OTish - finding speculative builders for modernising a property.

[The Night Tripper]

Hi All my siblings and I are dealing with my late Father's estate, which includes selling on the family home.

This is a largeish house with a fairly large garden, in decent condition but in need of modernising. We'd all quite like to do this modernising work ourselfs, but realistically it isn't going to happen.

I think the most likely buyer would be a building firm who would modernise it and sell it on at a higher price. Given that, I was wondering whether the standard estate agent route would be the best channel to try to sell it.

Are there other places such a firm of speculative builders might look? Or are there ways in which we could find and approach such firms, to cut out pointless advertising on the High Street?

Thanks for any suggestions. The house is in the North-West BTW.

Jon N

[Andy Burns]

Apply to demolish the original house and cram several rabbit hutches into the former garden ...

[Adrian]

The Night Tripper gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Yeh, right. I'm with "demolish and build several".

Yep. They work with developers, so if a suitable property pops up, they'll point them to it. Open up your pool of potential buyers, and there's only one way the price'll go.

[The Night Tripper]

FWIW 'fairly large garden' doesn't mean 'large enough to build several houses on'! It's around 1/4 acre IIRC - with a large lawn and a vegetable/'orchard' plot at the top.

J

[Adrian]

The Night Tripper gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

You're not familiar with modern residential development techniques, are you?

I start the bidding at five "executive homes".

[tim....]

I think you failed to notice "It's in the North-West".

The bottom has completely fallen out of the new build executive market in that area.

tim

[Dave Liquorice]

The OP doesn't state it's detached. Might be a bit tricky with a semi...

These days a "largeish house with a fairly large garden" would be

30's semi built on the standard at that time 10 x 50 yard plot.

[Owain]

Still possible to fit about 5 'mews' flats in the garden.

Owain

[GB]

A spec builder won't offer you much. You are usually far better off - ie you'll get more money - selling to an end user.

The correct equation for wehat it's worth is of course: (what the house is worth done up) LESS (cost of doing up)

The end-user equation is: (this is a great price for the road, we'd never be able to afford it in good condition) less (it's liveable-in and we can do it up ourselves over a period of time for not much money). The end users will therefore normally comfortably outbid the builders.

That all assumes there's no major development potential, ofc.

[Andy Dingley]

Which North West are we talking about? The one that's a silver BMW- commute from Manchester, or the bit beyond that, where the poor people live?

I've got 3/4 acre up there and every intention of keeping it as an attractive bungalow with nice gardens. However the financial attractions of turning it over to new-build chickenhouses are still very, very viable.

[Andy Dingley]

That realism is difficult to arrive at, but I think you're very wise to recognise this.

However where do you all live, relative to the house? Given my past experience with larger building projects, I'm not doing anything that involves contractors where I'm too far away to keep a careful and very frequent eye on it.

[tim....]

Which North West are we talking about? The one that's a silver BMW- commute from Manchester, or the bit beyond that, where the poor people live?

I've got 3/4 acre up there and every intention of keeping it as an attractive bungalow with nice gardens. However the financial attractions of turning it over to new-build chickenhouses are still very, very viable.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The bit where the poor people live.

If you have a nice property in Cheshire, you don't need to knock it down and turn it into flats to make a killing

tim

[The Night Tripper]

FWIW we're talking about 'the bit beyond' Cheshire ... Preston area to be precise.

And we siblings are a bit scattered ... from close by, to me on the South coast, to a brother in France. The D-I-Y option reeally isn't going to happen, I'm afraid.

The house is semi-detached BTW. I'm really not expecting anyone to want to do development of the order people are talking about here, just 'upgrading' to 'modern' standards. Though obviously it's not of my choice...

Thanks for all the comments.

J^n

[geoff]

In message , The Night Tripper writes

I'll give you ten quid for it

[Man at B&Q]

1. Don't be so anal about who you sell it to.
2. Stick a big sign in the graden saying "For Sale - development opportunity".

Or, 3. Just go through an estate agent. If such a builder exists they will have their ears to the ground.

MBQ

[GB]

What makes you think it won't sell to an end user? I think you are making a very big mistake ruling that out.

As an example, I sold my late aunt's house for £250k on behalf of her estate. The house next door, which was in excellent condition, had just sold for £270k. My aunt's house needed around £50-70k spent on it to bring it up to the same condition, as literally no money had been spent on the place since 1945. So, a speculative builder would probably have offered us around £200k. There were several keen buyers at £250k, and the new owner has been steadily DIY'ing the place ever since he bought it. A win-win situation for all concerned.

[Skipweasel]

A friend and I are looking for just such a house - though not in that area nor at that price range.

[The Night Tripper]

What makes you think I'm ruling out selling to an end user? My OP talked about 'wondering...'

J^n