping of just under half an acre, partial aircon, Grohe, Matki, Miele, Britannia, Ideal Standard (where bling was not necessary), polished wood (not plastic mugshots of) floors, 60oz carpets, 4 fully fitted high spec wardrobe suites and all related bits, all furniture (6 sofas to start with), all curtains (made to measure with proper heavy grade interlining -0 most of which are floor to ceiling, not £20 from BHS ones)), new 100foot driveway (proper one, not just 20 tons of gravel tipped on it), 130sq m of sandstone paving, partial rewire, complete new wet system CH, partial replaster, new windows.... that's a refurb, not a tart up. And I am handy with a spanner and a shovel and know the value of mates' rates....

If you could do a 20foot by 16 foot kitchen fitted with built in, microwave, range cooker, US fridge, 9 metres of 30mm granite, all electrics, plumbing, tiling, flooring, plasterworks, proper 19mm carcasses and 'magic cupboards and all the pan draws you can shake a stick at and properly put together draw packs and island for much less than £10K, I'd love to see you do it - the cooker was £2.5K - the cheap way with a Leisure Rangemaster is just old hat by the way - ancient tech (I know, I've had one). The difference is that it is hard to tell the difference between a £10K kitchen done well and a £25k-30K kitchen done averagely.

Now, if I were not capable of taking out the old kitchen, doing the building work myself, having family who work practically gratis who are plumbers and gas fitters and sparkies then it would have been much much harder - how are you going to get someone who has not wielded a paintbrush in anger to cut a corner corniche and fit it properly ?

there are people who live on planet zarg and don't live in the real world - the OP posted a fairly ugly house in a pretty naff place (Hemel wasn't it) and the inference was that it was a nice house in a nice place - it was neither as I saw it. It was a big utilitarian dated house that looked exauthority in a pretty average dormitory town - since then a lot of people have posted what their aspirations of a nice house in a nice place are - by definition these are expensive (almost always).

Edited May 13, 2008 by Rachman

[Telometer]

http://media.primelocation.com/SAGR/SAGU/B...AGU220028B1.PDF

Now THAT is a big house in a nice(ish) area. Wouldn't want to live near Guildford myself, but many would. And with that large a garden, stuff hoi polloi.

And something like this, too: http://www.bellingram.co.uk/sporting-sales/cairnton.html

Everything is relative. With an impending slowdown/crash I'd rather own a big house in a nice area than a crummy ex-LA like OP's one. There will always be somebody prepared to pay a premium for a nice house; there will be loads of unwanted ex-LA crud like OP's.

As for how much it costs to refurb a house... I guess Surrey-style tarting ups like Rachman's will go out of fashion for a few years. I *completely* refurbed a four-story 1830s townhouse in London for under 10k (it had already been reroofed), and the EAs and buyers swooned over it last year. A builder would have wanted 100k. The difference is canny buying, eBay, begging, borrowing and stealing and elbow grease.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Telometer

[Sonic the Hedge Fund]

Sonic,

this is the main job list for the terrace - tell me when your £10K runs out

reroof

rewire

new floors...

....all cosmetic woodwork replaced

new brick porch (double glazed and pitched roof)

new oak front door and rear gates

But go on, tell me you could do it down Aldi for a tenner. There's a big difference between a refurb and a new kitchen bathroom and some paint.

Rachman,

No need to be derisory, I practicaly grew up on buiding sites. It's quite obvious that you couldnt do up YOUR house for £10K, but I trust you had all this costed before buying? Plumbing and electrics are not so expensive, you can buy a 28Kw Worcester-Bosch condensing combi for under £600....If you know the right people, but I guesse most people don't. The same goes for all fixtures and fittings, look at the sh1te big housebuilders get away with!

In my book there are two key rules to property development:

1) Unless the price is ridiculously cheap, try to find houses that look sh1te but are structuraly sound. Cosmetic improvements carry far less risk and usualy add far more value than structural repairs, simply because cosmetic changes are relatively cheap and more obvious to the average buyer.

2) Do a refurb that is appropriate for the property/area. What's right for your house might not be for mine; in my book this doesn't include granite worktops in 'average dormitory towns' when solid surface can look just as good (if not better) for half the cost.

These two rules have made me a lot of money. But honestly, I wish you luck with your developments; it sounds like you might need it.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Sonic the Hedge Fund

[Benedict]

No need to be derisory, I practicaly grew up on buiding sites. It's quite obvious that you couldnt do up YOUR house for £10K, but I trust you had all this costed before buying? Plumbing and electrics are not so expensive, you can buy a 28Kw Worcester-Bosch condensing combi for under £600....If you know the right people, but I guesse most people don't. The same goes for all fixtures and fittings, look at the sh1te big housebuilders get away with!

One can save a lot of money on some things, but nice bathroom fittings, floors, kitchen cupboards & appliances just don't seem to be that cheap no matter how much you shop around unless you go for things that clearly aren't as nice. And labour (at least in London) isn't that cheap (even though it varies massively between contractors).

Although if you have any massively cheap sources you could recommend I'd be massively grateful and extremely humble.

[Mildura]

That house is dreadful.

For a little bit more you could have this (which is in a nice area): http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-936...=1&tr_t=buy

Nomadd

OK, the Cheshire one is lovely, but a touch harsh to describe a GII listed Georgian town-house as dreadful...?!

[Sonic the Hedge Fund]

Although if you have any massively cheap sources you could recommend I'd be massively grateful and extremely humble.

My best sources are kind of favours for favours, e.g. I know a chap who can get very nice designer lighting at import cost +10% (ie about 80% off retail!)cos he does install work for the importer & doesn't mind doing a deal because I put some work his way. Through my wife's family I know a plumber who does work for a very expensive bespoke kitchen designer; some of the stuff they rip out is better than you could buy from magnets/howdens etc. and looks like new (truly weathy people just don't do cooking!)

It takes years of favours to build this up and must not be abused, you have to know lots of people and keep them sweet (growing up in 'emel 'empstead does have it's advantages!). Most tradesmen LOVE to 'talk shop'; learn a bit about what they do and chew the fat, even if it bores you to tears it's suprising what it will get you. If tradesmen think you are rich or 'clever' they WILL charge you more, so don't be.

I think my biggest asset is an ability to flip between 'proper' english and 'emel cockney drawl, it certainly helps in not getting my head kicked in down the pub! But I could probably still give you a couple of pointers for competative wholesalers, drop me a PM.

[Downtraded]

You last sentence persuaded me to register - I've been lurking for a while. I see absolutely no sign of real slackness in this market level, and no, I'm not a VI, I'm looking to buy. Last week we put a cash offer on such a house - real cash, even attached a bank statement to show that we weren't mucking about. Offer rejected this morning - we were one of 12 cash offers more than £50K below the winning offer. The house went for considerably more than the asking price. There seems to be a wall of money out there at this level. For all the job cuts and the like, there still seem to be a lot of people with 800K+ cash.

I'm familiar with all of the arguments that this sector should suffer as much as all others, but I'm seeing sod all real sign of it at the moment. Sure, there are flawed properties (next to motorways or similar) all over Rightmove that have been overpriced and are coming down, but for somewhere decent, I see no sign. I can wait, but it is getting pretty frustrating.

Good luck with the House search. This is the problem we faced in the last downturn. The really nice houses always sold.

Its as if there are people waiting to buy in certain areas - no matter what the economy was doing.

If you're happy that you can afford the price drop, Don't make the mistake we made.

We waited and missed out on some really nice properties all for the sake of 30K or so.

However, here comes the rub. We learnt a lesson from doing what you are doing right now. What you consider as a nice area now may not acutally be so when you live there. The trouble is you may not notice it because it can be perceived as being desirable.

Lets say you're buying somewhere Ruralish or "exclusive". If so, go to the local shop in the village.

Do they serve you with a smile, spend time with you even though they don't know you?

Does the nearest village have a community culture - events, help for elderly residents etc?

If the responses are surly or customers look a bit like "I won't acknowledge you unless I know you"

or if the responses are "I'm in a hurry, please get a move on", then you know before you live there what it will be like.

If you try this test in different areas - including the ones you may initially think are not suitable, you may be suprised to learn that what everyone considers is a good area to live (from the brochure) is actually full of people who are living there simply because they THINK its the place to live.

IMO, A modest house in that environment is worth a lot more any "ivory tower" palace.

A good place to live is where people say hello and treat each other kindly.

Just my 2p

[Benedict]

My best sources are kind of favours for favours,

You don't know any tradesman who need some actuarial work done by any chance?

[Rachman]

Rachman,

No need to be derisory, t's quite obvious that you couldnt do up YOUR house for £10K, but I trust you had all this costed before buying? Plumbing and electrics are not so expensive, you can buy a 28Kw Worcester-Bosch condensing combi for under £600....If you know the right people, but I guesse most people don't. The same goes for all fixtures and fittings, look at the sh1te big housebuilders get away with!

...

2) Do a refurb that is appropriate for the property/area. What's right for your house might not be for mine; in my book this doesn't include granite worktops in 'average dormitory towns' when solid surface can look just as good (if not better) for half the cost.

sorry, bit sensitive this am.

1 is our home. Bought right, done right, should be paid off in 4 years - not that worried if it drops a bit as we have a nice house in a decent area. just under half an acre plot inside the M25 - if I lose more percentage wise on that than just about anywhere else I'll be astounded - but that's the gamble...

Other is a house I have bought for a relative to live in as a pensioner and done it up for her. As you can tell by the list, it was a basket case. but the price paid was therefore appropriate. The only saving grace was that the roof trusses were fine as were the joists. The upspec stuff is because she's never had a nicely done house before and if I am doing it, I may as well do it right for her [Worcester Bosch condenser gone in by the way ] - as for granite, worked out not too bad - I know the right man, so to speak and have bunged a lot of business his way so I called one in. He was happy to do the right deal for me..... - I am out of buying, doing up and selling at the moment - I will be waiting for the repos to bite hard before I get back in, put it that way....

[i had a turnkey price from 2 builders known to me - both were quoting in the late 50's, early 60s for lower spec for the terrace - our house had two quotes - both around the 150K when you'd done the landscaping estimates too - there were a lot of people with a lot of money who were happy to chuck it at builders.....

as for costings, I am 2k overbudget on the terrace (the new floors I hoped I could get away without) but within my contingency. Ours came in 8K under budget - mainly because I managed to do a lot more labouring myself than pay someone to dig holes, fill rubbish, do prep work like stripping and ripping out kitchens, digging foundations, laying paving etc.... - it's much more fun than working in an office.

[in neither case is LTV above 30% so I am hoping I am safeish]

Edited May 13, 2008 by Rachman

[BudoBear]

The house from the OP is the Minger of the property market. It deserves to drop 50% overnight just for being so munted. I don't care if it's in beautiful untouched rolling countryside. You can take it to somewhere the sun don't shine.

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

That's such a lovely house. I'll have my buyer get it for me this afternoon.

[Sonic the Hedge Fund]

If you try this test in different areas - including the ones you may initially think are not suitable, you may be suprised to learn that what everyone considers is a good area to live (from the brochure) is actually full of people who are living there simply because they THINK its the place to live.

On previous expeirence I would agree with this - in particular tranquil-looking rural areas often seem to have a disturbingly high 'chav count', full of loud-mouthed boy racers and single mums. In a small town or village it's on your doorstep, but it's not always apparent until you actually live there.

House sales in these areas can depend on a steady flow of incomers, so you can get stuck with a property if it all turns sour. IMO The best bet is to try the area by renting before you commit to buy.

On the other hand many towns with less than enviable reputations can turn out OK (if you avoid the town centre!), becuase the better areas are well segragated from the not so nice.