Help with selling

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Thomas22

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Hi,
I need some advise on how best to proceed with the sale of my appartment. We want to start a family and are looking to move to something with a bit more space.

It is a 1 bed located in Dublin city centre. We have the property on the maket for more than 9 months now. Originally the first EA valued the property at €400k but we decided to advertise at €375k in order to generate interest.

Initally, there was quite alot of interest but nothing came of it and no offers were made. After a 3 months we had a meeting with the estate agent and they said that the market had slowed and that if we wanted to sell that we should reduce the price to generate interest. We reluctantly agreed to reduce the asking price to €350k.

3 months after this there was still very little interest so we decided to change estate agents. The new estate agent wanted us to list the apartment at €335k but we just felt that this was too low.

Another 3 months has passed and there has been absolutely no interest. But just last week we had a viewing and the couple put in an offer of €310k!!

We just don't know what to do. I think the offer is way way too low but the wife thinks we should accept it. We have been looking at 4 bed houses but I don't think we will be able to afford it unless we get at least €330k as we haven't much equity in the apartment.

What should we do wait or accept an offer that I know to be well below the value of the house? Please help us!!
 
Nine months is a long time for a citycentre apt to be on the market. I would guess that one bed apts are primarily aimed at FTBs and taking management fees into account, the asking price is high for your target market.

How are other apts selling in your complex? Is yours in a similar condition to those that are selling (if any)?

When you write about its 'worth' or its valuation, at the end of the day its only worth as much as somebody is willing to pay for it. What did you pay for the apt? How much is your current mortgage? Is there a chance if you accept the offer that the house you're looking at will go for a lower than asking price?
 
Thomas22 said:
We just don't know what to do. I think the offer is way way too low but the wife thinks we should accept it. We have been looking at 4 bed houses but I don't think we will be able to afford it unless we get at least €330k as we haven't much equity in the apartment.

What should we do wait or accept an offer that I know to be well below the value of the house? Please help us!!
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The short answer is this-the 'value' of any property is only what someone is willing to pay for it-this could be more, or less, next week, next year etc.

You have had the property on the market for 9 months-how much longer are you prepared to wait?
 
To me this demonstrates that the 'shrewd' BTL brigade is in hiding, and not snapping up 'bargains' as some people would have us believe.

Surely a 1bed city centre apartment at €330k that has fallen €70k in value would be worth an investment if you believed the market was set to rebound.

OP, what is the location of the apartment and current likely rental potential (with reference to similar properties on daft) ?
 
SidTheDweeb said:
Surely a 1bed city centre apartment at €330k that has fallen €70k in value would be worth an investment if you believed the market was set to rebound.
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Therin lies the problem, as you say if an investor doesn't think there is a chance of capital appreciation returning then the yield from this asset would only be around 4% which is hardly enticing
 
Read the Posting Guidelines and repost if you wish, but stay withing the Posting Guidelines.

Brendan
 
SidTheDweeb said:
To me this demonstrates that the 'shrewd' BTL brigade is in hiding, and not snapping up 'bargains' as some people would have us believe.

Surely a 1bed city centre apartment at €330k that has fallen €70k in value would be worth an investment if you believed the market was set to rebound.

OP, what is the location of the apartment and current likely rental potential (with reference to similar properties on daft) ?
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There are some similar properties for rent on daft at just over €1,000.
 
The current bidders are probably expecting you to negotiate. They went in 40K under the current asking price.

Have you put it on www.daft.ie or similar sites and looked at selling it yourself? That would cut out estate agents fees and may generate more interest. The estate agent has probably already put it on the website though so I don't know if thats feasible at this stage.
 
Mabye if you "feel out" sellers of houses you are interested in, let them know you are interested, but as you have a property on the market for 9 months and have had to drop asking price by 90,000 under origional valuation (if your were to accept offer), are they wiling to budge on their price. If you are willing to accept 330,000 instead of 310,000 then they would only have to drop by about 20,000.........
As a new buyer in Ireland (returnrd from U.K) I would be looking at 3/4 bed also but while I have money form sale of house in U.K I have absoutely no intention of even making a "cheeky" offed on a property here, and from looking I have seen a shead load of 3/4 bed sitting on the market for over a year, so mabye they will be more responsive to a more reasonable offer from you thean they would have been 6 months ago.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you can buy your desired home at a lower price they you can sell yours at a lover price also.
Best of luck.
 
I wouldn't accept €310,000 if it is €90,000 below valuation. If the minimum you need is €330,000 then push your EA to write up a decent editorial on your property or ask is he doing any ads such as investor specials etc to create a bit of interest in his office. If you give him a target of €330,000 he should be able to work towards it you are only one bidder away from achieving a reasonable price I would say, so hold on for another 2 months anyway cause the next 3 weeks will be slow regardless
 
I think that is quite expensive for a 1 bed appartment in the city center. In the current market it would want to be quite 'special' to get that price. You can get really decent sized 2 beds in great nick for 350K on Cork St which is city centerish, so I think you are over pricing yourself.

Where is it located?
 
MrMan said:
I wouldn't accept €310,000 if it is €90,000 below valuation. If the minimum you need is €330,000 then push your EA to write up a decent editorial on your property or ask is he doing any ads such as investor specials etc to create a bit of interest in his office. If you give him a target of €330,000 he should be able to work towards it you are only one bidder away from achieving a reasonable price I would say, so hold on for another 2 months anyway cause the next 3 weeks will be slow regardless
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90k below who's valuation - and at what point?

As already mentioned it is only worth what someone is willing to pay now - not what other properties may have acheived a year or 2 ago.

bear in mind by waiting you face the risk of additional central bank rate increases, thereby reducing borrowing power of purchasers. so your 310 offer may drop to 300k.

To move you need €330k - I suggest that you go back to the couple with the €310k offer you have received and state that €330k is the price that will secure. I expect that the 310 offer is speculative, they will expect it to be pushed up.

Paddy
 
newkid30 said:
I think that is quite expensive for a 1 bed appartment in the city center. In the current market it would want to be quite 'special' to get that price. You can get really decent sized 2 beds in great nick for 350K on Cork St which is city centerish, so I think you are over pricing yourself.

Where is it located?
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You've no idea if you are comparing like with like. How long does it take to walk from Cork St to O'Connell Bridge? 30mins? Also I wouldn't consider Cork St to be the best of areas either. Though its improved a lot in recent years.
 
Courage!! You sound demoralised after 9 negative months of falling prices, little real interest and debates about 'undesirable' areas with 'desirable' blocks of apartments smacked into the middle of them!

There will still be buyers for this place even in the most depressed market. People seem to be starting to refine their expectations and the market seems to be a rougher place than it was even a year ago.

It sounds like there could usefully be a reappraisal done at this stage and - given the fact that there's a lot less wriggle-room in a variety of senses - the real, underlying important factors about what this process is about need to come to the fore and be implemented step-by-step, to achieve what is possible rather than what would be nice.

If its felt that the sale is the most important thing above all other objectives, then a cold hard look at the achieveable price today for the apartment is needed. Sounds like the valuations haven't proved very useful - a reasonable asking price can be easily reached by averaging those for equivalent apartments. A price higher than this will have to be justified with something special (extra car space, two balconies, is particularly roomy, is in Temple Bar etc.,) or else it'll have to come down.

Alternatively, waiting till later in the year might be possible in the hope of getting €330k if that interest rate rise doesn't happen in September. Perhaps changing agents again might result in better marketing of the place and a raft of new, loan approved buyers?

After some really bad experiences, I really believe in being quite demanding with EAs - get on their case and ask them to tell you all the reasons why there has not been more interest, what you can do to make your place more sellable/interesting and where/how is it listed? If you think that the EA is unmotivated or does not give you satisfactory answers, have no sympathy!
 
MrMan said:
I wouldn't accept €310,000 if it is €90,000 below valuation.
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Over the past decade people were happy to accept final bids way way over valuations, showing they are just an estimate by an EA. How the tables have turned. Its (current) worth is governed by what someone in willing to pay, which of course could be more or less in a few months
 
aircobra19 said:
You've no idea if you are comparing like with like. How long does it take to walk from Cork St to O'Connell Bridge? 30mins? Also I wouldn't consider Cork St to be the best of areas either. Though its improved a lot in recent years.
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Most places in city center are not nice areas. Parnell St, Pearse St, anywhere on Quays, christchurch, they are ALL rough!!

I did ask where it was located.
 
newkid30 said:
Most places in city center are not nice areas. Parnell St, Pearse St, anywhere on Quays, christchurch, they are ALL rough!!

I did ask where it was located.
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I wouldn't say all places are the same. There are definately better locations around the city, and closer to it, that would be have a higher market value.
 
Over the past decade people were happy to accept final bids way way over valuations, showing they are just an estimate by an EA. How the tables have turned. Its (current) worth is governed by what someone in willing to pay, which of course could be more or less in a few months
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Yes you have highlighted that negative speculation is envogue at the moment, but the simplistic term 'its only worth what people are willing to pay' is over used and under thought. Yes they have offered €310,000, but they may be willing to pay in excess of that. A person should be able to gauge the saleability of their property going by recent (past 6 months) sales and also from speaking to auctioneers. I can only presume that everyone knows that a second hand house is priced as a close estimate to what the vendor should be making and the past decade proved on numerous occassions that the market was moving at a greater rate than most anticipated, hence sale price being way over asking. Back to the OP's dilemma, you only have to read through the threads on making bids etc to see that the advice going out is to bid 10-40% below asking for the simple reason you might get lucky, but if someone is serious about the property I would imagine you will see the bid creep up and like I said earlier the important thing is to get your EA to try and provide another bidder. Like others have said just stay on his case or contact other EA's to see if they have people on their books that would be interested in such properties as your own.
 
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