Massive decision - To sell or not to sell

daveg

Myself and my GF built a house 3 years ago. Her uncle is a building contractor and built the house for us. At the time we paid £25K for the site and £115K for the building of the house. Since that time we have put in approx E10K landscaping the gardens and finishing the house (house is completely finished - painted etc). Our total morgage on the property is E160K.

Out of curiosity we had the house valued last year. Valuation came to E300K.

We decided our long term plan would be to buy another site and build again selling our current house during the process (ideally when the new house is built but finances may dictate we sell before 2nd house is built).

We have drifted along for the past year ringing about sites in our area as they have come up. Yesterday I saw a for sale notice on a very desirable site in our area (FPP for a dormer). I rang about a site in the same area 2 months ago and the site was E130K (is now sold). The guy selling the site said he had an offer on E90K on the site but would sell it straight away if he had an offer of E95K. Maybe he is bullshíting but as I say even at E95K it's a steal.

So now the decision has to be made and before this weekend :eek:
He said he would not move on the 90K offer until the weekend.

I've checked with the planning dept and they are confident planning would be given for a 2 story as there are several 2 stories on the same stretch.

Should we go for it? What should we check out in the very limited time we have?

Imposter

I think it's a decision you and your girlfriend will have to make for yourselves.
Are you both happy in the current house?
Do you think it could be sold for 300k? Within whatever timeframe you have?
How much would it cost to build the new house (basically will your current debt be drastically reduced or not)?

daveg

Imposter wrote:

I think it's a decision you and your girlfriend will have to make for yourselves.
Are you both happy in the current house?
Do you think it could be sold for 300k? Within whatever timeframe you have?
How much would it cost to build the new house (basically will your current debt be drastically reduced or not)?

We are both happy but we could build litrally the same house again and have approx 50K left over. We would use this money to fully finish off the grounds (boundary wall - plant trees around the boundary - tarmacadum etc). We also want to build a slightly different design, with an attic converted and a slightly bigger house. Even if we pump the 50K back into the house the value would higher than our current house.

Victor

Yes, big decision. You might want to talk to an accountant, because you will need to factor in things like stamp duty, possibly VAT, mortgage interest relief and so on.

The default and "safe" position would be to not do anything.

seamus

Also consider if you would be happy with the existing dormer, should the council not allow you to stick a second storey on it.

daveg

We had an auctioneer out yesterday and he confirmed the value of current house. I then spoke to our building contractor (GF uncle) and he advised to go for it.

I'm taking a trip to the planning office tomorrow to discuss the possibility of building a 2 story instead of a dormer (Seamus - our hearts are set on a 2 story). If the planning office goes well tomorrow we will go ahead and buy the site. Other things I've to check are planning contributions on the site which could be as high as E7,500K.