Quick house sale options?

[DrUptonsGardenGnome]

FIL has died and MIL is keen to move into a retirement complex close to us. To do this she needs to sell their house. It’s already been on the market for a couple of years, in which time it’s had one offer which then fell through.

The flats in this complex don’t come up all that often but there are a few for sale at the moment. So time is of the essence. In terms of options, this is what I have:

Continue with the open market but reduce the price (FIL was very stubborn about the price but I think MIL is more flexible. It’s just a question of how low she’d have to go.).

Sell to a house buying company (probably for 80-85% of the market value but it would be quick).

Purchase the retirement flat with a Retirement Interest Only mortgage and pay it off as soon as the house sells.

I need to speak to the EA and MIL about option 1 but does anyone have any experience of the other two options? Also if there are others I’ve missed I’d be keen to learn about alternatives.

Beware of those National buying companies. An ex neighbour sold to one at a vastly reduced price. On the day of exchange they dropped their offer by another 8K! She backed out and a lovely young couple of FTB got a bargain.
How about an auction sale?

Auction?

Yes @24Dogcuddler I’ve been reading some real horror stories online. It’d definitely be my last resort.

Have you looked into the local market and had thoughts on why it’s been on sale for so long? One offer in two years is really unusual. Could it be the price? Maybe it needs to be reduced to sell. If not then it should go to auction.

It’s a nice family house that’s only about 10 years old. The problem is that their town has been flooded with literally hundreds of new builds. So there is a huge over-supply in the market. That plus FIL’s refusal to reduce the price. Hopefully MIL will consider dropping it but there’s still the supply problem.

OP, a house is only worth what someone will pay for it. We had to drop the price of my DM’s house by over £100,000 just to get rid of it, and we had had it valued by three different estate agents.

That simple economic truth was something FIL would not accept! Hopefully a price drop will do the trick - the house has already been through several EAs due to its failure to sell at FIL’s preferred price point.

The only issue is price. Reduce it to sensible bargain level and it'll be snapped up.

Also do look into renting the retirement apartment rather than buying. They often become unsellable and the beneficiaries of the will have to keep paying the service charges which can be insanely high.

I'd consider taking it off the market for a short time, then re-list at the new price rather than just dropping the price. That way it will come up on Right Move etc as new on the market. I think it can put some buyers off it looks like a property is hard to sell. It sounds like there's nothing particularly wrong with it, just over priced for the area and the demand.

That’s what I would do.

Sounds like it’s a simple, if disappointing, case of the price being too high. Some people don’t grasp the point that lots of new builds will lower the price of most newish houses in the area.

As PP has said, be wary of buying a McCarthy Stone-type flat, especially if they or similar companies are likely to build newer ones near you in the near future. I know of a case of a brand new one that cost c£200,000 being sold a few years later for about £80,000 as there was no demand for a ‘second hand’ one because of oversupply of brand new ones. That might be an extreme case, but the one near me had one for sale recently for less than they were sold originally for 7/8 years ago. Either rent one or buy an older one.

When we were selling DM’s house after she moved to a care home, my Dbro handled it. We didn’t want it lying empty for months, especially during a winter, so he asked the EA for an honest opinion, not what he thought we wanted to hear.

He said he’d give 3 prices. One, it’d probably take 6 months. Two, more like 2-3.
Three, I’ll sell it in a week.
Dbro opted for 3, and he did.
TBH there wasn’t a vast difference in the prices anyway.

By contrast, relatives who weren’t familiar with the area, had to sell an aunt’s house, for the same reasons.
It was on the market for well over a year - more than one offer was turned down - the price was reduced in little dribs and drabs until it finally sold to someone who’d made a higher offer 6 months previously - and been turned down.

I don’t altogether blame the relatives - they thought they were doing their best for the aunt and her care home fees, but it just goes to show that keen pricing is key.

Do not use the house buying companies.

Relaunch at a realistic price and it will sell.

MIL has decided to reduce the price by a decent amount so hopefully this will do the trick.

Fingers crossed then @DrUptonsGardenGnome. Are the photos all recent and all good? We’ve recently sold a home a the EA want to put a picture of the downstairs loo as one of the first photos. Have no idea why when there were so many more appealing options.

Yes, there are plans to take some new photos although the current ones are actually pretty recent (there was a change of estate agents about eight months ago). I find estate agents’ choices baffling sometimes - our current house had no photos of the lovely original Edwardian tiling or the period Art Nouveau fireplaces but rather a lot of the bedraggled and overgrown garden!

Your estate agent can help you with an online auction. It’s a quick way of selling.

I know this isn’t what yiou asked and good luck selling now the price has been reduced, but I would look carefully in to the finer details of buying a flat in a complex like that. You can get stung if you aren’t careful.

Without sounding mean and sorry for your loss , but your Fil is dead . So why does it matter what his expectations were , drop the price.

Flats in retirement complexes are very difficult to sell. Time is not of the essence as the ones available now will likely still be there in 6 months time and maybe in a year. Also, being blunt, other people there will die. You really need to look hard at your potential to resell in retirement complexes, it will make house selling seem a piece of cake. Lots of other flats on the market now as landlords are selling up so look at other suitable property. Some blocks of flats are largely occupied by the elderly even if not formally retirement property.

All good points - @Jennalong on meeting FIL’s expectations, this was something MIL struggled with. They had quite a traditional marriage and she always deferred to him, whether his decisions were sensible or not (there could be a whole other thread about that!). But she knows that the choice is to stay where she is until the house sells at the price he wanted for it, or do what’s needed to sell it and move close to family. It’s taken a while, but she’s chosen the latter. She’s lonely and the house is too big for her.

@anyolddinosaur you’re absolutely right about the turnover in retirement flats and the re-selling options. It’s a market all of its own. The one she favours isn’t a bells and whistles MacCarthy Stone type place (there are a few of those around us) but a
more homely one run by a non-commercial body. She’s in her 80s and wants the supported/communal living aspect so although there are some very nice non-retirement blocks near us, I don’t think she’ll go for them.

Anyway, fingers crossed the price reduction does the trick and she can start a new chapter of her life.

As they say ‘everything will sell at the right price’. Sounds like you have a solid plan now @DrUptonsGardenGnome. My parents lived in two retirement complex places - one owned and one rented - and really enjoyed the community aspect of both. Plus it’s nearer to you which will really help as she gets older.

One thing to look into / be aware of is the payments on sale if applicable. My parents were independent when they bought theirs and I wasn’t involved. When I helped them sell it I realized that, on top of the monthly service charge, they had to pay 0.5% of the sales price to Firstport for each year they had owned the place. So Firstport took 2.5% of the selling price as they had lived there 5 years. Perhaps a not for profit freeholder doesn’t do this but check. My parents really liked living there so it was worth it but I don’t know if they even knew that they had signed up to that.

In these circumstances I would reduce to a price which attracts a lot of viewings, then you will know it's the right price. Make sure it is spotlessly clean and uncluttered for each viewing so it doesn't shout 'depressing situation with struggling older person'. I t is much more important to get MIL settled somewhere she's happy than to hold out for a higher price which may never materialise. Good luck.

That is a shocking story! Buyers beware.

Another word of warning about retirement complexes. My DF bought a lovely flat, but the regular deaths depressed him. He was the only one left on his floor of the original purchasers. He was lucky to sell and moved to a development of flats and houses with a mixed age group and was much happier as the younger residents really looked out for him. The retirement flats have never gained much in value and the service charge was as much as some mortgages and he had to pay back a percentage of the sale price when he sold. Avoid.

Sell via property auction, ypu can set a minimum price to sell.