to think it odd that a house price can TRIPLE in two years?

[Suckasponge]

Currently assisting PIL in searching for a house. We've seen one we all like and PIL are prepared to pay very close to the asking price. All good so far. The house however has been on the market for 9 months which is a while in the current market where we live. DH is a surveyor so we are in good hands.

Looking at previous sale prices for the same house, zoopla shows the following:

Bought 2002 for 52k
Bought 2004 for 168.5k
Listed for sale 2015 for 180k (not sold)
Listed for sale 2017 for 175k (not sold)
Listed again end of 2018 ... for current guide price 170k.

The gap between 2002 and 2004 seems incredible! I bought a house in the same area around that time in 2003 and that house could only have been worth 110-120k at most.

I'm a little intrigued and suspicion about why it could have sold for so much back in 2004. Theories between DH and I include:

1. Buyer was not worldly and didn't research fully.
2. Some kind of battle between two buyers at auction.
3. Somebody needing that exact house to be close to relatives etc.
4. A fiddle (tax, inheritance) of some kind.
5. I'm way off the mark and the house was really worth 3x previous price from two years earlier.
6. Renovations took place on a drastic scale. There was an attic conversion done (not sure when) but again this has restricted head height and is only classed as an 'occasional room' so I can't see it adding to the value too much.

Any other reasons we could have overlooked? or are we over thinking this?

It might have been uninhabitable condition. Then they renovated and to be honest, it’s only selling for £120k more so I’m the context of full renovations, that may well have been spent.

Was it a council house bought under right to buy? Though I’m not sure how those are registered as they’re below market price - maybe it is full price before discount...

Part exchange for a new build

The 2002 figure is wrong and was actually £152,000...?

Our previous house very nearly trebled in value in a few years. When we bought it you could see the sky from three floors below. We spent around 100K renovating it. And an important new transport link was opened too.

Or bought from family for well below market value?

I struggled to sell my maisonette because the one below sold for about 30% less 3 years previously. Reason was it hadn’t been touched since 1930 and needed full re-wiring, double glazing - loads more. On top of that, it had a very low lease left - so about 15% of the difference was the cost to renew lease. I was fine 6 months later when 2 identical maisonettes on the road sold at the higher price, because potential buyers didn’t think the EA was just making excuses!

You’re overthinking. Pil like the house, think it’s good value for money. What does it matter what happened 15 years ago?

Total renovation? Adding a floor? There’s several reasons, plus there are anomies with the land registry. If you looked at one of my houses history:
2007: Sold for £350k
2009: sold for £200k
2016: sold for £380k.

The reason for the odd history is that the £350k included house and some land which was divided into house and two building plots. That division plus economic market crash and need of seller so house sold for £200k not including plots.
I added a floor and did other improvements so even in a flat market sold it for £380k, barely recouping my costs.
Two years ago I bought a house for £105k, six months later I sold it for £168k. I bought at auction totally gutted it new roof new kitchen new bathroom etc.
So bare figures don’t tell he whole story.

Repossession sold at auction in 2002.

Could have been in a totally delapidated state when sold in 2002 and has had a comprehensive renovation job done on it. I know a couple of houses that have been in that position due to elderly owners who never did a thing to their homes.

I bought a house in 2003 for 129k which is now worth over 200k. It was worth about 60k in 2002. So I'm suprised not more of a difference between 2004 price and current one.

Unless the main property price increases were 2003-2004..I know they did go bonkers.

Might have been Shared Ownership in 2002, so they only bought e.g. 30% of the house, then they came into some money (probably inheritance), bought the remaining 70% from the housing association, and sold the whole thing in 2004.

Bought 2002 for 52k

This seems way to cheap to me (depending where it is).

One owner bought the other out so the "selling price" is what they paid to become sole owner

Might have been Shared Ownership in 2002,

Yeah, this will be it because weird as it seems to a normal buyer, they are listed as the minimum percentage of sale price that you can purchase.

Could the 52k be what one spouse paid to buy out another?

Our house has a similar history. Fact was, it was bought in 2004 for the first time since it was newly built 70 years previously and renovated and massively extended. House prices were also climbing rapidly (looking at sold prices for any one street will demonstrate this) at the time so, after the work was completed, it sold in 2007 for only 2k less than we paid for it, 2 years ago.

Wasn't there a spike in property prices around then, just before the big crash? We bought our first house for about £75k and sold for £150k, can't remember exact dates but probably similar. North Manchester.

We sold a house in 2004 for nearly triple what we had paid 4 years earlier. There just seemed to be a big jump that year.

It also meant the house we wanted to buy jumped up in price. My friend had bought in the next street In 2003 for peanuts compared to, pretty much triple, the price we paid in 2004.

Yup, we bought in 2001 for £85k, sold same house in 2004 for £149k....

slightly after boom time that although prices were still going up then. I bought a house in 2000 that went up almost 150% in 2 years when I sold it and it was nothing special.

Look at other houses on the street in 2002....

We sold a flat in the south east in 2002 for £69k (had bought it 3 years previously for £36k) so I know prices went up a lot then, but where was it to be so cheap? A flat in the midlands/north?

I bought a house near selby in 2002 for 60k. Sold it almost 2 years later for 119k. So almost doubled in price. It was quite a new house, so while we decorated it we didnt di anything major to it.

I bought a house in 2001 for 23k
Sold it in 2004 for 70k
It then next sold in 2018 for 84k.
I think its entirely possible as house prices rocketed here.