Owning your own home

I've had experience trying to buy through Strike.
Found them pretty useless but that may have had a lot to do with the seller and their expectations.
Arranging the viewing was fine but it became difficult trying to negotiate a price as the agents didn't do anything and it became like dealing direct with the seller.
This may suit some but it became quite personal and stressful.
There was no single named point of contact.
When we pulled out of the sale it took a while to sort/confirm with agent and then the sellers chased us for "solicitor's fees" with a series of emails before our solicitor warned them off.
Presumably a traditional agent would have told them chasing for fees was pointless...
My impression when seeing someone has put up their property for sale through one of the online ones is they are doing it on the cheap and may be difficult to deal with.
But ultimately if it's the right property at the right price then I'd still go for it.

up on the roof

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puM1k-S86nE

I went with a traditional estate agent when selling but wasn't too impressed with the online ones (Purple Bricks in particular) when I was trying to buy.

The local agents made an effort to get people in to view the places they had on the market whereas it was all passive with the online ones. I also found it a hassle booking viewings, some had really limited or non-existent timeslots and you could only get a booking by phoning the call centre, going through the options and then waiting for someone to call you back (which didn't always happen).

We bought through Yopa. I'm not sure if it's to do with the package the seller selected, but Yopa didn't do a whole lot of sales progression stuff - it was all driven by us as we really needed a house and the sellers really needed to move. Happy accident. Fortunately we and the sellers were mostly adults and were happy to negotiate directly and we did, although on reflection the sellers were quite exposed and we could have driven an extremely hard bargain.

If you have a property in a high demand location, and you know what you are doing, and are motivated, I would say try it, the worst you can lose is time and maybe £1000 or whatever if you don't make a sale through it.

I'd be tempted to try it if we wanted to move but I would see it as an experiment.

This. The beauty of using a local agent was they already had a portfolio of people they knew were looking for a house like ours, which meant we hit the market Tuesday, went away while we had a full weekend of viewings over the weekend, and had several offers by Monday lunchtime - best and final by close of Monday, which was a relief as we had already offered on a place we wanted.

We bought through Yopa.

Same, I'm sure if it was through a "proper" agent our negotiations wouldn't have gone as well in our favour.

I felt this too. As a seller, I think you are exposed. If you don't know how to negotiate, or do not like negotiating, it's not for you.

When we were trying to buy the place on 'subsidence alley', the level of bluster and lies deployed by the EA to push back on our downwards negotiation was impressive to the point actual gaslighting.

Found out that in the end it cost the sellers £50k as whoever bought it in the end were able to negotiate them right down to £50k less than we would have paid after we pulled out; we just wanted £10k off to pay for the extra insurance required. Sad lol.

So it can go both ways.

Did I tell you I fucking hate EAs? I fucking hate EAs.

Our flat listing is going live today through Strike

“going through the options and then waiting for someone to call you back (which didn't always happen).”

i experienced this recently with a few viewings with purple bricks, gave up in the end as i wasn’t super keen to view anyway but they never call you.
Partner sold with the local go-to independent agent but they were a bit tardy at times, turning up with a viewer but forgetting to inform her, sending random emails about things that had already been resolved.

place we are buying the agent is so short staffed that emails took 48hrs to respond to.
we had no memorandum of sale despite the seller being in a rush and wanting to see things moving after we were offered the property after the first buyer had mortgage/funding issues.
I ended up going round there and luckily finding the agent in the office and stood there holding my phone on speaker while he explained to my partner it was all ok and typing up the MoS at the same time.

think its a bit of a lottery with agents, and having dealt with a lot of local agents in the last few months i know which one i will use to sell my place and which to avoid.

I think if your property is one of those that will sell itself then the online listings can work, bit if it’s a harder sell then i would use a local agent.

Most are terrible. Whenever looking for friends/fam I treat them sale as used car dealers. Basically give me an appointment then let me look at it and leave me alone, stay in the hallway and keep your marketing bile to yourself.
Our most recent flat purchase the agent was told this and still they bantered on for ages, so did a detour to the garden, waited for them to follow, then went back in flat and clicked door shut. They eventually plucked up the courage to knock to be let back in. Decided we wanted it and went through the process. Obviously 'another interest' is looking at the same time,tey have an appointment this afternoon etc. Spoke to the existing tenant who then let us back later on to take a proper look and share their experiences of the building/area/neighbours (all good), gave them our number, and they gave us a bunch more info. Especially that we were the only viewers in 2 years, and none was ever booked after us, obviously.

Folk who are newer/naive to their marketing bile will always be made to feel under pressure by them, make rash decisions in the 'moment'. When its all a careful act. Sometimes there is genuine high demand but you get a feel for it.

We need to re-mortgage the place we bought in December once we're (almost) finished the renovations (purposefully chose a non-locked in mortgage, so no issues with fees), which should be in a couple of months with any luck.

How do we actually go about getting a re-valuation that properly reflects the works that have been done?
Use local agents to appraise and give that to the bank (or our mortgage advisor)?
Just send before/after photos and a list of works and the bank will do the valuation based on other sold prices on the street and the like?

edit: should probs just ask our mortgage advisor... but feels nicer to post here

What scale was the work? I was under the impression that most lenders just used a £/sqft valuation based on the area?

getting a re-valuation

When I remortgaged (switching lender) I asked the new lender if they would accept a chartered surveyor's valuation report commissioned by me, at my cost.

They said "no, we will send our own surveyor". And they covered the cost. Which was nice.

I was able to give them my estimate of the valuation at the start of the process (I forget where but it will have been part of the mortgage application). Then the surveyor came and their report was pretty close to my estimate. I had based my estimate on similar properties nearby (in Scotland, so the mortgage valuation report is available to all when a property is for sale).

Quite big? Structural alterations, new kitchen, new bathroom, total re-plumb and new boiler, complete decorative make-over, a cacophony of remedial actions following a survey that had zero 'good to go' points and more 'fix immediately' than 'fix soon' points.

when I re-mortgaged post-renovation, I just provided a valuation figure - assume the lender then just did their own desktop valuation based on recent sales in the area. no-one came out to do a survey - this was at the height of the pandemic mind. our valuation probably slightly under-valued the property but put us in the lowest LTV/best rate bucked in any case so I wasn't massively fussed. they didn't even ask about the renovations lol

The last desktop valuation I got for our old flat when we remortgaged two or so years ago, was 408k which was ridiculous, but they said their methods were more accurate than mine and we got a better LTV, we eventually sold it for 365k last year.

The aerial and the trees seem to be in alignment. Are you sure the house isn't leaning?

Are you allowed to build a bike shed in your front garden in London, Islington, ?

You're onto the public highway in your front garden so it's a fair question. We've got planning for a fence and gate across our driveway, but I see lots of bin stores and similar which I doubt have/need planning.

What size shed?

2x1x1. It's lower than the front wall, wood construction, felt roof.

Underestimated how much it's going to cost to get this window fixed up and restored. Looking at just under 5k to take it out, fit it in a double glazed unit, and built/fit a new acoya frame. It'll be 2 pieces, split where the bottom of the non-stained glass is, and it'll open on quadrant stays at the top.
Needs bloody planning permission too to do it by the book

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Enjoying bits of it! Sofa 5 month lead time nearly over
Real headache is what to do with the kitchen and bathroom. Thinking of settling on a smaller kitchen by opening up a lounge wall as no more than 2 people will ever live there, but that might be stupid for the value of it. Big flat with 2 double rooms is great but a tiny kitchen isn't. Also don't want it in the lounge.

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Well then I would say permission doesn't come into it. I would just build it as no one will realise it's even there!

In theory I'm pretty sure you technically need planning permission but I don't think anyone bothers.

@nankatsu @aggi @Howard
Thanks for the info 🙏
Off the back of that I’ve booked two local agents to come and have a look next week.