Kingston Upon Thames

[longgone]

loving all the offers in excess on listings now. 

i do like the mental barrier these scum are trying to generate. 

[worried1]

Asking prices seem to be going absolutely crazy at the moment.

A couple have come on recently that really illustrate where the heat is (certainly in the Surbiton market). There are too many flats and prices are going down. There aren't enough small houses and asking prices are rocketing, but once you get up to the bigger houses, people seem less interested.

Now, the two markets seem to be meeting. For £1.5m, you can buy a maxxed out semi on one of the river roads:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-95725745.html

For £100k more, you can get into this house on another river road:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82289050.html

 

The second house has been on and off the market for a while and was originally about £1.85m whilst the first one has just come on so is probably at a more unrealistic price, but the small difference between the two seems crazy to me.

The latter house obviously needs work to bring it up to the standard of the first one, but this wouldn't cost that much because it is just cosmetic. There is also the advantage of being able to make that house much bigger in the future if required, unlike the other one.

I can't think of any other reasons to go for the first house. It is slightly closer to the station I suppose, but I'd be surprised if there is more than two minutes extra walk to the other house. Catherine Road is arguably nicer than Westfield Road as well - it is aesthetically better and actually has direct access to the river at the end of it rather than the derelict water treatment works.

 

It will be interesting to see which sells first. Typically, the buyers for houses like the second one would take their money to Esher or at least Southborough where there are lots of houses like that so are considered more 'suitable' neighbourhoods. Most will probably still prefer to do that, but I'd have thought that there might be some who see this as better value.

[Locke]

3 hours ago, worried1 said:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82289050.html

Imagine having the cash to buy that place and then doing this

and then this

 

I'm imagining some Delboy cum Fungus Wilson crossover type.

Probably has some utterly tasteless Bentley as well (not pictured as recently liquidated)

[worried1]

1 hour ago, Locke said:

Imagine having the cash to buy that place and then doing this

and then this

 

I'm imagining some Delboy cum Fungus Wilson crossover type.

Probably has some utterly tasteless Bentley as well (not pictured as recently liquidated)

I'd have thought that this house hasn't seen much spent on it since the 80s-90s, the kitchen in particular looks very much of that vintage.

I picture it being an older couple downsizing after many years (check the conservatory decor!). I would have thought they picked it up at a good price. These roads were much more 'bedsit-dominated' than they are now, so I'd imagine even less people would have looked at a large house there at that time.

I think you could get this looking quite good for less than six-figures which makes it a much better buy than the semi a couple of streets away for me.

Edited August 6, 2020 by worried1
typo

[longgone]

1.5m for a semi ?

The road is utter chite handy for the drained cess pit at the end of the road though. 

new kitchen and bathroom easy 10k to fix that 

 

 

[worried1]

23 hours ago, longgone said:

1.5m for a semi ?

The road is utter chite handy for the drained cess pit at the end of the road though. 

new kitchen and bathroom easy 10k to fix that 

 

 

The depressing thing is that I remember moaning on this very thread a few years ago that these standard suburban semis had started hitting £1m and now we have one at £1.5m.

I just hope that we don't see them a £2m in a few years time, but who knows anymore?

[longgone]

1 hour ago, worried1 said:

The depressing thing is that I remember moaning on this very thread a few years ago that these standard suburban semis had started hitting £1m and now we have one at £1.5m.

I just hope that we don't see them a £2m in a few years time, but who knows anymore?

Honestly I could not care less. Anyone who thinks spending 1m let alone 2m on a 100k tiny semi does not deserve that money to begin with.

2m you can live anywhere. Funny all the flats are virtually unsellable though

 

[longgone]

On 06/08/2020 at 09:38, worried1 said:

Asking prices seem to be going absolutely crazy at the moment.

A couple have come on recently that really illustrate where the heat is (certainly in the Surbiton market). There are too many flats and prices are going down. There aren't enough small houses and asking prices are rocketing, but once you get up to the bigger houses, people seem less interested.

Now, the two markets seem to be meeting. For £1.5m, you can buy a maxxed out semi on one of the river roads:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-95725745.html

For £100k more, you can get into this house on another river road:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82289050.html

 

The second house has been on and off the market for a while and was originally about £1.85m whilst the first one has just come on so is probably at a more unrealistic price, but the small difference between the two seems crazy to me.

The latter house obviously needs work to bring it up to the standard of the first one, but this wouldn't cost that much because it is just cosmetic. There is also the advantage of being able to make that house much bigger in the future if required, unlike the other one.

I can't think of any other reasons to go for the first house. It is slightly closer to the station I suppose, but I'd be surprised if there is more than two minutes extra walk to the other house. Catherine Road is arguably nicer than Westfield Road as well - it is aesthetically better and actually has direct access to the river at the end of it rather than the derelict water treatment works.

 

It will be interesting to see which sells first. Typically, the buyers for houses like the second one would take their money to Esher or at least Southborough where there are lots of houses like that so are considered more 'suitable' neighbourhoods. Most will probably still prefer to do that, but I'd have thought that there might be some who see this as better value.

most expensive sale on that road is £935  so all these asking prices are meaningless nothing has ever even sold over 1 mill

if we do get a crash when the real damaged of covid is displayed next year they will be lucky to get 750 

[worried1]

23 hours ago, longgone said:

Honestly I could not care less. Anyone who thinks spending 1m let alone 2m on a 100k tiny semi does not deserve that money to begin with.

2m you can live anywhere. Funny all the flats are virtually unsellable though

 

I did think that we’d see a real reduction in asking prices here. It is one of the classic areas where people have been paying more to live in a compromised house because of the very fast commute. Now that the commute time will matter less for a lot of people, I’d have expected sales to struggle at the higher end.

instead, these houses have increased asking prices upto £1.5m and the smaller Victorian terraced houses on Cleaveland Road are now creeping nearer to £1m.

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/55672659?search_identifier=eaa8afcdc1417f065acd653c6c6d026c
 

There’s even one on busy Brighton Road for £900k now

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/55771444?search_identifier=eaa8afcdc1417f065acd653c6c6d026c

Flats are sticking in general, but some are selling. They probably would have asked nearer £600k for this one pre-Covid, but it has gone under offer in a few days at £500k...

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72154401.html

 

[worried1]

4 hours ago, longgone said:

most expensive sale on that road is £935  so all these asking prices are meaningless nothing has ever even sold over 1 mill

if we do get a crash when the real damaged of covid is displayed next year they will be lucky to get 750 

As usual, they’ll ignore that and look at similar houses on The Mall, where the highest sale is £1.3m. That’s still a fair bit less than they are asking here though and that sold in better times.

I’m still hopeful that COVID will be the catalyst of a big crash, but we’ll see. A lot depends on what the government are prepared to pump in, but I’m still not sure how much of a premium the area can command given that the daily commute will have disappeared for many.

[longgone]

19 hours ago, worried1 said:

As usual, they’ll ignore that and look at similar houses on The Mall, where the highest sale is £1.3m. That’s still a fair bit less than they are asking here though and that sold in better times.

I’m still hopeful that COVID will be the catalyst of a big crash, but we’ll see. A lot depends on what the government are prepared to pump in, but I’m still not sure how much of a premium the area can command given that the daily commute will have disappeared for many.

as previously discussed though the only real thing going for surbiton was its locality to the over crowed terrible train service. now this may go one of two ways the big earners may still commute and actually be better off with a lesser crowded train, or the other way is why bother with surbiton anymore when you don`t even need to commute anymore. spend a million and live in cobham or esher. 

[worried1]

21 hours ago, longgone said:

as previously discussed though the only real thing going for surbiton was its locality to the over crowed terrible train service. now this may go one of two ways the big earners may still commute and actually be better off with a lesser crowded train, or the other way is why bother with surbiton anymore when you don`t even need to commute anymore. spend a million and live in cobham or esher. 

I think we'll need to wait a couple of years unit we see the true effect. As you say, this should make areas like Surbiton which are priced for the quick commute cheaper, but a lot of people will be worried about a potential knee-jerk reaction by changing areas before ongoing working arrangements are set in stone.

It's all about the net effect. I'd expect to see more existing owners selling up and moving further out and a lot of the typical incomers from London perhaps skipping the suburbs altogether and moving further out.

On the other side, there will be some people who probably would have stayed in London without covid but might now venture a bit further out.

I think that Esher and Cobham will be affected in a similar way as they are also super-priced for the commutability. If they don't come down in price a bit then area around Guildford start to look a lot more attractive to part-time commuters.

The key difference is that Esher and Cobham have housing stock that has arguably been improved by the property bubble, where as Surbiton just has loads of new flats and over-extended smaller houses.

 

[longgone]

50 minutes ago, worried1 said:

I think we'll need to wait a couple of years unit we see the true effect. As you say, this should make areas like Surbiton which are priced for the quick commute cheaper, but a lot of people will be worried about a potential knee-jerk reaction by changing areas before ongoing working arrangements are set in stone.

It's all about the net effect. I'd expect to see more existing owners selling up and moving further out and a lot of the typical incomers from London perhaps skipping the suburbs altogether and moving further out.

On the other side, there will be some people who probably would have stayed in London without covid but might now venture a bit further out.

I think that Esher and Cobham will be affected in a similar way as they are also super-priced for the commutability. If they don't come down in price a bit then area around Guildford start to look a lot more attractive to part-time commuters.

The key difference is that Esher and Cobham have housing stock that has arguably been improved by the property bubble, where as Surbiton just has loads of new flats and over-extended smaller houses.

 

when i moved to the area back in 2008 you could buy detached small houses in the hinchley wood area for 350k only 2 miles from surbiton it did have the a3 noise mind but far better value, those houses now change value at 900k ish up. 

a very bad mistake for me anyway. 

[worried1]

19 minutes ago, longgone said:

when i moved to the area back in 2008 you could buy detached small houses in the hinchley wood area for 350k only 2 miles from surbiton it did have the a3 noise mind but far better value, those houses now change value at 900k ish up. 

a very bad mistake for me anyway. 

Indeed, but I still think that no one could really have predicted what was going to happen after 2008. Property prices should have taken a massive nose-dive then, but they didn't - very similar to now really.

That said, those houses have gone up much more than most in that period. I suppose it is a flight to value - you can still buy one of those with the potential to extend and improve for the same price as a maxed-out terraced house on Cleaveland Road.

Speaking of Cleaveland Road, it looks as though two more houses have come on the market there today - that takes it to seven currently for sale and four recently sold. I'v never known anything like that level of activity down there, so it certainly looks like some of the residents are worried about a correction for that type of house.

 

 

[worried1]

On 06/08/2020 at 09:38, worried1 said:

Asking prices seem to be going absolutely crazy at the moment.

A couple have come on recently that really illustrate where the heat is (certainly in the Surbiton market). There are too many flats and prices are going down. There aren't enough small houses and asking prices are rocketing, but once you get up to the bigger houses, people seem less interested.

Now, the two markets seem to be meeting. For £1.5m, you can buy a maxxed out semi on one of the river roads:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-95725745.html

For £100k more, you can get into this house on another river road:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82289050.html

 

The second house has been on and off the market for a while and was originally about £1.85m whilst the first one has just come on so is probably at a more unrealistic price, but the small difference between the two seems crazy to me.

The latter house obviously needs work to bring it up to the standard of the first one, but this wouldn't cost that much because it is just cosmetic. There is also the advantage of being able to make that house much bigger in the future if required, unlike the other one.

I can't think of any other reasons to go for the first house. It is slightly closer to the station I suppose, but I'd be surprised if there is more than two minutes extra walk to the other house. Catherine Road is arguably nicer than Westfield Road as well - it is aesthetically better and actually has direct access to the river at the end of it rather than the derelict water treatment works.

 

It will be interesting to see which sells first. Typically, the buyers for houses like the second one would take their money to Esher or at least Southborough where there are lots of houses like that so are considered more 'suitable' neighbourhoods. Most will probably still prefer to do that, but I'd have thought that there might be some who see this as better value.

Sure enough, both of these houses are under offer now. The semi was on the market for much less time than the detached, so there is a chance they went for similar amounts.

Crazy times, but it appears that there is a lot of money/debt flying about regardless of covid and recessions.

[longgone]

17 hours ago, worried1 said:

Sure enough, both of these houses are under offer now. The semi was on the market for much less time than the detached, so there is a chance they went for similar amounts.

Crazy times, but it appears that there is a lot of money/debt flying about regardless of covid and recessions.

? honestly one day i would like to ask the buyer what they see as value for 1.5m to live in a semi. 

 

may as well spend 2m and live in a nice place. 

[worried1]

On 15/08/2020 at 09:50, longgone said:

? honestly one day i would like to ask the buyer what they see as value for 1.5m to live in a semi. 

 

may as well spend 2m and live in a nice place. 

That is what must be the problem in my mind - people are prepared to max themselves out, but can still only get to £1.5m. The other house I linked offers much better value, but is probably £200k+ more expensive (once brought up to standard) and buyers can't afford it.

There clearly are buyers out there with more than £1.5m, but they are probably interested in better postcodes

[worried1]

I got my normal Rightmove update this morning. Things are getting worse! It now seems its over £1m to buy one of these houses in Berrylands:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72920637.html

It was bad enough when these breached £1m on the river roads, but this is getting beyond a joke now.

Worse still, it's not even the first...

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-71881182.html

[longgone]

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-70635489.html

nearly back down only another 100k to go 

[longgone]

i would probably actually pay 150k for that 

[worried1]

3 hours ago, longgone said:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-70635489.html

nearly back down only another 100k to go 

In all the years I've lived in the area, flats in that block have always been significantly cheaper than any others nearby. I can't really work out why - it backs onto the railway, but so do all of the blocks on that street. It's reasonably low rise and inoffensive (looks a bit like a factory from the back), and has share of freehold and a lowe service charge.

This one clearly needs work - no internal photos at all and the EA admits that it requires complete modernisation. It is encouraging to see it on the market at 20% less than the actual sold prices in the block in the past couple of years, but a lot of that saving would be offset by the work required.

[longgone]

6 hours ago, worried1 said:

In all the years I've lived in the area, flats in that block have always been significantly cheaper than any others nearby. I can't really work out why - it backs onto the railway, but so do all of the blocks on that street. It's reasonably low rise and inoffensive (looks a bit like a factory from the back), and has share of freehold and a lowe service charge.

This one clearly needs work - no internal photos at all and the EA admits that it requires complete modernisation. It is encouraging to see it on the market at 20% less than the actual sold prices in the block in the past couple of years, but a lot of that saving would be offset by the work required.

10k would pretty much do any small flat up

Nice to see things approaching a 1 though.

[worried1]

Another new high-water mark in terms of asking prices this week:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-73641387.html

It looks as though it has been nicely done, but I'm not sure many will appreciate the 'potential to extend into the loft' when they are already asking £1.2m for the house!

I can never understand why this particular road is quite so expensive. It's nice enough in itself, but there is an industrial estate at the end of the road and it is a fair walk into either Surbiton or Thames Ditton. It's also a bit of a walk to get to a decent part of the river.

It always seems like one of those locations where you get the disadvantages of living in an urban area without many of the conveniences.

[naturals]

 

Another new high-water mark in terms of asking prices this week:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-73641387.html

It looks as though it has been nicely done, but I'm not sure many will appreciate the 'potential to extend into the loft' when they are already asking £1.2m for the house!

I can never understand why this particular road is quite so expensive. It's nice enough in itself, but there is an industrial estate at the end of the road and it is a fair walk into either Surbiton or Thames Ditton. It's also a bit of a walk to get to a decent part of the river.

It always seems like one of those locations where you get the disadvantages of living in an urban area without many of the conveniences.

It feels like they've benchmarked it against similar spec properties while failing to notice they're a couple of bedrooms short of the competition.  It'll be interesting to see what it eventually sells for - £400k per bedroom is some serious money.

For comparison, a close relative bought a very comfortably sized 3 bed, with a study that could easily be called a 4th, all done out to a similar specification for sub £900k - and that was in Earlsfield which is half the distance from central London.

[naturals]

For comparison, this is £100k cheaper, much nicer location IMHO, six bedrooms.

Admittedly it needs a bit of work (clearly a student LL escaping before the ship sinks), but I know where my money would go.

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/55499988?search_identifier=49dc10dfdae00d5c6cac268f48fbe171