Mikeuk

Although I'm obviously not familiar with this property it sounds to me as if the surveyor is being much too cautious.

Bressumer (note spelling) beams above old shopfronts frequently decay and have to be replaced, but if there is no visible evidence of failure he should either simply draw the possibility to your attention or specify further investigation with work to be carried out only if a serious defect is revealed.

Im not quite sure why he wants the lintols replaced. In a pre 1914 building these would most likely be brick arches which are often prone to slip. Later buildings feature reinforced concrete lintols, where reinforcement can corrode, or soldier brick arches on steel bars - also subject to corrosion. It would be very rare to find that all lintols were immediately in need of replacement.

If your builder states that much of this work is unnecessary and assuming you have not already had the work done I would go to your broker immediately and ask him to approach the lender to ask for the requirements to be reduced accordingly. The lender will pass this documentation to the surveyor for his comments. This happens all the time as I can confirm from personal experience.

If you are paying £90,000 for the property it would be unusual for the surveyor to place a higher value on it in its existing state. Still, given the evidence you hold of a couple of higher bids, it will be worth throwing this into the pot together with your printouts from Rightmove.

Remember that the figures shown on Rightmove are asking prices even where properties have been sold STC, so you will want to phone the agents concerned to check the actual or anticipated sale prices. You can also access free sites such as 'our property' for Land Registry records of sale prices.

It's no good complaining to your broker 'once it is all over'. It will be too late then.

brian pearson

It appears that the central banks decision to release billions to lenders means the credit supply will not dry up just yet. I think you may be right Mike. More credit, more 125% mortgages and more house price inflation.

I wonder if the first bank to take the BOE up on their offer will find a stream of customers outside their branches wanting to withdraw their savings.

Mikeuk

Lenders have caught a cold and are unlikely to repeat these offers in the near future.

A lot of this recklessness has depended on the expectation that prices would rapidly rise to cover 100%+ advances. That expectations has gone and lenders are not going to stick their necks out now.

brian pearson

Seems the markets arent taken in by this latest stunt. FTSE 100 down 3% and hosebuilders all down, some by 10%.

g hall

ALL properties now need HIPS I think this will hit the market a bit, depends how many buy to let bail out because they can't afford it .

Proposal if you have a buy to let you should have to pay business rates


If you have a second personal property you should pay 2 times the tax and 3 if your third personal property

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brian pearson

I reckon if you had put your house on the market six weeks ago and wanted to sell it by the end of January, knocking 10% off what you expected to achieve is about right.

Of course, most will decide their house is worth the ridiculous price it was valued at a few months ago and refuse to sell any lower. A friend whose house has been on the market for 4 months has had one viewing but refuses to lower the price.

Oh no, EA redundancies !

mkpdavies

Am I only only house owner who wants a massive crash? I don't care if my house halves in value. That will be the time I upgrade.

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brian pearson

Nope, you are not alone. Apart from all the economic and social negatives surrounding sky high house price inflation my wife has a friend who loves to tell us all how much money her and hubby are raking in with all their buy to let pwoppertees. It's idiot speculators like them that mean the houseing market is out of control. Childish but I can't wait to see them crash and burn.

Bit like that w****r Morgan on QT last night bragging about how much he has made due to house price inflation. Meanwhile the whole country loses it's head with 125% and six times salary mortgages.

The sooner we all treat houses as places to live rather than a means to get rich quick the better. Then maybe future generations can afford one too.

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Mikeuk

As long as you have no mortgage or a very low mortgage, a price crash could be to your advantage, although you might find a shortage of properties available for upgrading.

Likewise it ought to be of advantage to first-time buyers.

Unfortunately any such crash - which would be a symptom of a more general malaise - would probably be accompanied by negative indicators across the economy, including increased unemployment and shortage of mortgage funds, so in the real world the prospects would be rosy for very few indeed. Multimillionaires with large cash deposits would be laughing, of course.

But I agree that we must get out of the mindset which supposes that a fall in prices is inevitably a bad thing.

It's time that we snapped out of the language which conditions that mindset. One phrase I particularly detest is 'property ladder' with its false implication that nearly everybody is going to spend their lives moving to ever bigger and more expensive homes.

It's a dangerous assumption.

brian pearson

According to Rightmove, London house prices down 6.8 % last month. Probably a lot to do with HIPs but still a big drop.