Has this house not been with Foxtons for almost 1 year?

Not quite a year but certainly more than 6 months. It’s with every other agent in the areas as well. Lovely house but about 30 grand overpriced if we look at recent sales of houses in the immediate area of a similar calibre.

strange because the pix look like a developer has simply fixed it up and you'd think they'd want to sell and get out from under their financing. [/i]

the house on Bovil is overvalued

We have a 3 bed with a side return on Garthorne and no expense spared refurb and I know it's worth £450k. We plan on adding two more doubles (one with on suite) through a loft conversion, marketing it as a 4 bed with study

It will be worth between £500 and £530k in today' weak market, rising to to £550k+ once the housing bubble starts to develop again in around 2-3 years

Agreed, it's a 4 bed with loft to be fair, but a property with a better loft conversion was sold for 585 on the same road recently. If priced appropriately it would have sold months ago - I've viewed the place and the developers have done a top notch job. Maybe that's the problem - did they spend beyond the realms of profitable roi and NEED to get that price?

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but the house did sell and records are now available. It went for £600,000. A beautiful house indeed.

well that is very encouraging! We start work on our loft conversion in a couple of weeks and it is very good to hear much top end 4/5 beds are going for.

With the HOP parade starting to improve as well, things are looking up for house owners

This kind of news maybe good news for current homeowners but for people like me who are not yet on the housing ladder, it makes my heart sink.

It's now almost absolutely impossible to buy without a sudden windfall like inheritance etc.

Who have you chosen for your conversion southlondoner? It's something I'm planning in the future.

wow, i'm amazed by this price. It's one of the nicer streets, I think, but surely the loft alone shouldn't add £100k plus compared with unconverted properties? As i recall it had been stripped of its period features too.

The finish in every room was immaculate, the kitchen diner was knocked through to create a massive room (a very expensive job) and they made an extra bathroom downstairs. I'm not saying I'd pay 600k but people will pay a premium for a property where every potential has been exploited, as it was here. Plus the period features were gone pre development.

we have gone with nuspace of Fulham, found them in se23 magazine. Price was good and they are a small, attentive outfit.

We have done exactly the same thing with our kitchen and did the same side return extension last year, very happy and if i dont say so myself, ours is nicer than the one in the Bovil property IMO

Wow, I'd love to see what the side extension looks like. 26 Bovil didn't actually have that, so when your loft is done (I assume it will be a one with a dormer) your place would go for what... £650k?

we are doing what they call a dog leg dormer so we get a large double bedroom with on suite and a second smaller double

We were told not to market the property as a 5 bed however which i think they did with that property too.

I dont feel the property would be worth more than £550k in the current market and the Bovil road houses are slightly bigger. However on Garthorne we have the nature reserve (if you live on the correct side of the road), and the gardens are a decent size

I will PM you a photo of the kitchen i dont feel comfortable posting here

I'd love a PMed picture, thanks!

I think the Bovill houses do attract a premium because of their ideal distance from both the train tracks and the main road - and they are large as you say.

I was told by the agent that for that particular house they were not allowed to market it as a 5 bed because the staircase was not within regulations for habitation, for that reason it was called just a "loft space" in the descriptions. If you have a proper staircase installed with your dormer there is no reason not to market it as another bedroom.

It really depends what you call immaculate and certainly a matter of opinion. It looked just typical property developer - devoid of any period features and with a Howdens style kitchen. Very beige and typically boring IMO. Ive seen much nicer lived in properties frankly.

I'm not convinced that a banks surveyor would have valued at this high price so the seller may have got lucky finding somebody whos main concern wasn't value.

It doesn't mean all other similar properties will sell for the same price especially if the buyers are relying on a mortgage to fund the purchase.

I have a chartered surveyor friend and he's quite sure a bank surveyor wouldn't value a property like this at the value it sold for.

The bottom line is it doesn't matter what anyone - including one or two banks' valuers or chartered surveyors - think about a house, it will sell for whatever the buyer is prepared and able to spend and sacrifice to get it.

This is clearly a house that offered something a little different to the norm for the area (even though it's been done to death in the more affluent parts of London).

I say well done to the seller and best wishes to the buyer.

well said - i think the seller clearly was the winner here!

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On a serious point given transport, relatively low crime, good schools its not that surprising given the current london market which is plain crazy.

We need to put the HOP house prices in context of the rest of london particularly zone 3/2 where it still under valued.

Whether or not a house is worth 600k it is worth benchmarking the house against other similar london areas which you will find it will come out favourable against. Its times we live in and given that this area & wider area still has major infrastructure changes (shard, ell2, thameslink, bakerloo etc) i only see the value you going up as many other desired places have hit their infrastructure peak!

Dont worry though dominoes bank will keep the area in check ;-)

I disagree anotherjohn.

Just because one property sells at a certain price does not mean it sets a benchmark for the area in anyway.

I agree that a property is worth what a person is prepared to pay, but providing that person has the means to pay.

Unfortunately for most sellers their buyers are prepared to pay a certain amount until the lender who is financing the move says its worth less. The deal invariably falls downs at this point.

Therefore the fact that most people buying in HOP and SE23 will require a mortgage will mean that the pricing benchmarking is still likely to be set by banks and their surveyors. Its still quite unusual to have sales complete where the buyer is paying significantly more than the valuation set by any financing source.

This seller - if a genuine sale, did extremely well. Developers have various methods of wrapping incentives in their sale to encourage buyers, still even in these difficult borrowing times. If you can still get a buyer to pay more than a property is valued at, then the person buying must have REALLY wanted it.

As for offering something different. If a character house stripped of all of all its original character is your thing, then great. It certainly isn't mine however we all have our own tastes.

I'm not sure I would agree it offered anything different from a couple of additional bedrooms from the many developer refurbishment projects you see daily on Rightmove, except it was a reasonably large house rather than the norm of a 2 bedroom flat.