advertisement


Estate agent fees

Enquired about a place this week. 20 viewings booked for this weekend. It looks OK but nothing that special. Pointless bothering. There’s far too much easy money and leverage about. This is the consequence of not allowing recessions any more.

There is the all to cosy relationships between the finance industry, land banks, the building industry and politicians, none of whom are in the slightest bit interested in an efficient housing market.
 
The housing market is broken, with much of the mess caused by govt intervention. I looked at a place today, pictures must have been taken 20 years ago, totally misrepresented. It was basically a wreck and needs gutting, yet they want the money it would be after having £250K spent on it. We really could do with a proper recession to flush out this nonsense. The more I look, the more I want to stay in my beautiful house.
One of the most depressing things about house hunting is having to look at other people's sh!t interior design and decorations . We once looked at a place which was well overpriced. The vendors had factored in the costs of their extensive and obviously expensive interior design (sic) work. Unfortunately this consisted of things like purple bathroom suites covered in gold stars, gold plated taps, purple carpet which extended half way up the walls, and star-spangled ceilings. It was all new and would have cost a fortune to rip out and replace. They were a bit miffed when we pointed this out. We didn't buy it.
 
Warning signs are terms like 'quirky', 'individualistic' and 'eclectic'. They generally translate as 'colour blind', 'tasteless' and 'a load of old tat'.
 
It is difficult to get the Mrs to look past the decorations on any property we look at (on line curiosity at the moment- could be a couple of years before we do anything serious). You have to work hard to imagine your own decoration style and furniture installed in another house. It is very easy to spot 'old person is living here' alert on viewing a property!
 
You would love my anaglypta wallpaper Jensen!! Can't be bothered to take it off !
Arghh! Anaglypta - I have before now taken down a whole ceiling as quicker and easier than dealing with that stuff!

I love the homes with swirly orange carpets and floral green armchairs still in place with non-matching (perhaps dusky pink) flouncy curtains. And then you spot a brown or green coloured bathroom suite! Then a so-called conservatory added (plastic of course) with shitty plastic chairs installed looking out onto a dirty patio and unkept grass beyond.

Actually what really surprises me is that estate agents are mostly so poor at suggesting/helping owners to make their homes look better for pictures. So many spare rooms full of crap are shown, often with a bed has been piled high with stuff and bed cover thrown over it. You want buyers to look at the house, not the collections of frogs/teddies/cupboards full of Capodimonte! Take down the 'orrible posters in kids bedrooms! Remove that computer gaming set up and chair!

Not all do it - friends of mine put their house up for sale last year and the agent spent hours insisting that every room was presented well... stuff moved out, fresh flowers around and so on. It made a real difference, despite their house actually being rather lovely all of the time anyway.
 
Our elder daughter and partner recently moved in a new flat. It had been a rental property, completely refurbished and redecorated only a few years back, all quite tasteful, if a bit bland. I said 'Well, at least there's no decorating needed'. But no, she didn't like the colour of the walls. We went round there last week, and they'd re-painted the walls a creamy-white colour, almost indistinguishable from the slightly darker beige that was there before.
 
Arghh! Anaglypta - I have before now taken down a whole ceiling as quicker and easier than dealing with that stuff!

I love the homes with swirly orange carpets and floral green armchairs still in place with non-matching (perhaps dusky pink) flouncy curtains. And then you spot a brown or green coloured bathroom suite! Then a so-called conservatory added (plastic of course) with shitty plastic chairs installed looking out onto a dirty patio and unkept grass beyond.

Actually what really surprises me is that estate agents are mostly so poor at suggesting/helping owners to make their homes look better for pictures. So many spare rooms full of crap are shown, often with a bed has been piled high with stuff and bed cover thrown over it. You want buyers to look at the house, not the collections of frogs/teddies/cupboards full of Capodimonte! Take down the 'orrible posters in kids bedrooms! Remove that computer gaming set up and chair!

Not all do it - friends of mine put their house up for sale last year and the agent spent hours insisting that every room was presented well... stuff moved out, fresh flowers around and so on. It made a real difference, despite their house actually being rather lovely all of the time anyway.
This is interesting. My recent experience is a bit counterintuitive and suggests that this may not always be the case. I'm the executor of two estates, my parent's and another relative. This has involved the sale of two houses over the last twelve months. I started out thinking exactly the same way as you, and suggested to the estate agent that I should get the houses cleared and redecorated and gardens sorted before we took pics etc. and put them on the market. "Don't bother", was his response, "there is a shortage of houses like these and we've got waiting lists of people looking for places round here", so I took his advice and didn't bother. We put them on the market warts and all inviting OIROs then BAFOs and the first one went for £40k over the guide price. One thing I've learnt is that you really need carefully to gauge the market before you do anything. It's really put me off selling my own place!

PS I think some of the stuff you've described above would be labelled mid century modern by some estate agents round here:)
 
It is, tediously enough, all about location. If it’s in the right place, you’ll be fighting off buyers with a shitty stick. If it’s in the wrong place, all the minimalism and fresh bread smells in the world won’t help.
 
....and 'suit keen diy-er' = falling down!
And then there are the sellers who are "keen DIYers". Dodgy electrics, dodgy plumbing, bubbly wallpaper and so on.
My father always did it himself rather than employ a tradesman, even when he was in his 90s. He was very practical but had no eye for detail and definitely no aesthetic sense whatsoever. Whoever bought his old house would have had a lot of rectification work to do.
 
And then there are the sellers who are "keen DIYers". Dodgy electrics, dodgy plumbing, bubbly wallpaper and so on.
My father always did it himself rather than employ a tradesman, even when he was in his 90s. He was very practical but had no eye for detail and definitely no aesthetic sense whatsoever. Whoever bought his old house would have had a lot of rectification work to do.
I've seen all that too! One place we looked at the owner had installed his own central heating connected to a gas boiler and a massive solid fuel Aga in the kitchen. The plumbing had to be seen to be believed: no attempt made to conceal pipes and every joint had massive solder runs. He'd also built an "en suite" - his words - off one of the upstairs bedroom in the roof space. The only problem - well one of dozens actually - was that the angled roof was so low you couldn't stand up in it or even sit up properly in the bath, or on the loo. I'm sure it must have breached building regs! Again, it would have cost thousands to put right. As we were leaving and about to drive off a neighbour popped out and said "Are you going to buy it? You know it's got a leaking septic tank don't you, and that water running in the gutter is the runoff, so you'll have to get that fixed" It was a lovely house but I could't face all the work.
 
yes one house i bought about 2 years ago . the chap was wonderful in caring for it and finally died on the stairs . always thought about that when i did the stairs :D

anyway they installed these MONSTER steel grills on the windows which were industrial . getting them off was hard work with angle grinders and caused huge damage to windows which had to be replaced . cost a fortune to due up and many buyers were put off unsurprisingly
and it had flooded garages which cost me 3k to sort

P1060824 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/158267783@N02/, on Flickr

they had replaced the boiler with one of those y system ones and left in a 60 year old tank

P1060553 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/158267783@N02/, on Flickr
 
I’ve worked in a lot of houses around my town and know many of them inside out. I can’t believe the prices of them, especially the ones with out of date heating systems, dodgy wiring, rough bathrooms, tired kitchens etc etc. None of this seems to have any impact on prices these days.
 
The Covid restrictions last year created a shortage of homes for sale and pushed prices up due to competition among buyers. We paid 23% above valuation in April this year because there were at least five other parties bidding at the closing date. Because it’s a blind auction in Scotland you have to use your own judgement about how much you are prepared to pay and how attractive the property is to you.
It still needed a lot of money spent on it and if this had been earlier in life we would probably be looking at walking away with a loss if we had to move and sell in the first few years.

The people who bought our house at the end of last year were in a very similar situation , they really wanted it, it met their needs and they had to go against seven other bidders. Other younger buyers were interested because of working from home and the drive to get somewhere bigger with a garden as they’d be in it more hours of the day. Home working also boosted the Highlands and Islands housing market with buyers from London who could now work remotely.
 
I’ve worked in a lot of houses around my town and know many of them inside out. I can’t believe the prices of them, especially the ones with out of date heating systems, dodgy wiring, rough bathrooms, tired kitchens etc etc. None of this seems to have any impact on prices these days.

Staggering isn’t it, particularly when you factor in what it now costs to refurb. I’m actually looking at a couple of individual new builds this weekend by small developers with solid reputations. It would certainly make a move easier with no chain. One has air source heating and the other is gas. I’m probably a Luddite but think I’d favour gas, so many horror stories with air source.
 


advertisement


Back
Top