To want to share my shock at this?

[GardenPart]

6 months ago - me and my siblings sold our childhood home for £500,000.

My parents bought the house when they got married in the 60s.

Both parents dead now, so estate sorted out between us.

We sold the house to an experienced developer.

My siblings and I have moved out of our home town but my daughter has moved into a flat about a mile away from our childhood home. Anyway - 2 days ago my daughter was visiting me and out of curiosity scrolling through her phone at local property sites and suddenly called me over -

anyway - to my surprise my childhood home was on the ‘for sale’ section - I was so shocked my initial thought was that it was the house next door to my parents that was for sale which looked identical from the outside. I honestly thought the developer could not possibly have done the property up so quickly ! But no, it was our old property.

‘I’m surprised about 2 things basically :

1. The speed it took them to develop and modernise many - or even most aspects of the property - it was actually on the market last month so that meant it took them 5 months. Don’t get me wrong - I know we sold it to an experienced developer - who wouldn’t waste any time and would be very efficient with the progress of the property - but even so !! 5 months? I thought it would take them at least a year.

1. The price. We sold it for £500000 6 months ago - it’s now on the market for £800000 - a 60.% mark up! If it was resold I expected the selling price to be circa £650k and only around £700k at the very most.

if it sells for the £800k asking price that’ll be the second most expensive sale ever in the street - this is surprising as it’s a semi detached house and the most expensive went for £820k 8 years ago - but detached.

The pics of the house look absolutely lovely - they’ve modernised it to a great standard - bathrooms, toilet, kitchen looks gorgeous and my goodness it needed loads of attention - my mum let the house go to seed after my Dad died - it was too big for her living there alone - it was a lot for a young adult in prime health to manage alone let alone an 89 year old !! They’ve also kept some of the lovely original features. It’s so nice to see our old childhood home so loved and modernised and less tired looking so I tip my hat to the developer and really glad we sold to him - but -

AIBU to be surprised by the speed of the turn around and the amount of the price elevation on the property? Or is this normal ?

Unfortunately you sold the property so its up to the new owner what they do with it

Sounds about right to me

That's the way it works, the timeline and the price sound like what I've witnessed many times

That’s the thing I don’t think it’s ’unfortunate’ at all - I’m actually VERY impressed with the timeline and the price mark up - and so glad the property now looks gorgeous instead of sad, tired and faded as it used to! But it’s shocked me - in a good way!

Ah I’ve not witnessed this kind of thing before so had no clue

It’s a buyers market so I would be amazed if they get the full asking price.

It's pretty normal. There's a lot of money to be made in property development.

My old house (rented) is just down the road from me. It was bought after I moved out by a developer who refitted it, put in heating and a new kitchen and changed the downstairs layout. It resold for about four times what he paid for it.

I am watching the roof very, very carefully because I know there were leaks up there and, while the developer redid the actual roof he didn't replace the rafters and I suspect that they might not quite be as sound as they seem...

Money makes money.

They had the cash to throw at it and therefore get to release the profit faster too, so can buy their next property quickly etc etc.

We have recently purchased a project and currently have builders etc in doing a full renovation, it has taken them 12 weeks so far and we are hoping to be moving in next month so the timeline seems OK to me!

They poss spent maybe 100k doing it up

Yeah thats the thing - I mean I’m pleased for the developer - he’s done a top notch job - but I’d be even more pleased if me and my siblings and daughter were talented in this area - we could be looking at sharing a nice profit for 5 months work ! Unfortunately none of us have a clue ! 😭

Oh wow how exciting! All the best in your new home!

Our house was like this. Untouched since the 1960s . Developer bought it then us. People will pay for the convenience of having a turn key property.

I certainly would if I could! I mean our old rickety house is now gorge!

Developers can do an all fur coat and no knickers job pretty quick

Something very similar happened to my grandparents' house! The turnaround and finish was astonishing.

Building costs are so extortionate now that I expect the profit is not as much as you'd think. It's interesting though what you can do with a house if you have enough cash to invest!

It’s amazing but also a little sad also because I imagine with the rise of these property developers, there’s very few ‘doer uppers’ for the average person or first time buyer to be able to afford to get on the housing market 😑

I see this a lot in the area where I live, but mostly with detached houses. A small old house will suddenly become a massive flashy house sold for twice the price it was on the market for, so it doesn’t surprise me at all. I do wonder what my DMs detached bungalow will turn into one day, as she has tall houses on either side, and she has a decent sized plot, so there is a lot of scope to create something much larger. None of her DC are property developers though so we won’t be making big money from it.

I'm pleased to see this is a happy story, rather than you being devastated at what they have done to your parents home.

I wouldn't be that surprised. I just had my bathroom renovated and it took two men three weeks to strip it back to the brickwork, do some rewiring and plumbing, put in a new window, redo the ceiling, tile and refit. If this was a professional developer I'd guess they'd have lots of tradespeople to throw at the job, so if they were doing multiple rooms simultaneously then 5 months would be a breeze.

I don’t think this is true necessarily.
Developers need a big margin and if you are doing it yourself you can take a longer view.
I have bought a property at auction before which was a wreck and made money on it. Not enough for a business though.

Experienced developers tend to be bullish on how much they pay in the first place, and they may well be being ambitious with the sale price. It might be interesting to look up what the agreed price is once the sale goes through.

The difference in buy and sell prices needs to cover all their fees for both transactions as well as building costs and profit. With a substantial upgrade you might be surprised how much they need to make just to cover their costs.

That wasn’t her question ffs

I think five months for a developer is actually a long time!! I would’ve expected a 2-3 month turnaround tbh. A friend renovates flats and he’s so well organised his turnaround is weeks. The price is probably also explained by the fact it took them 5 months!