Why is this house so incredibly expensive?

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I've been looking at property in Exeter for a while, and this one is way out of line with everything else available. It's the best part of a million quid. What's going on here? Just why? And why would an estate agent let a seller put a house on the market at a massively inflated price?

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/57386818/?search_identifier=6c6442577dc0cc117836ea784e0d165c050c475d612f785f24bc04c905268bed

So many people saying it’s a lovely are and as I don’t know it I’ve just done a walk through on Google.
Wow, it really is nice.
Just spotted a listed property in the centre priced at £9000 / m2. That’s huge.
So I’m not surprised at the price now.

It's not a typo. Topsham is like the cousin to Salcombe.

Someone will either extend and renovate the existing property, or knock it down and build a new house. It's all about the location and plot.

It needs at least £150k spent on it to make it habitable.

I think there's a few reasons. It's in a sought after area of Exeter (not actually Exeter), it has masses of potential for extension up and out. It's also not nearly a million, it's £900,000!

30 years ago it was worth £150k, 30 years time it’ll be underwater, literally.

Fuck me but why? You could move into it tomorrow without doing anything to it. It's hardly a falling down ruin, is it? The bathroom and kitchen are fine, they're just not 2023.

It really doesn't. How ridiculous.

Hygena kitchen. I remember those. Very well made

It’s the location and land. That will be knocked down and rebuilt (possibly with more than one house).

How many houses of the same age have you renovated? I've done two very similar ones and the house listed needs to be replumbed, rewired and bathrooms and kitchen done. It has some wooden windows that are rotten and a dodgy looking extension/garage with a flat roof. I'd doubt it has any insulation. You might be able to renovate more cheaply in some parts of the country but living with things like original wiring is just unsafe and not optional.

the kitchen and bathroom are probably much much better quality than most off the shelf kitchens from the last 20/40 years.

Topsham is an expensive area. It’s possible someone will buy this, demolish and rebuild.

Omg, get a flood report if you're considering it, OP!

It will be knocked down and a posh new house put on the plot.

It has a big footprint, and the plot will be worth a lot.
The house itself looks big.

It is still overpriced, even for Topsham, with parking. It's still at least £200K over what it should be in that condition, probably more.

There have been a lot of people from London moving to the area and paying some of these crazy prices. I think they may reduce a bit now that working from home is not such a thing. Buyers in this area wanting 3-bedroom houses are in competition with buy to let for holiday lets and also with older people downsizing from 5/6 bedroom houses who are also cash buyers. The sellers probably think it's worth a try!

It's a nice area and the primary school is OK but not massively oversubscribed (yet- there are hundreds of newbuilds being built on fields all around Topsham!), but there are major problems when kids get to high school age as it's not really in any particular catchment and some of the potential schools are not great at the moment.

Looks like it has excellent transport links, quiet street with no through traffic, close to the university, centre and river/ estuary. Guessing it is a 1970s build. Rooms will be generous size. Decent sized garden. Don't know the area at all, just looking at the map!

It is between two rivers but right at the top of a hill, about 10 metres up from the rivers. It won't flood.

If it's definitely not the going rate , either there's room to massively extend or, the owners don't know the going rate & won't accept the agents recommended price. I worked in property during my early 20's & elderly people who hadn't moved in forever would often have a set price that bore no relation to to the reality of what were v run down or v dated homes. After it had lingered on & on in a v desirable area, where everything was snapped up in 3 months max, they'd slowly get the hint & a more realistic price would be set .

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/worrying-map-shows-huge-areas-4166305.amp

Another vote for knocking it down. Build two nice houses on stilts.

It's not so much whether that property will flood as how accessible it will be if the area floods, which it often does. I used to work near Dart's farm. Access was a pig during wet weather.

Zoopla gives about that value, it is a very expensive road.

I've done an older house than that. We rewired - what is the basis for the claim this one needs to be rewired? I highly doubt that's needed. Why do you think it needs to be replumbed? I can't imagine a safety reason for it to need rewiring - it's not like the old days of rubber and cloth covered wiring that seriously deteriorated with age. PVC sheathed cabling used since the 60s has a very long (indefinite actually) life so doesn't become unstable and unsafe like the old stuff did.

This will no doubt be copper piped unlike the old lead stuff so not hazardous to health and also long lasting.

If you wanted to rip it apart and fit new kitchen and bathroom it would maybe make sense to redo the plumbing and wiring but mostly only because you'd be redesigning anyway.

The bathroom and kitchen don't NEED to be replaced - that's just for fashion reasons.

It's topsham not Exeter and exeter is lovely