ProDave Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 24 minutes ago, jack said: This has been a pretty consistent approach from you. Is it a point of principle, or are there financial implications as well? I am downsizing from a 5 bedroom house (currently trading as a B&B) to a 3 bedroom house. I had hoped to release some equity tied up in property in this process (not an unreasonable expectation) to help retirement plans. If it gets to the point that the housing market really is so dire (because nobody wants to move to the Highlands at the moment?) I might VERY begrudgingly swallow the bitter pill and accept I am not going to release any equity, but I WILL NOT EVER pay to downsize, so I will not ever sell the old house for less than the cost of building the new one. It is all a mess and a huge worry at the moment, and I know who I blame but I am not going to keep on about it and launch into my normal rant. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 3 hours ago, ProDave said: I am downsizing from a 5 bedroom house (currently trading as a B&B) to a 3 bedroom house. I had hoped to release some equity tied up in property in this process (not an unreasonable expectation) to help retirement plans. If it gets to the point that the housing market really is so dire (because nobody wants to move to the Highlands at the moment?) I might VERY begrudgingly swallow the bitter pill and accept I am not going to release any equity, but I WILL NOT EVER pay to downsize, so I will not ever sell the old house for less than the cost of building the new one. It is all a mess and a huge worry at the moment, and I know who I blame but I am not going to keep on about it and launch into my normal rant. Please don't take this as a criticism, merely a view formed from reading your posts on here. Whether it is right or (quite probably) wrong, it is based upon what I have read by you. The impression I have is that you do not work in a full time capacity/maximising your income. Therefore you have it within your means to fix this problem of slow progress in the house and put yourself in a position where you are able to decisions that allow you to get on with your life. Now thats out of the way, I'm not sure why you are wedded to the idea that a house should be worth what it cost to build. Surely the biggest proof that this isn't the case is that there isn't a massive building program going on up there. If there was profit available, there would be building and more. also, don't be so down about it. You seem to own 1 and a 1/2 houses outright and yet that makes you angry. Imagine how that sounds to someone without a home? I hope you get over this problem in time (as should we all with the baggage we carry around). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 I have a "plan B" to get the house finished but the funds for that won't be available for another 14 months. I will use that time to slowly progress the build doing the low budget items with what I have. The reason I am "down" about it, is the plan was to downsize with a reasonable expectation of releasing some capital for retirement. If I had know it was likely to cost me money to downsize I simply would not have bothered. But I am now at a point where I simply have no option but carry on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gone West Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 14 hours ago, ProDave said: But I am now at a point where I simply have no option but carry on. I can sympathise with you as understand how you feel. I hope things progress faster for you and you can achieve a sale soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 20 hours ago, daiking said: Now thats out of the way, I'm not sure why you are wedded to the idea that a house should be worth what it cost to build. Surely the biggest proof that this isn't the case is that there isn't a massive building program going on up there. If there was profit available, there would be building and more. The idea that I am "wedded to" is that you should be able to move from a 5 bedroom house, to a 3 bedroom house just 2 doors up the road, so same area etc, and you should be able to release a bit of equity in the process. It certainly should NOT cost you money to downsize. That is the big issue. It's not as though our new house is anything unique or has any expensive features,. and even doing a lot of the work myself (a lot more than I originally intended) I think I will struggle to achieve that financial goal. I have already formed the opinion, if I had just paid a builder to build a complete house ready to move into, then there is no way I would achieve that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 Yes we like all these programmes for entertainment, the problem I have is we are downsizing and err indoors keeps repeating " well ours is modest" which means small, yes comes my reply, that's what downsizing is, also we struggled enough getting planning for our cottage, if it was bigger we may not have got planning. After all there is only the two of us and two spare bedrooms for friends and family to visit. What's not to like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliG Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 The downsizers' money often goes into apartments at high prices. My parents just reserved an apartment 2/3 the size of their house. Someone said that's nice you'll release a couple of hundred thousand. Including stamp duty they will be lucky to release anything at all. The kind of nice apartments downsizers would want to move into in Edinburgh are priced at a large premium to houses. £350-450 a square foot versus maybe £275-325 in similar areas. They did look at an over 50s apartment which was priced absurdly at around £550 a square foot. Indeed, partly reflecting Dave's issue large houses are so difficult to sell, it sometimes feels like they will soon be cheaper than smaller houses. The level where this point is hit is just different in different places. The value of incremental square footage drops dramatically over around 3000 in Edinburgh. Houses seem to be selling well up to around £750K then get incrementally harder above this, partly due to independence worries and partly due to punitive stamp duty. This is why developers seem to want to build nothing but 2 bed apartments. They of course work well for the BTL crowd too. I did have a thought the other day, that currently the market for these apartments is underpinned by equity rich downsizers, but eventually they will have recycled all of their equity and the generation behind them don't have anywhere near the equity. I am sitting in London here at work. My rental contract just came through for renewal. It always makes me look around to see if I should move or buy something. New stuff around here is now up over £1500 a square foot, some approaches £2000. The London market has totally disassociated itself from the rest of the UK, rendering UK wide housing statistics useless. The market is still pretty depressed outside the South East Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
worldwidewebs Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 We were approached a few times to appear on Building The Dream. Would have gone ahead with it too but we were too far down the line to make it worth it. We have agreed to be one of their 'inspirational homes' in the future though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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