Ask landlord to sell us the house

[WasherWoman25]

Has anyone done this? Pro’s / Con’s etc? How did it all work out?

Landlords - would you consider it?

Roughly how much would you expect to save in fees etc on a c £250k house?

I asked my landlord if he was willing to sell in March and he agreed. He said that a couple of his friends who had rented out properties had already sold .
We had 3 estate agents round to value the house , they all did free valuations, and agreed on a price.
The landlord suggested we used the same solicitor but I had been advised against this due to conflict of interest.
The landlord will obviously save on estate agent fees but as the buyer I think my only saving would be on removals etc as I'm already in the house!
It's all going through at the moment.

I am a landlord and would love for my tenants to buy my house. I would want market value, and as others have said, there isn't really a deal as such as market value is market value.

Friends just bought theirs off their landlord, can't see why there'd be any downside to asking.

The landlord would probably not save on estate agent fees . if you rent through an agency as there is probably a clause that they have to pay a percentage equivalent to estate agent fees to the letting agent if they sell when it is being rented.
So less incentive to sell to you.

The landlord will only save EE fees so £2.5 to £3k. Obviously if house is empty whilst selling he could be more out of pocket.

We did exactly this at the end of last year after living here for 8 years. Always worth an ask!

We offered the tenants a first price before putting it on the market. We let the estate agent give us a market value and then told them that we would accept slightly less than the market value as they had been living there first. Sadly they were not in the position to buy it from us, but we have gone on to let to them again long term.

people we know have gone on to buy from their landlord, and they are very happy. They have a clause that they are not allowed to sell for a few years though, and they have no intention of selling as they are very much at home. It actually makes a lot of sense if the tenants are genuine.

go for it @WasherWoman25!

I inherited a rental property that I'm desperate to sell, and I'd have been delighted if the tenants could have bought it. I never wanted to be a landlord and I hate the responsibility. I also hate that I've just had to give them a no-fault eviction order.

But unfortunately there was no chance of then buying. They've been terrible for not paying their rent, so they're extremely unlikely to have a deposit, or the credit rating to get a mortgage.

No harm in asking, but as others have said, there's no real saving for the LL so I think you can forget getting a good deal.

Your last point is interesting re the commission.

We sold our house to our tenant after a couple of years of her asking. It didn’t save much fees as the agent we used for renting it out took a fee for this, which was in our original rental contract. But it was very hassle free which was nice.

For those that did do it (as a tenant or LL), how did you come up with the price? Thinking three valuations and somewhere in the middle?

Actually @WasherWoman25 that’s a good point - my contract with the letting agent also means I pay them a commission if my tenant buys so there’s no saving at all.

The risk is by mentioning a sale the landlord may well go to higher bidder leaving you still needing to find another property.

Our tenants asked us if they could buy the house… we were delighted. It had been our house and We had only rented it out so we jump on our ideal new house, quickly.
We had upgraded to a bigger house, and in the 4 years of renting out the previous house, it went up in price and we sold it for the same as we bought our new house for. So we upgraded for free, essentially! Didn’t make any money from renting out though.

OP there’s no harm in asking!

He may think that you equally are saving money by not needing to move, so why would.he pass on any discounts?

Nothing wrong with you asking, getting first refusal but negotiating a price is dependent on whether LL wants/needs to sell and how much you really want to buy.

If LL is not overly bothered with selling they'll possibly not be knocking much if anything off of the market value.

We asked, landlord got an online valuation using false info (claimed it was a detached 4 bed with a garden, its a 3 bed terrace with a tiny yard that has mostly been extended over) and the insisted the minimum he would accept was more than the ceiling price of the area despite being the worst house on the street. Bare in mind we know all the maintenance he has not done for the last 15 years.

We are now buying an actual 4 bed end terrace house across the road which is bigger and in way better condition for £25k less than what the landlord wanted for this house.

When we leave he is going to either have to sell for far less than he wanted (about 50k under what he wanted) or do a FULL renovation (estimated around 30k) to bring it up to standard to get a new renter in.

We purchased off our LL last year. He made a hint at wanting to sell, we'd just come into some inheritance so made an offer to buy.

He got it valued, as did we - we ended up biting the bullet & offering £30k less than the value fully expecting to enter into a negotiation. LL accepted our offer with no hesitation as he wanted a smooth, quick sale (so don't be afraid to go in low)

We obviously didn't have the moving fees. He didn't have the EA fees. We've been here 7 years renting so knew some of the issues we were taking on that I think are sometimes hidden when viewing properties - so that was a pro.
We did however continue to pay rent right up to the last day of exchange.

Nothing wrong with asking but I wouldn't expect much of a discount.

Assuming LL will buy another house they'll have additional fees to pay. Biggest downside for them is that they'll need to pay cgt on any gains on the property. It all feels like a downside for the LL unless they had a plan to sell.

We bought from our LL but it was them who wanted to sell. They agreed to a small discount as they were saving on estate agent fees and also no gap between renting it out and selling it, and lower risk of us pulling out last minute or trying to lower the price last minute.
In addition we saved on moving costs + no overlap between paying rent and mortgage.
And they let us keep all the white goods, curtains, lamp etc basically everything that was here stayed.

I sold a property to a tenant a few years ago and sold at 10% off market value as they’d been in there several years and that seems fair looking at the rent they’d paid.

i later discovered they owned several other rental properties in the same development so I think they did well out of the deal with me!

Bear in mind the landlord will have to pay capital gains tax. So unless they want to reduce the number of properties they rent there's no real incentive to sell.

It’s a no from me because of the tax I would have to pay on it’s sale.

Once we are ready to make the offer, we will want to buy regardless, whether it be this house or another one. So that’s not really an issue.

That's not your call though. If the LL is prepared to sell, they get to name the price.