Bradford and Bingley Buyout
The big news of the last day or so was the collapse of one of the previously ‘safe’ financial institutions in the UK, Bradford and Bingley who have been part bought over by the UK government and partly by the Santander Group of Spain who also bought over The Abbey Group. I personally have savings with them but as mentioned £35,000 of your savings will be guaranteed by the Government. All banks and buildings have a brand which they propigate of safe investment and old grannies depositing their giro every week for decades, but what are actually up to? After Bradford and Bingley, Northern Rock and HBOS who will be next to feel the crunch?
With the fall in the housing market there are many casualties (ie apart from you and me) estate agents are one. With some branches selling only one property a week times are dire. Many are reporting having 50% more properties still up for sale, and profits dramatically down on only 1 year.
Are we pricing our properties too high? While you are more likely to sell by lower the price, the time for a ‘firesale’ has not come. Estate Agents will get a percentage of the sale price usually 1%-2%, which means you dont have to set yourself a time limit. There will be more and more sellers happy to ‘sit’ on a property. Could it be time for estate agents to consider a new way of charging sellers? They could consider charging a flat fee of £750 to £1000 rather than a percentage, which this would cost them it would get more work from clients.
From the boom when over 100,000 properties were sold per month, estate agents are just one group who need to look at themselves more honestly. The average time taken to sell is up from 6 weeks to 14 weeks across the UK.
The changes in Stamp Duty have made no difference, but hopefully wont cost the UK taxpayer too dearly. ‘Single reports’ are another reason to hang on rather than sell up!
You can get an exellent valuation for your property by using House Price Spy, you can get data from the last 8 years with stats to compare to other areas and streets. You can save any results and look at graphs which compare results. We will even email you with new sales and statistics for areas.
Price you property right, and dont undersell it-it has not suddenly become worthless in the space of 6 months! Look at similiar house in similiar areas and what people have been paying rather thanw hat next door payed. This all depends on what your position is and whether you are compelled to move and what your plans for the future are.