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[Brian60]

Last April we put our house on the market, 10 grand below the market price of 5 others in the avenue for a quick sale. Yep none of them have sold so far!

On monday at the suggestion of the estate agent we dropped it another 5 grand to try and stir up interest. Well it did that, they sent us an email this morning and need an answer first thing monday.

Apparently a guy walked in the office yesterday, didn't want to see the property he was happy with the photos on zoopla. Then dropped the bombshell, his offer was another 8 grand below the asking price which was lowered earlier this week! So he wants it 18 grand below our price and a whopping 28 grand below any other in the avenue Its a take it or he walks offer and wants an answer by 10am monday.

Now nobody can afford to take a loss like that but at least we are solvent enough to accept it, but it does eat a whopping big piece of cash out of our retirement cake. It just makes my blood boil at the audacity of some people. But as it is the only offer anyone in our avenue has had in 10 months we have to seriously consider it.

[Tug Fanatic]

TV keeps telling us that the Spanish property market is picking up & that we need to dash out before prices rise. Your experience suggests differently.

Lets be honest when there a 6 houses for sale in a road it is a buyers market & he can try it on with each of you in turn. One of you might sell.

I am sorry for you when I say that the fact that none of you have sold at the previous prices suggests that the market values you houses at rather less than you think.

[kinmel]

There are a lot of speculators like him, who are invariably buying to let.

His interest is purely confined to the maths, he will only pay the price that works for him and he watches the area's house prices over time and probably has estate agents passing him information.

If he sees 2 price drops on a particular house then he knows the seller is not "waiting for the market" and makes his offer. He is not interested in any higher price, he will just offer on another property.

Of course a house is worth what it sells for, not what people ask for.  The other houses haven't sold because their price is higher than what local buyers are prepared to pay.

You claim a "loss", but unless you paid more for it than this offer, then it is loss of expectation, not money.

So you can either deal in today's market, or wait until it moves up to your expectation with no guarantee that it will.

[Brian60]

TF the housing market in Spain is improving slowly, just like the UK, it is our UK property we are trying to sell. The problem is house prices have risen across the country except of Easy Yorkshire/North East. What did it for us was that when affluence was around  before 2008.Our properties due to how large they are were being snapped up at whatever price you could name, for student accommodation as it is only a mile from the university. Prices back then were easily over £200.000.

We put our on at £160.000 for this result, amazing what a recession and a local council putting a block on multi occupancy in designated areas does for house prices!

Kinmel that's why I said it eats into our nest egg but we can afford the loss if we accept. We bought back in 1984 and got the house for a staggering £22.500 so we make a decent enough lump out of it seeing as its been mortgage free for a few years, but we do still have to pay off whats left of our mortgage in Spain, so although putting cash in the bank it won't be as much as we wanted.

[Tug Fanatic]

I had guessed wrongly that it was your Spanish property that you were selling but the same analysis applies. Unfortunately like shares what they were worth yesterday if not very helpful. In fact it can upset you, as you well know.

Sorry to go off topic but I have always wondered with all the UK retirees in Spain, & seeing as how the NHS is the most politically hot topic here, what is the position with health provision for UK expats when in Spain?

[Brian60]

With the correct paperwork if you are 65 (not 66 as UK) then you can get free basic healthcare much like the UK, but basic is what it means. If you are hospitalised it is the immediate care. If you have to have time in hospital or need help for toileting etc, you better hope you have relatives there to help, nursing care does not do that for you! If you are under 65 then you need to buy private health insurance which can run to over 200€ per month.

This is why a lot of expats do not give up their UK residency. As long as you return to the UK at the intervals stipulated by both Spain and the UK and retain a UK address then you are entitled to NHS care - among other things. These are the rules laid down by both countries, we abide by them, in fact we return next weekend for a short while because of these rules.

A English friend in the village died of cancer recently. He was a true expat, British Airways pilot of 20 years then flying private for a Saudi prince for 15 years. He retired to the USA before moving to Spain. He went over to the UK in October but collapsed getting off the plane. Rushed to hospital they found he had terminal cancer. He returned to Spain and died a couple weeks later. His wife received a bill for treatment from the NHS, £7000 for the 5 days care he received. Fortunately for her, she sent off his death certificate and the charge was dropped.

[NFMike]

I know how you feel. We eventually sold our house in Cheshire (not the millionaires' area I'm afraid) but for considerably less than expected. We originally marketed at £285k with the expectation (having talked to agents and seen what similar stuff seemed to be going for) of getting 275, maybe 270. After 6 months or more we ended up dropping to 252 and sold it at that - but even then there wasn't a queue at the door.

[Tug Fanatic]

Thanks Brian. I guess that partly explains why so many return when medical problems get worse.

It sounds like all the UK press coverage of the housing bubble is actually restricted to parts of the country. Problem of a London based press I guess. Rewrite that as London (& possibly parts of the South East) matters & who gives a damn about the rest of us. 

[essex2visuvesi]

I'm guessing you said "no" with 3 Fs 


But there is the old saying "If you don't ask, you don't get"

[NFMike]

But there is the old saying "If you don't ask, you don't get"

I tend to say "If you don't ask, they can't say 'Yes'".

[Colin Bishop]

I do know people who have 'emigrated to the sun' in retirement but then found that when their health starts to fail and they need to return home to the NHS they can no longer afford to live in the UK and they are trapped.

Colin

[TomHugill]

I don't see the issue, you're under no obligation to accept the offer. If you're in a position where you have to sell it to him then it's hardly the buyers fault.

[justboatonic]

If you need to sell anything quickly, people will take the p*ss as they know they hold the good hand. To the OP, this guy has probably been watching for someone like you, house on the market below what similar houses are up for, a clear signal to a speculator that someone's in need.

He probably knows you've just reduced by another lump so now he's played his ace, a take it or leave it offer well below your asking price with a quick answer demanded. He knows he's onto something. You're clearly tempted. He just needs to reel you in now and he's sorted.

Personally, I'd tell him to do one but then again, I wouldn't put my house on the market below others and then cut the asking price again. I'd have shifted agents and told them to work their butts off for their commission.

Good luck!

[inertia]

We had ours on the market 10 years ago and were warned about other estate agents trying it on. It seems they offer 90% of the asking price then ratchet it up slowly £1K at a time to see how desperate you are. If you accept the first offer they will use other clients' money to buy the property then resell it later when the market recovers. That way they can use their own advertising resources to sell the thing, too.
Guess what? The guy didn't even bother to give us a false name - it was the agency about half a mile away. When he asked me if I thought his Jag would fit the garage I told him exactly where it would fit...
We're still here and happy.
He's since gone out of business.
DM

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

If your house is near a university, and would make good student housing, then consider
hiring a manger and renting the property yourself. A manager would take a percentage of the
rental fees, and make sure your property is well taken care of. You may need to keep a
minimum deposit with the management for repairs, but once that is covered, the monthly

rent is yours, and could make a nice income.

 

[Brian60]

If your house is near a university, and would make good student housing, then consider
hiring a manger and renting the property yourself. A manager would take a percentage of the
rental fees, and make sure your property is well taken care of. You may need to keep a
minimum deposit with the management for repairs, but once that is covered, the monthly

rent is yours, and could make a nice income.

 

It is Umi. Most of the housing close to the university has been bought by the uni for halls of residence properties. So the private landlords have moved outwards and have been buying up property to rent to students, the fly in the ointment so to speak is the council of our city. To combat this buying up of large family homes and preserve the areas that surround them from students, they passed a law 2 years ago that homes bought for multi occupancy have to go before the council and be voted on. Of course they are all vetoed, otherwise we could have sold to speculators many times over.

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

Perhaps a university professor, and his family then.
 

[Crossie]

                    I don't know what sort of students Hull attracts, but I recently visted my brother who lives in what I remember to be a very tidy area of streets of 1930's -ish moderate size houses and semis in Bournemouth. When I remarked about how the area seemed to have lost its former tidiness, he told me that over recent years many of these houses had been bought by 'buy to let' landlords and those used as student accomodation are nearly always identifieable by piles of junk, unkemp gardens, bins overflowing with tinnies and junk-food dross and rusty old bikes with various parts missing.
                    You may get an income from student rents but probably largish maintenance costs too, might take the fun out of it a bit.

                                                        Trevor

[Brian60]

                    I don't know what sort of students Hull attracts, but I recently visted my brother who lives in what I remember to be a very tidy area of streets of 1930's -ish moderate size houses and semis in Bournemouth. When I remarked about how the area seemed to have lost its former tidiness, he told me that over recent years many of these houses had been bought by 'buy to let' landlords and those used as student accomodation are nearly always identifieable by piles of junk, unkemp gardens, bins overflowing with tinnies and junk-food dross and rusty old bikes with various parts missing.
                    You may get an income from student rents but probably largish maintenance costs too, might take the fun out of it a bit.

                                                        Trevor

It is for this reason the council are clamping down on multi occupancy and keeping it as close to the university as possible. They do not want what are essentially nice avenues of large family homes falling in to dis-repair. Caused by absentee landlords whose only concern is how much revenue they can raise from a property, with no thought for the unfortunate residents who reside close by.