Freephone
0800 298 5424 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Buying a HouseIf you need help and advice with regard to residential building surveys, structural surveys, estate agents, mortgages, valuations, home buyers reports, building surveys, engineers reports, defects reports, including things such as cracks, dampness, condensation, foundation problems, etc, then. Please free phone 0800 298 5424 for a friendly chat. Our building surveys have lots of sketches and photosWe use lots of sketches and photographs in our building surveys to help you understand the report and to get the best results for you such as being able to understand any problems that the property may have and therefore negotiating a better purchase price. We would recommend that you meet the Building Surveyor at the property during the course of the survey and speak to them about what they have found and speak to them again when they have completed the report.
Buying a house - the pitfallsWe have recently been involved with helping a client buy a house and we thought it may be of use to other people in this situation if we explained how we progressed and some of the pitfalls that we have come across.
Structural SurveyWe originally met our client when they asked for a structural survey on a property that very obviously had structural defects which we could see within ten minutes of walking around the property. The client was moving out of London and did not know the area and needed to move relatively quickly and we felt had been misguided by the estate agent with a house that was not appropriate for her requirements that we would say clinically fitted the requirements of what the estate agents had to sell.
Know what type of house you want or you will get the type of house the estate agent has to sell
Unfortunately on closer inspection the property didn't meet quite a few of these characteristics as well as having a structural problem and therefore she asked for help.
You need to be looking in the right place for the budget you have availableThe budget and your criteria will limit where you can look. For example a three bedroomed property will have a market value of £X and a sale value of £Y. You need to ensure you are looking in an area where the average sales values are £Y. We are pleased to see that both Rightmove and Zoopla, which we feel are the most popular estate agent websites, give an average figure fee for prices of houses in the area. However we weren't certain whether this was the sale price or the sold price which could be quite different. You only have to go onto a website such as propertysnake.co.uk to see how much house prices come down over time or go up to see that the for sale price of a property in an area isn't necessarily what they are sold at.
How do estate agents value propertiesIf an estate agent is given a free reign on a property they will normally price the property to sell unless there are some restrictions placed upon this by the seller.
If you as the buyer can understand the position the seller is in it makes them easier to deal with and also easier to understand where to pitch your offer on the property.
Beware of estate agents storiesIf was very interesting to hear from our client that she had been told by the estate agent that the person in the property was moving out to move in with their boyfriend / girlfriend / brand new job etc., etc. Whilst this may be true often the story is the one they feel will meet the purchaser's requirements and ideas best. Our client came across this only when she was shown around the same property twice by different estate agents who had different stories as to why the property was being sold, but ask away as estate agents will always have different stories. The best story we ever heard from an estate agent was when they advised that the industrial building at the end of the garden was an antique store as our client at the time was very keen on antiques and it turned out to be a meat preparation building that operated sometimes 24 hours a day.
Your top ten list for what you want from a new houseHaving tried buying houses in various different ways we do think putting a list of your top ten requirements down from day one does help a lot. Some of these requirements may well vary but you do need to put something down on paper. This could be anything from it needs to be £X price if it has A, B and C or it can be £Y price if it has D, E and F. The sort of things that are very common are requiring a house that is:
These tend to all be location related but you may have physical requirements such as:
Buyers' market or seller's marketYou should be very aware if you are buying in a seller's market or a buyer's market and adjust accordingly. A seller's market requires you to know exactly what you want and when you have seen it and make quick decisions. A buyer's market allows you more time to think about what you are purchasing but equally there is likely to be much less available on the market.
Deal only with honest estate agentsWe are aware this is a very subjective thing to say but one of the experiences we have had whilst helping our client purchase a property is estate agents saying that properties are sold when they are not and also playing games with you when you do make an offer advising that someone else has made an offer and do you want to make a further bid when you are very doubtful there is anyone else bidding. Through an estate agent one of the best examples we know of this is a house that was for sale that we were about to carry out a structural survey on but our client rang up literally as we were standing outside the house to say that they had been gazumped. Gazumping Defined This is where someone outbids you They then went on to tell a story of how only yesterday someone had driven past the property, noticed the for sale board and made an offer on the property. This we found very interesting as we could see the for sale board in the front garden that had fallen over some time ago judging by the plants that had grown over it. Never the less the buyer that we were working for didn't get to hear anything else about the property and they were advised they wouldn't get the property unless they upped their bid.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|