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 ?

About 16 weeks is what I would expect for an average job, 12 for a Homes under the Hammer bodge job.

I can’t see many developers going for an uplift clause defeats the whole object.

Don’t forget as well as all the other costs mentioned the developer will also be paying capital gains tax

No need to if you have good relationships with the trades I would think. The consistent flow of work is profitable for the trades, but it's only consistent with a quick turnaround to release the funds for the next project.

I think that timeline sounds about right and actually, suggests they've done a very thorough job. We have had a few friends who have bought houses needing a huge overhaul and it's usually about this amount of time, so a professional developer with something of a formula would be able to do it easily in that time, or even a bit quicker because no residents to work around, no homeowners agonising over finishes etc.

It took the developer who bought the land at the end of our garden only about a year from when he started work to having people move in - and he built 3 houses!

Ha, good for your friend. If we could all just 'get used to the colour on the walls', the world would be in a better state!

It seems fast but it's hugely faster to renovate an empty house than one which is occupied. Also a developer will have a team ready to go - no wasted time waiting for individual contractors to find a slot to attend, someone project managing and coordinating everything including planning, party wall agreements, building control, insurance etc.

It's lovely to hear you have enjoyed seeing the house getting a new lease of life!

But that’s the thing!! Homes Under The Hammer - which I’ve coincidentally got in now - all look so professional to me - not a botch job in sight!

Our builders did a full renovation and double height wraparound extension with us living in white they did it in less time than that, I wouldn't ever expect it to take a year! Depending on what they've done they might have spent 100-150k on it so again the price isn't too surprising especially as they've likely put it on at a speculative price.

Share a link so we can have a look?

That sounds about right. Experienced developers have a recipe for each property, they know what buyers will want. Also building materials have risen in price hugely since Covid. Add in skilled labour. They’ve priced it a bit more than what they’ll accept yo make a profit which will then go into the next property.

It’s what developers do, they have good builders on call, know how to renovate without wasting money.

It's the way these developers make money. The quicker they do it, the less mortgage interest they have to pay and the more profit they make.

Many years ago, I bought a flat for £130k that had just been gutted and re-done. New bathroom, kitchen, boiler, carpets, everything. Nothing was high spec, other than the boiler, but everything was done well and suited me perfectly. He probably spent about £10k doing it up.

He bought it in the April and I bought it in the September. I must have put an offer in around June to get the completion done in time, so the developer spent around 2 months to do the work. He'd bought it for £93k, so £10k costs = £27k profit (less any finance and legal costs).

Yes, it’s absolutely possible and why we renovated our parents house ourselves. We did no building work, it was mainly free labour (mine), blood, sweat, tears, followed by a massive deep clean.

We kept costs very low. These were skip, replacement glass in front window for blown double glazing, a bit of plastering, new kitchen doors and handles and tiling above worktop. New carpets and litres and litres of paint. The garden took a bit of work but that cost time not money. And finally for extra bling - new chrome sockets, light switches and door knobs.

It was all very greige and my mother would have hated it but I did paint the downstairs loo in pale pink in her memory. I think she would have liked that.

We aren’t developers but have always bought tired old houses for ourselves so knew it could be done. Not quite as fast or grand as a developer and we didn’t make hundreds of thousands of pounds but the extra £80k we got from the sale meant my brother was able to finally get on the housing ladder.

Editing to add that the finish was really good and miles better than a homes under the hammer bodge - even though I do say so myself 😜

For my forthcoming lottery win :)

I have / had a bungalow by the sea in Cornwall on watch, however I realised that it has been sold and is back up for sale !
£2,5000 June 2024 £875,000 July 2023...

A house selling 8 YEARS ago has zero bearing on now.

Property developers always turn houses round in under 6 months otherwise they have to pay a tonne of fees of their bridging loans (used to get mortgages) or because the investor wants the fastest return on investment and they have to keep them happy to get future work. Also due the adding up costs of ongoing bills like council tax (you usually only get 6 months grace period on an empty home renovation before you pay double empty/2nd home tax) and utilities.

Being experienced developers they will have a network of people they work with to get the jobs done quickly so they get it turned around a lot quicker than the normal home rennovation.

It can be done in weeks rather than months sometimes.

I'd be really shocked by the price leap of 300k in five months, OP.

Have you never watched Homes Under the Hammer?! Experienced developers will have all their plans and trades lined up before completion and crack straight on so that they aren’t incurring higher costs for loans etc.
It is nice to hear you’re impressed with their final result, it’s heartbreaking when people are upset their old homes are modernised but it’s inevitable.

Maybe this developer could be employed by local authorities to build more social housing 😂
It always amazes me how countries like Japan for example, can rebuild after earthquakes/sinkholes in no time and yet our gvmnt can't manage simple potholes.
No doubt we have many competent builders etc, it's just our gvmnt do not employ these.😮

Yes me too - totally

although there were some structural problems with the house sold for £500k - the problems weren’t just cosmetic

But that's the thing. You couldn't have done it without the experience, network of contacts and skilled tradespeople that the developer has. They know what works and what the market demands and get the best deals on materials and things like new kitchens because they buy in bulk.

It would take you five times as long for not as much profit.

I agree with this.

That's nice! I had the opposite - put my heart in to making my first house beautiful and sold it, only to see it a year later looking so rundown. Rubbish all over the front garden and stinking of weed 😢

This is really interesting OP. My in laws house is currently on the market and we're being messed about with offers and people pulling out. It needs completely gutting and renovating and huge potential for an extension.

DH and I discussed doing it ourselves (he's a tradesman and knows lots of other tradies) but we weren't sure about the profit involved these days. Might be worth rethinking.

Will be interesting for you to keep an eye on what it actually sells for.