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 ?

The new builds in our area have been built up from a plot of land to fully kitted, three floor houses in about 5 months. If you have the money and sophisticated machinery with a builder decorator team, anything is possible.

This doesn't suprise me at all. My judgemental opinion is that people tend to be very stupid about houses - they'll pay way over the odds for what essentially amounts to a lick of paint and some new doors when they could do it themselves for a fraction of the cost. DH and I own a four bed with no mortgage because the first house we bought was a shithole that no one wanted - it took no time at all to do it up to liveable state before we sold it on for almost double what we originally paid. We then bought a house that came with substantial land to one side and built a huge extension, which is way cheaper than buying something ready-built. It is hassle but it's totally worth it.

I have considered flipping houses but I'm too busy with other things at the moment. Maybe one day.

Oh no!

It's worth sitting down and doing the sums - what can you spend vs what can you get. Run down houses are hard to sell because people doubt their ability to do the work - even minor cosmetic changes can make a fairly substantial difference.

Could you secure planning permission for the extension? That can be attractive and open up a new group of buyers.

If he’s got trades, just do it.

You don't need to do the work yourselves initially though, just have a bunch of reliable trades you can call on. As you watch and learn, you can do more and then your profit margin will increase over time. Start small with a cheap terrace while you build your confidence.

OP isn’t upset at what’s happened. She has actually explicitly stated she is glad to see it redeveloped. Did you read her post, or just the title?!

I agree with this.

Reality TV shows will have us believe that every renovation involves a couple who go £1000s over budget, have tradespeople that let them down, need specialist equipment hauled down a country lane, get pregnant halfway through the work, live in a caravan for several years, decide to have a unique kitchen shipped in from Nova Scotia which then gets lost on a boat, and and have Kevin from Grand Designs wandering round the garden every week shaking his head.

Eventually they'll make £3.50 and declare it 'absolutely worth it'.

The professionals get in, get it done, get out quickly, make a profit and move on to the next project.

Your sold it for a price you were happy with.
The rest is not your business unless you were intentionally deceived by estate agents on price

That’s not quick at all. The house next door to me was sold to developers and it was about 4 months. Auction to sale board going up. They worked round the clock and were annoyed they didn’t get it done more quickly. It had been empty for almost 5 years due to a hideous divorce next door involving the woman fleeing out of nowhere. The guy had actually destroyed some of the house internally, removed the bathroom and kitchen completely. They sold it for double what they paid for at auction, they were chatty and even after costs had still made a huge profit.

This is happening all over the place in my area. Same company buying up old empty houses that are in need of renovation. They do a wonderful job, very quickly and sell the house at double the price. They have a distinctive style and enough cash to get in quick, turn the property around and sell.

I would say 5 months was about right if you have got an experienced team of workmen.

My parents sold our childhood home about 20 years ago, the people who bought it turned it into an amazing property and sold it for double, but it did take a bit longer. My DB was really cross about it (but he is very odd) I just thought good luck to them.

The only thing is they knocked on the door on spec and begged DPs to sell it as they desperately wanted their DCs to go to the local school. In fact DPs were already planning to sell as they were relocating to be near us. They couldn't have cared less what the buyers wanted to do with the house, they just wanted a quick sale, so I did feel it was a bit low of them to tell a totally unnecessary lie.

We had a big two storey extension done on our rather small bungalow (on a big plot), a huge amount of work including knocking out the back wall of the existing building, moving the bathroom plus adding a second bathroom and a cloakroom, moving the kitchen and adding a utility, it took three months and the transformation was amazing. Probably added twice as much value as it cost, but we're not selling. It was always our intention to make the house bigger we really fell in love with the plot initially, but it took quite a long time before we could afford the work.

Before the developer has bought your old home, they will have built up considerable experience. Probably bought properties where they have made mistakes, sold at a loss, just about broke even.
At the level they are at now, they will work with trusted people eg kitchen fitters, plasterers. But from what I know they will have been bumped along the way, left with houses not properly finished, had purchasers pull out.
While it is a huge turnaround in terms of money, it’s possible they have spent 100k or upwards on it.

Doesn’t surprise me, we had a similar experience when we sold MIL’s house - though suspect it was rented out after being done up as it only went on the market recently, a few years after we sold it. They’ve done a great job, including some re-jigging of the upstairs to make it a proper 3 bed (rather than one where the bathroom
is through the bedroom). It’s on the market for about double what the developer paid and fair enough.

I find it a bit unsettling seeing what people do to properties I know well! Even when they’ve done a great job - we sold a flat to a young couple who did a lot of work to it (mostly cosmetic) - looked great but I felt really niggled when I saw the photos for some reason.

Renovating a property can cost 100-200k (and more) depending on where you are. So YABU to think they’d renovate and not mark it up.

But YNBU being shocked at the whole thing. Seeing the family home move on can be upsetting 💐

On top of what others have said, there is no guarantee that the quality finish is anything more than superficial. A PP mentioned the roof of the house they knew of and that seems to be a common issue around here.

Our house had been flipped about a decade before we bought it and we uncovered some serious bodging like a downpipe that was blocked because it just rested on a grill at the bottom and kitchen waste that was supposed to empty into the same drain but just missed completely, soaking the ground. Both discovered under decking that had to be lifted because the supports had rotted.

Sorry to hear you’re being messed about. Ours needed gutting as well.
I hope you get a decent buyer soon.

We were lucky really vis a vis offers. Within 10 days of the property being on the market we had 26 offers to choose from so the house was taken back off the market very quickly.

My sibs & I deliberately chose the offer based on the fact it was from a seasoned developer well known to the estate agent who’d bought several of their properties before. We also chose him as he was a 100 % cash buyer whereas a lot of the other offers weren’t - some had half the money, some in mortgage and some as loan from parents, for example. We wanted to avoid these more complex financial set ups as more scope for something going wrong.

Also as there was some damage to the underlying structure due to flooding we agreed to get the price dropped from £542k to £500k after the buyer pulled out at the higher price - because he seemed overall the most ‘secure’ buyer and we didn’t want to mess around time wise

Blimey I don’t envy you here

Sorry my 13:28 post was aimed at @FrenchandSaunders

A developer won’t want a house that cost 500k sitting around. An 8 month turnaround is pretty slow so they must have carried out a substantial renovation. A substancial renovation would have cost a lot of money, they will no doubt have an army of traders at their disposal which again, cost money.

It’s also more expensive to renovate a house than to build from scratch.

YABU, a 25% profit sounds a lot, but I’m betting it’s not anywhere near that when you take into consideration parts and labours.

you could have done this yourself if you had the disposable cash to pay parts and labour. You could have employed a project manager to manage this on your behalf but I bet you’d struggle to see a massive profit, probably wouldn’t be worth the stress and hassle

Nice to see new life being breathed into your old family home.

I sold my parents house. I got to see it after the new owners had done loads of work. They didn’t extend it but reconfigured it internally and completely renovated. It was wonderful to go back and see it. It didn’t even feel like the same house.

How much were modern, good condition similar properties selling for when you sold yours?

People pay for the convenience. It's much cheaper to buy a run down house, but it's not easy arranging and living around work being carried out for extensive renovations. Out of that price increase a chunk will go on the payment of people doing the work and the items themselves as well as the 5 months of planning/arranging. It sounds about right for the turn around, carpets and decorators don't take long, bathrooms and kitchens usually have a 2-3 month wait, gardening again doesn't take too long. If money isn't an object there's not much reason for a delay longer than the contractors waiting list length.