Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

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I live on a council estate in Middlesex, and quite recently a very nice person died.

Estate Agents have valued this former council house at - £400.000 Just a three bed house which used to belong to the council

I cannot believe that a house can be sold at this price - absolutely disgusting, just makes me wonder why Estate Agents are rich

Re: Whose ripping off people here
 

It makes me wonder too how an ex-Council house has accrued such value when it should have been retained as public housing stock. It seems it's not only Estate Agents who are on the take....

Re: Whose ripping off people here
 

Are you saying that this house is being put on the market for £400? Do you have a link for...you know...research.....

Re: Whose ripping off people here
 

Is that all?

Middlesex doesn't exist by the way - you're in Hounslow or Richmond upon Thames. I'm guessing you're just on the Hounslow side as in the amazing area you would be in in Richmond, St Margarets, you wouldn't get close to buying a house for £400k. :)

You live in one of the more expensive areas of the most expensive city in the country, and one of the most expensive in the world.

Re: Whose ripping off people here
 

I beg to differ - Middlesex does exist. And secondly, l live on the border of Twickenham and Hounslow.

The A316 runs between us. Near Twickenham rugby ground. Just to prove how posh it is in Twickenham and how snooty they are.

The Tesco store just across the road from me - the name is Tesco Twickenham - but it is in Isleworth. And they didn't want the store under the Isleworth banner.

Whitton now comes under RICHMOND Borough, despite it being in HOUNSLOW, as resident's complained about being under the HOUNSLOW title.

Anyway a house in TWICKENHAM recently sold for 2.5 million

And to finish - it is an ex council house, as l live a couple of doors away. And its price is £400.000

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Mines worth about 90k and is a 3 bed, I can see why now the gov need to crack down on housing if they are buying them up for 400k a time

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

btw, Arthur, it's the seller that makes the money - the Estate Agent only gets a percentage.....

Re: Whose ripping off people here
 

This is the part where I point out that I lived in Twickenham for 4 years, including one address in Whitton, TW2, and as far as I know Whitton was part of the ancient parish of Twickenham and only the very northern part of the area is in Hounslow.

At least, I am pretty sure I was in Richmond upon Thames. I was paying them council tax and as far as I know boundaries weren't changed at any point.

You are I imagine referring to this. Those people live in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, their complaint is that their postcode is TW3 and they are as a result considered part of Hounslow, pushing insurance premiums up, amongst other things.

I'm aware of how 'posh' Twickenham is. I was one of the posh, snooty residents of it. Lived in St Margarets for over 2 years and in the centre of Twickenham, Church Street, for close to 2 more. The yummy mummy force is indeed strong there, though I didn't find most people snooty. Compared with Richmond, Barnes and Mortlake Twickenham is common.

I'm aware of how expensive property is there: the minimum wage, before tax, wouldn't have covered my rent, and I moved 200 miles north before I could own property.

The new build flats in Brewery Wharf cost £500k+. That's the smallest 1 bedroom studios. When you think about that £400k for a decent house not much more than a mile up the road, regardless of whether it's ex-council or not, isn't actually that expensive in the grand scheme.

A house being ex-council doesn't mean it's cheaper and can mean the opposite, councils built some fine houses with large gardens.

As far is who's getting richer out of it? For the most part that'll be the largely baby boomer generation who purchased a while back before London prices went nuts, and some investors.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Middlesex = Mid Saxon
Sussex = South Saxon
Wessex = West Saxon
Essex = East Saxon

For some reason there is no "North Saxon"

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Indeed, though it doesn't change that the county of Middlesex no longer exists and hasn't since 1965.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

I'm not going to argue 'cos I don't know, or care that much.

But I can remember watching programs on Thames Television and the address for correspondence was thames television, teddington lock, middlesex?

And I was wasn't born until 1970?

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Indeed, it seems to live on in addresses even though the county itself doesn't exist :)

I only know because I lived in the area to be honest.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Middlesex was a postal county until 1996, hence correctly used at the time in those addresses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal...United_Kingdom

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

And some places still think it exists.

My local rugby team runs teams in the Herts/Middlesex league: http://www.hmmt.co.uk/

Nice to see I play somewhere that doesn't exist! :)

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Indeed Middlesex University is still going strong.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

IIRC, last year, they had an article in the Standard about a woman who had bought a flat in the seedier part of Soho for (IIRC) less than £80,000 and recently sold the same two bed flat for £2.5m.

Well, following the naming pattern above, the name for it would be Nosex, maybe they thought that name would put the population off?

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Even places like Richmond upon Thames were running at a household earnings to house prices multiplier of around 4.5 historically, relative to the 3.5 nationwide.

Thanks to a combination of Tory liberalisation of the mortgage market, Labour riding the credit boom, and both being completely ignorant of that the Town and County Planning Act is in no way fit for purpose in the 21st century those multipliers are more like 10 times for Richmond upon Thames and 5 times for the rest of the country.

The scarier part is that Richmond upon Thames has as I remember the second highest median household income in the whole of London.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

this is why I have always said council houses should stay as council houses for rent, people now profit from buildings built for helping the poor.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Do you own your home or do you rent? If the former you have a good guide price to the value of your house so quit whining, if the latter then your jealous that you never brought your council home. Rights is rights.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Ex Council houses that I know are now modernised, warm and comfy after loads of money has been spent on them by the people who bought them initially or later. And most who live in them have pride in their homes and gardens. No feral offspring (that I know of) either. House prices have risen for them.

Stand that against the rows and rows of council houses that are being demolished or sold for £1 (especially in the North) because Councils have spent the absolute minimum (if that) on them. And no-one wants to buy them as they are in "rough neighbourhoods" where often the ferals rule.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

and the question has to be asked why are they demolishing houses with a massive waiting list?

Councils do tend to spend more than private landlords, many private rental properties are really bad.

e.g. my sister in her council house the council expanded her kitchen, double glazed the whole building and fitted a new boiler.

My landlord would never do any of that.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

The answer to the question "why are they demolishing them?" is simple - many of the houses being demolished aren't fit for habitation. Many of them are Victorian terraces, in structurally poor condition; many more of them are post-war crud in even poorer condition.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

My property is ex council, the person had it as a council property from the 50's when built, bought it late 80's and till he died a few year ago. I bought it 2 year ago for 90k ish, a 3 bed semi and it was valued at £145k at the time. Others on the street have sold at around the same mark but I have a bit of land with mine too plus its a total opposite to what it was when I bought it.

Reason I bought mine, well built not like the rest of them and in an area where I wanted.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Alferret., I am not whining. I live in a council property. Most of council accomadation is not worth buying, unless you want to spend a lot of money on it.

I have lived in my council house for 28 years, and there is so many problems with it. You would have to knock it down and rebuild it.

Problem is council employ cowboy builders, all they want to do is finish at 3.30 each day. And are not bothered how they repair anything. As no one checks there work.

Good example is that we had a contractor round 17 years ago, drilling up the kitchen floor, placed plastic bags down and then took out the main foundation for the stairs - and 17 years later, the plank of wood that they used to hold the staircase is still there, today.

Some council houses are just too expensive to repair, through years of disrepair.

To be honest, l think the cost of buying a house is far to expensive

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

any house can be fixed.

There is people who have a business of buying run down houses and doing them up, its profitable, I expect its cheaper for council's to fix houses than to keep paying extortionate rents to private landlords for housing benefit claimants. Or to pay for people to stay in b&b's and hotels.

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

On the contrary - there are people who are in the business of buying crumbling houses, "doing them up" and then renting them out, only for the tenants to find the underlying problems have merely been plastered over. Cue lots of documentaries on channel 4 and posts on this forum from people moaning about private sector landlords.

Doubtless some properties could be renovated, but when you have half a dozen streets of terraced houses, some of which may be repairable but others of which would require major structural intervention, it can easily be cheaper to simply bring in the wrecking ball.

Add to that, do we really want to be putting people in thin-walled, high-density housing with inadequate car parking in the 21st century, even if it can be brought back into use?

Re: Crazy Ex Council House market prices!
 

Yeah tenants may not be happy, but there is always new tenants to replace them, people like me end up putting up with it. Since constantly moving is too expensive.