Does anyone here watch property ladder? They had a property a few weeks ago that I'd actually been to view and put an offer on myself, a classic example of deranged greed from a seller.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-158...=3&tr_t=buy is the property, still on the market now and with another price reduction . . .

Anyway, when I first saw it on the web it was on for 650 that I thought was taking the piss. Then it was reduced to 595, with apparently an offer to pay stamp duty making for an equivalent price of about 570. We turned up and put in an initial tentative offer of 550 equivalent as that's what we thought it was worth (having seen everything else in that area) and that they'd overpriced. Turns out they weren't offering to pay stamp duty and weren't even going to look at offers far off 595. It's then been gradually downgraded and is now on for £560k.

When we saw it they'd blamed their agent for bullishly putting it on at 650 and pretended they'd thought all along it was only worth 595 but had been pressured into it. When I saw the programme, guess what the agents on the programme said? Put it on at 570, expect something in the region of 550. And it was the buyer who ignored all that (and had ignored the very good advice on how to renovate the property, they ******ed that up too and were arrogant and annoying to boot) and put it on for about 100k more than the experts said they should.

I felt pretty vindicated in my view of what it was actually worth. They seem to be struggling to sell as well, I think everyone who's searching in greenwich has already seen it and if you've decided you don't want it at one price it doesn't matter if it comes on again at a lower price, you still don't want it.

Anyway, price drops don't always mean a market's finally crashing, they can just mean that a seller's a complete fool. Conversely, property snake probably doesn't always give the full picture, this is on as only having dropped 6% but they've changed agents so the full drop from their original delusion isn't revealed.

See this link for a previous discussion on the above

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...mp;#entry653440

That's very intersting info you've posted. Goes to show the danger of reading too much into advertised prices. It's the sale price that matter.

Anyway, a pair a greedy f@uckers who deserve to get screwed. If they'd have put it on the market at a sensible price, they'd have quickly walked away with a 6+ figure profit. Now they risk the market turning. Couldn't be more chuffed.

Thanks for the link, thought there'd probably be people on here who'd noticed it.

Greedy ******* too. And they really should have listened to sarah beeny, what she suggested would have been much nicer. Who in this day and age puts back stud walls if you've got a nice through living room on your ground floor?

When we were looking in greenwich anyway most properties were flying off the shelves, sometimes before we could even get photos let alone a viewing, but this one has hung around for ages, the dangers of unrealistic pricing. It was quite a nice house in some ways though, so long as you didn't think about where you were going to put in wardrobes or storage or anything like that. Really annoyed me the way they'd done the kitchen too, they'd ended up with loads of worktop space and a kitchen that looked quite cool but a tiny oven . . . if they'd sacrificed another 5% or so of worktop space and spent another grand on a cool range cooker it'd have been a totally different proposition, but most people would have wanted to rip out their stupid kitchen and nobody likes to feel that they've paid for someone's poor design.

tbh, can't see why anyone would pay £550k for a victorian terrace in a somewhat poorly connected part of London with a tiny garden.

I was under the impression that this property was well located for North Greenwich tube station. But obviously I was wrong about this.

I am surprised that it is still on the market as I wouldve thought they wouldve settled for a lesser amount once the offers started to come in.

No doubt, as the market rises further, their asking price of £560k will eventually be met. The problem for them is that they are paying a mortgage on the property, so every month that the property is not sold, its costing them a fair amount of money.

Oh and to 'bambam's' comment: the original poster did seem to put in an offer of £550k.

It's not that poorly connected, it's close to a dlr and the jubilee line (a lot closer than most places in south east london), right next to a train station, westcombe park is quite a nice area with apparently very good schools and it's about 10-15 minutes walk from Greenwich which is a lovely area. And the garden really isn't small by London standards . . . .

Greenwich and the surrounding area are all pretty expensive unfortunately, why we gave up on living there in the end.

Jubilee line appears to be at North Greenwich, over 2km away???

Can't understand paying the premium for London living if you've got a commute just to get to a tube station.

I think it would be quicker to get to the City from certain parts of Surrey than from here. And you'd certainly get a garden and so on.

I did briefly look at Greenwich, a mews house, at £400k, but I was shocked to find the owners had paid £78k for it in 1995, rather offputting to pay 500% of the price then....

Correct. The Jubilee Line is no where near the Greenwich but you could hop on the DLR and go to Bank or Tower Gateway (or even Stratford, City Airport or N.Woolwich/Beckton) or change at Canary Wharf for the Jubilee Line. Nearest Jubilee Line station to Greenwich south of the river would be Canada Water.

My thoughts are who the **** would pay 650 for THAT its a LOT of money. you could buy an entire village in some parts of the world for that.....

Now I'm no expert on Greenwich, but looking at the map, that particular house appears to be 1.5 miles from the nearest DLR station (Cutty Sark).

So it's not exactly a hop????

If it was near the bustling bit of Greenwich where Greenwich DLR is, I could understand it a bit better. As it is, not.

Well looking at the map it can only be a 15/20 minute walk from Greenwich DLR and a 5/10 minute walk from Westcombe Park Railway Station which will have regular services into Charring Cross I suspect.

A 20 minutes walk in estate agents terms perhaps.

1.5 miles is twice as far as most people would want to walk every day....

A 5-10 minute walk to the station would fine. However, when you are paying £560k for a property, you would want it to deliver on pretty much all fronts - proximity to ALL amenities, size, style, finish - the works. A 15-20 minute walk to the station, is plain ridiculous at that price.

Where I live in Harrow, £550k buys you a lot of property - a 5 minute walk to the station and a train ride of 22mins into Baker St. You are also well located for pubs, bars, cinemas, supermarkets, shopping centres, etc. Its a no-brainer.

I think the sort of person who buys that property would want it for its central(ish) location and postcode.

In saying all of the above, im pretty sure it will sell, as the market rises or they decide to lower the price. Some people are just too greedy and pig-headed.

Anyone buying it would be planning on commuting from westcombe park I'd imagine, only a two minute walk from the house and regular services to london bridge & charing cross. It is probably a 25 minute walk from the dlr & restaurants or the jubilee line though, so not hugely well located for transport links. This is south east london though, being able to get to a dlr and a tube line at all is significantly better than average.

Still glad I didn't buy it though, I was really keen to live in Greenwich but it would have been bloody awkward.

Is this that house? Still on - another 10k off

http://www.conran.uk.com/detail.asp?propcode=CRGS_00577

Why pay that much, its way over the top.
There are much cheaper properties just over the water on the Isle of dogs.

Yeah, that's the one . . . I'm taking great pleasure in their failure I have to say, they'd been so lucky to have bought it when the market was low and have it ready to sell when the market was peaking and if they'd just put it on at a realistic price when the market was going crazy they'd have been sorted.

NO storage at all. NONE. And a shit kitchen as well I have to say, which really annoyed me, small cooker and small fridge even though they could easily have fitted in something decent.

Talk about chsing the market down! It's now at £549,950!

I hate the way Property Ladder works out what a person paid to complete the renovation, asks an EA for a valuation then says the difference is profit. This series they are being a bit more catreful - saying IF you sell at the EA valuation you'll make £XXXXXX, but they then go on to talk as if it is money in the bank!

I hope this stays on the market for ages!

Well of course high flying executives don't need storage because they are minimalist and don't need a proper kitchen because they are too busy to cook. That was the justification behind all the shoebox luxury apartments with open plan living areas.

Who actually lives like that?...especially in Westcombe Park

Ms Beeny is also now saying 'Gross' profit not just 'profit' the two can be very different numbers. Many properties shown on Property Ladder are still on the market. The Lady ex dentist asking £825k (reduced to £799k) for the detached house in Poole, is now trying to rent if by the room for £650 a month 14? months after the show said she was rich!!!

Looking at sale prices in that road, no house has ever sold on that street over £500K.

One sold this summer for £495,000, last year they were changing hands at a bit over £300,000. This looks nothing special, if these are greedy people as has been suggested I bet it ends up selling as a repo for not much over £200K because every offer they get on the way down they will reject.

Remember this monstrosity from crappy part of Chiswick on Property Ladder a few weeks ago, developed by the Saffer and husband. It's been on since the summer.

http://www.findaproperty.com/displayprop.a...p;agentid=03068

If I remember right they had EA quotes around £900k to £1.1 mil (average was less than a million). Greedy feckers stuck it on at £1.3 mil. Those tactics may have worked 6 months ago when the market was chasing up the price, but certainly not now.

One guy said he'd be interested in it at around £900k, which seemed to reflect the properties value in the summer, and near what a couple of agents had valued it at. They should have sold it at this price and made a respectable profit while the market was buoyant.

Now, based on what I saw on the telly from the people who viewed the property and what happened to the market to date, the going to have to cut the asking price by well over £500k (and at a loss) to sell.

I'm going to keep an eye on it as the price tumbles. They could go bankrupt on this one, as it's in a really sh1tty part of Chiswick, that is the first to go when the propert market turns.

This couple are the most money grabbing in PL history. The women wanted to make an obscene profit because she had had to live through the property's year long renovation! Greedy cow. Another one I hope stays on the market for ages.

The thing is once it has been on PL everyone knows what they paid for it, etc., and how greedy they are being.

Also the cracks that appeared in the original house. And the damp in the new basement. Both could come back to haunt any buyer.

Any other links to PL properties still unsold?

Interesting - link on the Property Ladder site to a poll:

Is now a good time to invest in property?

Current score:

Yes 44%
No 56%

Some other info on the street - it's right near a roundabout that gets horribly snarled up so in rush hour there's traffic backed up down the street, and there's a police station on the street as well that I'd imagine contributes a fair bit of noise. It is close to a train station for getting to London Bridge and there's a good primary school in the area but nothing else is closer than a 15 minute walk.

I agree, the only decent thing about westcombe park is that there's good schools and parks and a nice family area feel to it, if it's got so little storage that you can't have a family it's completely pointless.

The renovaters were gay by the way, so they might have missed that. Then again I'd have thought gay people would have loads of clothes, how dare they not conform to stereotypes.

What was purchase price and renovation costs?

What's required is for someone to take a bath on a large renovation like this, and then have the outcome revisted by Beeny on the PL show.

IIRC
Bought 395
Costs estimated 210 actual 450

So they needed around 850 to turn a profit of any sort.

It was alright though, because they borrowed from his grandmother (nice people). I might be wrong on that (and the figures TBH).

They could well be taking a "bath" on this as she didn't seem very nice (understatement) and the fact that she was on the telly in all her vile glory isn't going to be working in their favour.

My prediction is they will not sell this for 5 years and will probably rent it out to save face before finally capitulating at the bottom and selling for 450.

Of course when it goes on the Land Reg it will show how prices have increased in that time.

Just found it on the PL web site:

North Greenwich, London
Bought for: £280,000
Renovation Budget: £80,000
Actual Spend: £120,000
Valuation: £575,000
Potential Profit: £175,000

That means they have owned it for two years now, so interest dunno £18K(?). let's say has to be added on.

I can't see they have really done a lot more than tart it up with expensive tat which the next owner probably won't like and will chuck away. Bet they never recover their costs including interest, fees and expenses.

It's not actually Chiswick though is it. Chiswick Village is actually just the name of a street in Hounslow, in the same way that Oxford St isn't in Oxford.

HMO then!
Wonder how much that cost her/if she's done it legally.

If their total outlay was 400K, then in real terms they are lossing 6% of that sum per annum, not just the mortgage interest repayments. The reason being that the full sum could be invested elsewhere, easily achieving that rate, so in my book that would be a cost of around 48K in two years.

I think one of them went part time on his job to project manage it as well. THey're still ridiculously greedy bastards, putting in on for 650 when they were told 575.

I hope they regret it now.

I watched that programme on E4 last week and thought they were greedy b*stards also. I am really pleased to find this thread. Any updates, please tell me it still hasn't sold.

It hasn't indeed Down to 549

In fact it's effectively down to about 528 asking as they're offering to pay the stamp duty.

Idiots. Bloody idiots. If they'd done what Sarah Beeny told them to do it would have been a nicer house, if they'd listed at the 575k the agents told them to and been flexible they'd have sold. Nice to see pure greed getting its comeuppance.

NO storage space. A new kitchen that had been done up to a high standard but had just the one tiny oven, on a family home where most people would want at least a double oven (and it had space for a range if they'd been sensible). TOtal idiots.

After all this time has passed, the house still isnt sold. This is shocking for London. The developers themselves must know that if a London property isnt shifting quickly, then their pricing is totally wrong. I'm surprised that they still havent picked up on this. Meanwhile every month that goes by, they will need to pay the interest on their loan they would've used to pay for this house. They must surely be losing money on this, on a monthly basis. OR perhaps they are living in the property or have let it out until it gets sold, hence are not in a hurry to sell?

I don't even know that the current pricing is that wrong. I think if you get the price badly wrong to start with then you lose all the potential buyers whatever the price drop, once someone's seen somewhere and written it off that's it, even if they've largely written it off because of price. Psychologically I think that when you decide that you can't afford somewhere you go overboard on seeing all the negatives just to make yourself feel that you never wanted it in the first palce.

Plus they've just screwed up the design completely, it's a family home in a pretty suburban area whose main appeal is that it is a nice place to bring up kids (plenty of other families, local green spaces, primary schools etc). But they've left it with no storage, no room to add storage, and a kitchen that's obviously newly done and expensive but that anyone wanting a family kitchen would have to rip out. Without wanting to sound prejudiced, it was a gay couple who designed it and they put in all kinds of stuff like in ceiling speakers and modern design but totally overlooked what a young family would want for their home, and in that location it'd only ever be a family home really.

As you say Benedict, real price is £527,040 IF they get full asking (no chance!). To miss out on £175k in a market that was so buouyant is incredible, but hey, some people are just so greedy.

Add to that the 6% on the £400k investment, £48k, loss of earnings if they did go to part time working as well as insurances and council taxes and CGT and the proposition is a mile from the £175k.

Idiots from Chiswick is repeating on More4 now (I think this is one of the worst). Does anyone know the latest on that one?

nortth greenwich.............oh joy.they were smug

as for chiswick,they must have taken it off the market.with a view to finding some willing muppets during the spring bounce......ahahahahahahahnahna

and is it me or has this last series been the shortest ever.seems like two months which included many repeatsd

au contraire

http://www.findaproperty.com/displayprop.a...p;agentid=03068

I cant believe that these people are happy to continue waiting for a huge offer, rather than getting realistic and reducing the asking price. All the while that the property stays unsold, they are probably living in it and making it look older. This will mean that the house loses its sheen and probably loses value and looks less attractive. On top of which they are probably paying a massive mortgage on the place, while they wait for its sale.

If they were smart, they wouldve attempted a sale price of say £1.1M and accepted a price of around £950k.

When your newly refurbished property in London is not selling for weeks on end, you know that something about it isnt right and for the most part this can be solved (and be made more attractive) by lowering the price.

Do these property developers not understand this or have I got it wrong?

When I was buying a place in London in Nov/Dec 2005, the London market was moving fast. Thats just how London is. You have to be quick. Generally, if a property in London is correctly priced, then it will sell quickly. And by quickly I'm talking 10-14 days.

Thanks Benedict for the update. The old links are not working anymore. I don't normally take pleasure in peoples mistakes but I will make an exception on this one and the one in Chishwick (hopefully) and all other greedy speculators

Other PL houses still up for sale & no price change:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-174...=1&tr_t=buy

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-173...=3&tr_t=buy

nice find bobbins,cheers for that

I don't know, I think newly refurbished properties have problems all of their own. Whatever the asking price, people will always assume that the asking price is at least 10% higher than it should be because it's been recently refurbished, and if it's not to their tastes will feel annoyed at being asked to pay for it. And will feel bad about ripping everything out and starting again.

Anyone who refurbishes a house and gets it badly wrong for the area, exterior and target market is screwed IMO because everyone's going to feel they're better off either buying something that they do like or a wreck that they can redo from scratch.

'Anyone who refurbishes a house and gets it badly wrong for the area, exterior and target market is screwed IMO because everyone's going to feel they're better off either buying something that they do like or a wreck that they can redo from scratch. '

and that pretty mcuh sums up a lot of these beeny wannabees.too much emotion and not enough business sense.The marekt will burn them

A bit off topic, but I saw the Property Ladder the Chiswick house on More4 last night. Valuations were £825k, £900k and £1.1m. They put it on for £1.3m. I don't know how old the program was (they always put the date on for about 2 milliseconds) but would be interested to see what happened in the end.

Anyone know the story?

Now on with Foxtons, same price. (funny that agents they've used havent posted on Rightmove)

http://www.foxtons.co.uk/search?keyword_ty...mit_type=search