Originally Posted by
walkerwek1958
I’m in a property quandary too.
I’m trying to buy a 3 bed detached bungalow locally. It’s a bereavement sale, initially we dealt with the deceased’s brother who was awaiting probate. A deal was struck last October, my plan was to buy the bungalow before selling my house, renovating it and adding an extension with a view to moving in around Q3 and selling my house before winter. This was always an ambitious plan with potential to become more costly than I’d like, but I think it would’ve worked. Without the virus issues I expected prices to rise over Q1/Q2, thus allowing me to sell my current house at a stronger price than I was paying on the bungalow.
The deal hit the rocks in January, turns out the deceased’s former partner has his name on the deeds. I gather their relationship was a bit on/off, he didn’t live with her constantly and he moved out after her death. The brother, with whom we agreed the sale, has inherited the majority share in the bungalow but his name isn’t on the deeds so he can’t sell it. Both parties are at loggerheads with a court battle looming, I’ve tried to deal with the partner but he’s stonewalled me.
On the one hand I may have dodged a financial bullet; if prices drop (which I expect) I would've ended up selling mine in a weakened market. I would almost certainly have ended up owning 2 properties for longer than planned. On the other hand, the bungalow is exactly what we want and finding another in this area will be difficult. On that basis I’m prepared to still go ahead but I want to see how the market adjusts first, the price I offered last October may now be too high, but with bungalows in such short supply I suspect I’ll have to accept that I’m paying a bit too much. That’s the dilemma, if prices drop by 15% I’ll be around £40K down, that’s not far off the figure I had in mind to do the extension and work on the bungalow!
A good crystal ball would be helpful. Until some deals have been completed we won’t know where the market is. There’s a risk of a short- term flourish due to pent- up demand, it may be Q1 2021 before a clear picture emerges and I fear it won’t be pretty.