Owning your own home

Previous sold for £365k in 2017, after was £770k in 2022....

Not sure what went into that top floor but it would need to be fucking good.

Plus 5years worth of London house market. It's always on at least a steady climb.

Not sure what went into that top floor but it would need to be fucking good.

Adding two more bedrooms seemed to do the trick (note; this is hypothetical).

Edit; actually you got the link do you?

Decent.

Flat or mono pitch roof and a bit of detailing to the facade on the top floors and that’s in a magazine.

I like a full frieze of windows, much nicer view from inside and better privacy than tall, narrow openings.

I like it.

Nope, still a 2 bed

It’s a 2 beds???

What did they do? Make the entire 1st floor a kitchen or something?

Oh i wanna play, we look over onto this monstrosity, that used to be absolutely lovely

its been 'in progress' for almost 5 years, apparently they continually run out of money.

Theres also a 60+sqm outhouse at the bottom of the garden.

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That front door is such a wasted opportunity. So much space for glazing or going with a double door, what were they thinking. All these 'afters' are giving me great ideas about how to fix our place tho.

It's also notable how these soulless conversions also delete all plant life/habitat. 😢

skylight salesman has pulled a masterstroke there.

.

Clearly the dream of some people is to live in a Travelodge

Theyve actually replaced the front door since then with all glazed tinted door, sadly it looks still awful, mostly like the entrance to a dentist

Also, the front door, and above glazing is a double height hallway, and they have a shiny XXL chandalier slap bang in the middle of it, obviously

#goals

I've been in the process of settling my late aunt's estate for the last few months. It turns out she'd done an equity release deal on her house to top up her pension (shitty deal, but she has no children, so not an issue really). Anyway, the house was valued at £900K for probate/inheritance tax purposes, but it falls to the equity release company to sell it. They put it on with local agents who have marketed it at £875K - fair enough, so far so good...

The agents website now says "We are acting in the sale of the above property and have received an offer of £1,001,000 on the above property. Any interested parties must submit any higher offers in writing to the selling agent before exchange of contracts takes place." with the original advertised price still on the ad.

My question is why would anyone offer £1M on an £875K property? I'm not complaining, but it makes no sense to me.

Fucking hell. Tasteless pricks.

Developer or the agent is actually really good at their job?

My question is why would anyone offer £1M on an £875K property? I'm not complaining, but it makes no sense to me.

It's not that much more money, relatively speaking of course. 13%ish over asking.

Feel free to buy everyone on LFGSS a round with the windfall :)

Competition innit. People have been bidding against each other. The agent is, indeed, doing their job.

Probate figures tend to be conservative, much easier to pay tax on a lower number then top it up if the house makes more than to pay on a higher number and ask for it back if the house makes less.

They’ll leave that note on there until exchange just so you can’t go back in the future and accuse them of underselling it as the equity release firm don’t have any real incentive to sell it for any more than the outstanding debt. Same thing happens on repossessions.

I wasn't expecting offers over asking in the current market, although it is a lovely house

Again, I wasn't expecting this, but you're probably right given the property and it would explain the £1K over £1M.

The equity release do have an incentive - they get a set % of the sale price.

The equity release do have an incentive - they get a set % of the sale price.

Do they? Weird. I know nothing of equity release but logic would suggest they secure a sum on the property rather than a %.

They take a % of the equity in exchange for paying a monthly income/pension, the amount determined by the value of the property when the deal is taken out. The longer the person lives (to 93 in my aunt's case) the more they pay out but, assuming house prices continue to rise, their share of the equity grows over the same period - so they win either way, unless the person dies just as we hit a crash in the housing market. That's how I understand it, anyway, having only just come across it for the first time.