What is wrong with this house?

[ButterPiesAreGreat]

Saw this house on Facebook last night.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/160791941#/?channel=RES_BUY

Sent it jokingly to DS as it’s not far (15 mins walk) to our team’s football ground and that was highlighted as its selling point. Then I looked through the pics and realised it’s a hell of a house.

Now the area it borders is not great but it’s not awful and a good mile from the really rough parts of town. It’s well away from the ground with most fans staying well away from the house taking different routes back into the centre. It looks out onto the park so it has a lovely outlook and the road in front is not a through road so doesn’t get loads of traffic. It’s also about a mile from the uni, where there are a few purpose built student accommodation places.

The more I thought about it, the more I was curious about the price because the house is in apparently good condition, even if not all of it is all to my taste. You could easily move straight in.

So I looked back at Zoopla price history and discovered it was listed 3 years ago, for £800K! Then it was listed last December for £650K, then listed again in June for £590K. There’s been 4 reductions of price since then, the latest just last week. It’s not sold any of those times, it was last bought in 2006.

Now I completely get that the area is not completely salubrious, and that interest rates have affected house prices but a 50% reduction in 3 years seems excessive. As it stands now, the owners are selling it for £50K less than they bought it for 20 years ago so they wouldn’t get back what they have clearly put into it.

I can only think that there is something structurally wrong or there is a legal problem of some sort, because if you wanted a 6 bed house in Preston, surely £400K sounds like a bargain. Our house is not much cheaper than that and it’s an OK size in a nice but not super expensive area.

What do you think? What do you think is wrong with this house?

Either - it’s in high rental area/students etc and the only people who want it are landlords and to turn into a HMO and they can’t get the license or there is issues. You can ask the estate agent and if there had been survey’s done they have to tell offers were pulled after survey but they don’t have to tell you why

The front door! The cornices! The fireplaces! It's gorgeous.

I'd live in a shitty area for that.

I wish I hadn’t been born in the South. My whole life is here. Otherwise I’d snap up something like this double quick. I would be mortgage free and at least £200,000 richer (sighs).

Is this your house, can't you sell?
It's a beautiful house, and you wouldn't need to do much (although I'd rip out that hideous kitchen island). Some lovely features, and fantastic proportions. I think it's just been a bit overpriced and maybe people would like a better garden?
Unfortunately, sometimes it's a bit of a waiting game, it'll suit someone, I could see it being good for multigenerational living, which is becoming popular again.

It’s a VERY busy rd a rat run cut through
a lot of these neighbouring houses are HMO’s or flats
the area hasn’t got a great reputation
Council tax band
running costs
business next door
The majority of Ribbleton and PR1 residents are ether Students, the rough end of rentals or Asian
Energy rating

Tbh, I don't think it's even that shitty!

That is a gorgeous house!you get a lot for £400k surprised it hasn’t been snapped up!

Also - an expensive house in a grim area means you’re a burglars dream, I wouldn’t even buy it for £200k (to live there).

The house is lovely, but it looks like a different person chose the furniture for each room!

That shouldn’t affect the sale price though obviously.

It's near to a Pakistani school/mosque, I think it would be perfect for a family, who worship there, perhaps multigenerational, who would like to live nearby.
Hang on, it'll sell!

No, at least there's not acres of depressing grey to paint over.

"It would bother me from a fire safety point of view."

It depends. If it's been built correctly to building regs (and the word if is doing a lot of work here) then it will be fine.

If a basement room doesn't have a window or external door then it needs to have a protected stairway going from the basement to the final exit. Looking at the floorplan of this house that would also mean that the entire ground floor hallway would need to be protected as well and all the doors leading onto it would need to be fire doors.

However, as well as fire protection there also needs to be ventilation. It may be that there is some ventilation through the external wall at the front of the house or they are using some sort of mechanical ventilation. Without one of those then it doesn't meet building regs and can't be advertised as a habitable room.

There's also the issues of the floor having the correct insulation and a dpc and the walls being tanked and insulated.

All in all, I would be quite dubious that everything had been done properly.

It's beautiful inside, but it was massively overpriced initially, and seeing big reductions can make people think there's something wrong.

There are five proper bedrooms with one proper bathroom and two en suite shower rooms; plus a 'bedroom' in the attic and another in the basement, neither with access to a loo/washing facilities on the same floor. One of these must not meet the legal requirements to be called a bedroom, but tbh I don't think either is really usable unless you're desperate.

It would be a shame to HMO it, but the suggested flat conversion could work although they're all a bit poky.

Sorry to quote you twice in a row! But I just had another look at the floorplan. It shows eight "bedrooms" but it is marketed as having six bedrooms.

So, clearly both the bedroom in the basement and the one in the attic do not meet building regs. It could possibly be a death trap if you slept in either of those two bedrooms and there was a fire.

If the current owners are using two rooms as bedrooms without proper building regs I wonder what else they might have done to the house?

I think it's really lovely but it strikes me as a very similar area to one I lived in - big Victorian properties, tree lined streets, but lots divided into flats, HMOs, a reputation for anti social behaviour by people who don't live there.

I think there's quite a low ceiling price as people who could afford 800k for a house would never move there. Same as my old area. A real shame in a lot of ways as that looks like a lovely family home.

I would say even 10 years ago when I was training at the hospital I really wanted one of these houses! I'm shocked at the price.
We always felt safe, loved the area, jogged around that park daily.
I still miss the food at the closest Italian.

It's gorgeous from the outside & some rooms, but my goodness the extension is hideous!

I grew up in Preston and wouldn’t live in this area. If I had a budget of £400k I wouldn’t be buying there…..which is I guess the issue. I’d be in fulwood or further down the A6

What is the average price per square meter / foot on that road and in that suburb? That will give you a good idea.

We've just bought a house that was listed four times with three estate agents in the space of five years, always at prices a lot higher than we eventually paid for it (50% more in one case). It needs work doing but was priced at the same point as other houses on the road that had already been updated and upgraded. So maybe it's just been overpriced until now but after years of wanting to get out the owners have finally decided they're not going to get what they think it's worth.

A bedroom has to have a window, so although cellar might have a bed in it, it is not a bedroom.

https://buildsafe.co.uk/building-regulation-for-windows-in-bedrooms/

The photos a PP posted earlier seem to show serious structural problems. And whatever is going on next door looks industrial rather than domestic. Those two things together would be offputting for most buyers.

Probably something to do with the neighbours.

I grew up in Preston and still have family there

it’s the area.

the roads around the park are super busy and they keep digging them up so lots of roadworks.
Moor Park was dodgy even in my day and it’s not safe now.

not sure on schools catchment.

Fulwood is catchment for better primaries and also broughton grammar.

It’s just off an A road, it’s a semi with a suspicious neighbour and it’s in Preston.

I think it's stunning, so it's most likely location. Just because it seems a nice area in the daytime doesn't mean it's ok 24/7. Alternatively there is some major structural defect which only shows up on survey. Also, and I have had 2 houses very similar to this, they cost a FORTUNE to heat due to the high ceilings and big rooms, maybe the people who could afford to run this house don't want to live in that area.