r/UKHousing

Looks like needs modernising but either pics are deceptive or looks like in good condition https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/88755096

but zoopla estimates for ones on this road are 700k+

I interested.in this house but feel that it's overpriced, as it was sold in 2019 for 250k.

What would be a fair price for that one, and if there is anything I should be aware of when I go for viewing.

I really appreciate your help ☺️

Buying a house is a large and often leveraged investment. So if you are someone who is deciding to buy a house and aren’t desperate, you might look at the market and say “I am not going to make a £300k+ investment into a house thats clearly going to decrease in value - I may as-well rent even though the rents are high”. Or even sell a house and rent for a period, putting your money elsewhere meanwhile.

Does this increase the demand for rentals in a declining house market?

The Iran War has absolutely done us over. Our 3 bed semi house back on market end of Jan (after failing to sell last year), accepted offer within a week. Took a few months to find a house we liked and had offer accepted. But by this point Iran war had sent interest rates rocketing and our buyers pulled out as soon as we want to start getting solicitors involved, because of the rates. We’d managed to time a mortgage application just right to get it in before the rates rocketed - so we’ve got 5 months to complete.

We’ve now been back on the market for a month and had only a couple of viewings. Seems hardly any buyers out there for a 3 bed semi in a sought after area with great schools. ‘A buyers market’ were being told.

The owners of the house we had offer accepted on are waiting for us but wont wait much longer. Our estate agents are suggesting we lower the price to trigger the Rightmove alert (bear in mind we’re already on a price £25k below where we started last year). There’ll be no going back if we do that - do we just do it and hope we get an ok offer knowing it’ll be a long distant memory in ten years, especially if we have to start again further down the line with a new mortgage application at higher rates.

So the question is - lower the price to trigger Rightmove and maybe get some more interest? Or ride this period out and hope we snag someone?

Hey guys,
I asked my landlady if my girlfriend could move in, she had no issue with it. She spoke to the estate agents who said it would cost me £420. This seems steep considering it’s just generating a new PDF, so i suggested we go down the permitted occupancy route, as my girlfriend doesn’t have a job yet anyway, so i’ll be covering the rent, as i already am.

My landlady has then said that the estate agents said this isn’t an option unfortunately. Personally this seems like they’re just trying to make a premium on it, as it was my understanding that having a permitted occupant is pretty standard?

The landlady suggested I speak to the estate agents myself but what are my options here, can they simply veto this? If the landlady is okay with it what are my options here realistically? Don’t want to piss anyone off but also wouldn’t mind keeping my gf off the tenancy anyway tbh, for simplicity’s sake.

Thanks

I live in the 2F flat. Over the past few months, there has repeatedly been a strong smell of urine in the communal stairwell on the ground floor. It's a bit baffling. No animals in the building, as far as I'm aware. No new residents. All fairly nice. Even the one nuisance neighbour, I can't imagine her doing this.

The smell is unpleasant, obviously, and I'm also trying to sell! I've done the whole put up a sign and have emailed the management company, but I don't have much hope of them doing anything constructive. Can anything be done to prevent this from continuing? I've asked about dummy CCTV (real CCTV would be too much of a headache, I think). What are the options?

Edit: I have had no response from the management company (not surprised), but I did come home to a clean-smelling stairwell! I have no idea if it was the perpetrator or the cleaner, and who knows if it will happen again. Let's hope not

Hi everyone,

I live with my wife and baby son. My wife is stay at home mother. I am self employed. I file yearly self assessment tax return, making 45k to 50k per year. I have done the self assessment tax return every year for the last 3 years with similar yearly income. Before that, I was not living in the UK. My wife is British. I also have 70k in my savings account here in the UK.

Right now, we live in a rental property ( England). But we want to move. We have not had any problems with credit or past rental issues. We don't have any wealthy relatives who can be our guarantors.

We currently pay 2000 per month in rent. When we moved to to our current house, at that time my wife had a PAYE job. We want to move to a similar price property but different location.

Will it be difficult for us to rent a new property? Another option is for my wife to find a PAYE job, so we can qualify for future rentals. But it is not ideal because my wife would like to stay at home with the baby. My wife also has funds in her ISA but I have been told ISA does not count towards determining rental eligibility of potential tenants. Is that correct?

Thanks in advance.

Hi all,

Noticed for the past few months that our energy seems to randomly spike when we are not home. Whilst I appreciate its not huge it does add up over the year, and we are quite energy conscious so I am keen to see if I can reduce it.

Everything is either off or on standby, with the only appliance actively on being the fridge.

We have a combi boiler, but havent had heating on since feb so I am not sure what seems to be using SO much energy when we are out of the house.

Any idea on how to find out what this could be?

We are in a rented flat which is inbetween an estate agents below, and another flat above.

https://preview.redd.it/f8i554nvxr1h1.png?width=802&format=png&auto=webp&s=c14868a200052bf25bce0775a666791391300b6f

Thanks for any and all advice 😄

Hi everyone 👋

I’m currently in the process of choosing shutters for my house and would really appreciate some advice from those with experience.

What would you say is the best option and why?

1. uPVC (Vinyl)
2. ABS
3. Resin
4. Solid wood (Paulownia wood)

I’m looking for something that’s durable, easy to maintain, and looks premium, especially for long-term use.

Would love to hear your experiences, pros/cons, and what you’d recommend. Thanks in advance 😊

We’re currently purchasing a property in our local area, but another house on the street has come up for sale (these properties rarely come to market) see the points on each below I’d be intrigued to see what you would do.

Main points on each below:

- detached
- 5 bedroom, four doubles and a single
- 2 sitting rooms
- dining room
- kitchen/diner
- utility
- cellar
- 2 x toilets on ground floor
- beautiful mature garden
- large plot
- solar panels, on a great tariff (old tariff)
- 199m2 overall
- modernisation required, budget of £120k for all work required, most of which should increase the value of the property given the area. Would move existing small bathroom into bedroom 5 and turn existing bathroom into office. Potential to add en-suite to 3rd floor but not something we’re particularly fussed with.
- potential for future extension to ground floor
- purchase price £650k

We are most the way through the process but another house has come available in the same street, another beautiful Victorian property, albeit semi-detached. And it is tempting us, details below:

- Semidetached
- 5 bedrooms and one en-suite
- toilet on ground floor
- 2 sitting rooms
- dining room
- larger kitchen, recently put in with enough room for either small dining area or seating area
- large garden, albeit not as attractive as the other or as private but still an attractive proposition
- no utility room
- house overall in good shape, still required updated radiators and converting of single glazing to double glazed sash windows and a new master bathroom.
- 260m2 overall
- purchase price £750k

New house potential requires much less work, and the work that is required wouldn’t need to be done in a rush. Bigger internally, with much better flow to living rooms on the ground floor.

Both are affordable given the extra capital we have ready for the renovation of the detached property. Both attractive properties, or at least the detached will be post renovation.

What would you do?

View Poll

We’ve had our house on the market since December with agent 1. We reduced the price twice and in our time with them, we had around 6 viewings.

We instructed agent 2 in April and got way more viewings than we had with agent 1 but no offers.

On Thursday we let agent 2 know that we’d like to come off the market once our agreement term is up, if we hadn’t sold by then.

Half an hour later, we got 2 viewing requests for Friday and Saturday. We conducted both (though the second viewer didn’t realise I was the home owner until the end of the viewing, and when they found out they came back in and sat down to ask more questions). Viewer 1 came with her MIL, stayed 40 mins, took videos, asked lots of practical questions and fed back that they’d get back to us next weekend after they’ve viewed a few more properties. Viewer 2 (while she still thought I was the estate agent), asked how much the house was up for, and asked who they’d contact if they want to make an offer. Both mentioned that they loved the property, layout and area.

I’m just a little sceptical that these came straight after telling the agents we’d want to come off the market in a few weeks. Is this purely coincidental, or could there be something in it?

I recently inherited an older house from my parents and I am considering replacing the current front door.

The existing door feels dark and dated, and I would like something more modern that allows more natural light into the entrance area while improving the appearance of the property.

Has anyone used a reliable door installation company in the UK? Any insights would be really helpful.

Buying and selling atm. After our survey came back we wanted a few things investigated further as the surveyor raised serious concerns.

Booked 3 specialist surveys as I didn’t just want to go with surveyors advice and needed to make sure I have a true picture of the issues. Apparently the seller had a problem with that and I got calls from both the move manager at the EA and the Director (it’s a small estate agency) asking why we want all these surveys- is it to negotiate the price and that the house is old, a house of this age is going to have problems. So I put my foot down and went ahead with the surveys.

Some shoddy workmanship and several serious/ semi serious issues were identified by the professionals we instructed. As a result, we requested a reduction in the purchase price for one of the issues only as it needed to be rectified immediately to preserve the integrity of the building. This was met with resistance from the sellers. After many lengthy emails back and forth, with EA gaslighting us and pressurising us to proceed, the sellers eventually agreed to a very small reduction in price (equivalent to 15% of the cost of the issue we raised)

We are now approaching completion, and I am constantly being told to exchange contracts as soon as possible, with a completion date agreed at that stage. I explained to the move manager that, for personal reasons, I would prefer exchange and completion to take place on the same day.

I also spoke to the director today, who again pushed for us to exchange immediately, stating that people cannot book removals until exchange has taken place (despite the fact that we are the only party in this chain of three who actually require removals).

It is exhausting having to repeat ourselves continually, while being made to feel as though we are being difficult for no reason. They keep implying that the requests we are making are unusual.

Are these requests really unreasonable??? Hit me with the truth.

It’s so stressful as it is without them adding to it.

Edit: Key facts that I forgot to add

1. Prop we’re buying is vacant
2. It’s the top end of our budget and was presented to us as ready to move into so we offered accordingly.
3. I literally have some personal reasons- that’s a post for another time. In previous purchases, we’ve never had estate agents getting involved in exchange/completion timings to this extent, and our solicitors have never had an issue either. That’s probably why my view on this is a bit skewed.

Forgive the potentially stupid question, but keep seeing homes in Bedford saying an annual service charge and it's often in the region of well over £200, yet the properties say freehold. I resent paying some unknown entity money for naff all when I'm already gonna be paying council tax, can anyone advise?

TLDR: accepted an offer based on the buyers being residential and not landlords, but pretty sure they have lied and are landlords. Any advice on what to do?

I'm currently selling a flat and have been clear with estate agents that my strong preference is to sell to people who want to live in the property, not to landlords or flippers. It is a very poor area and has an issue with landlords buying up affordable properties and there being lower than average numbers of locals on the property ladder. I had a couple of offers after about a week on the market, one from a small family that is sadly not proceedable yet, and another lower offer from an investor/landlord which I rejected. Last week I accepted an offer for the asking price for a couple the agent said are planning to downsize and live there. However, they also said they are mot selling their current property so it didn't add up. After some extremely light companies house digging, it turns out the couple are joint directors of a property management buy to let company, and they don't even live anywhere near the city the flat is in. So obviously I suspect they are lying and are in fact buying it to let it out. The agent may have told them I was looking to sell to residential buyers, or they might just know that that's what sellers might prefer. Now that I've accepted an offer, would it be stupid to challenge this and how would I approach this with the agent without sounding like a snooping busibody?

Hi all, I’m a female tenant in a two-bedroom apartment. The second room has been unoccupied since 2nd March, with rent paid to the landlord and bills/council tax paid separately.
When I informed the council in mid-March, they said I’m liable for the full council tax and sent me a bill. My landlord (manipulative, rude, and a miser) surprisingly agreed to cover half. He then said “I just checked on Manchester council website, there is a discount for single adults living at a property. Council tax is calculated based on no of people and there should be a discount applied now that you are the only person.” He asked to apply for this in my name and I agreed. However, while the direct debit came from my account (75%), he only paid me 25% — my share remained 50%, and I was already covering other full expenses.

Since my landlord was previously willing to let the room to couples and 50-year-olds, I took matters into my own hands, posted an ad, and passed his number to interested people who were willing to take the room— but they said he wouldn’t agree on rent. For March and April he paid me 25%, ignoring my messages about the financial burden.

In April, I discovered he hadn’t even posted an; this was when I’d taken down the ad as he said in end of March that someone’s moving in; however, no one did. He asked me to put up an ad, which I did and arranged viewings too.

Now, for May, he’s now refusing to pay anything, claiming it’s entirely my responsibility and “i’m assuming you now have the 25% single person discount” — a discount I never applied for or received.

My tenancy agreement clause states: “Unless otherwise agreed in writing with the Landlord, to pay the Council Tax in respect of the Premises for the duration of the Tenancy regardless of legal liability for the Council Tax. If the Council Tax billing authority bills the Landlord for Council Tax for the Premises and other property together, the Tenant agrees to pay a proportionate share of the Council Tax. If the Tenant qualifies for a discount or an exemption from Council Tax it is the responsibility of the Tenant to apply for this.”

I’m not from the UK, can’t afford a solicitor, and Citizens Advice said they can’t provide legal advice. I’m lost and scared — can anyone help?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I'm about to sell my house which has an annual ground rent of £2.15 with the option of buying for £750. Is it worth it? I don't know if it makes the property a more attractive proposition to potential buyers.