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Bad neighbourhoods in the UK can be described as such because of several factors, including high crime, poor amenities, failing infrastructure and more. If you’re attempting to sell a leasehold or freehold house, flat or other property in such an area, you might find it difficult. This guide explains why and also offers tips on how to still get a fair and swift offer from a buyer.
- What does it mean to sell a home in a bad area?
- Selling a house in a bad neighbourhood can be difficult
- Are there any reasons buyers would want a home in a bad area?
- Making your property in a bad area appealing to buyers
- Four options to sell your house or flat in a bad neighbourhood
- Top questions and answers about selling a home in a bad area
What does it mean to sell a home in a bad area?
Across the UK you can find neighbourhoods that some may describe as bad areas because of various reasons that lead to a reduced quality of life for residents in that location.
If you are the owner of a house, flat or other type of residential property in a bad area, you could encounter additional barriers to selling that homeowners might not experience in more desirable neighbourhoods without the attributes of bad areas.
As the security website AlfredCamera explains, some of the typical factors that can cause an area to be deemed bad include:
- High crime rate
- Poor infrastructure
- Minimal public transportation options
- Remote location
- Elevated pollution levels
- Abandoned or decaying buildings
- Few employment options
You’ll be trying to sell a freehold home in a bad area if you own the land and the building outright, whereas you’ll be attempting to find a buyer for a leasehold home if you pay the freeholder an annual ground rent and only own the property for a set number of years as noted in the lease agreement.
This guide will walk you through the possible complications that could be involved with trying to sell a home in a bad area. But it also offers useful steps that you can take which might boost your prospects of finding a buyer who will make a competitive and fast offer for your property.
Selling a house in a bad neighbourhood can be difficult
Unfortunately, many prospective buyers will view bad areas with a certain stigma because of whatever negative factors, such as an elevated crime rate, have led to that reputation.
As a result, whatever the reason behind your decision to sell your home in a bad area – and that could be because you inherited the property and don’t want to keep it, you want to move somewhere else, you’re looking to raise funds for retirement or any other situation – it could be complicated.
The explanation for why your neighbourhood might be considered bad will vary on a case-by-case basis, for example whilst crime could be the top concern in one location, the lack of basic public transportation and other infrastructure may be the reason another area is undesirable.
When buyers are trying to find properties, they could refer to recent statistics discussed in the Metro that show the areas in England and Wales that have the highest and lowest levels of crime, and they may only look for homes for sale in low-crime locations.
Therefore, you should be prepared that some buyers might be very interested in your property in terms of its design and features, but they see the location as a dealbreaker.
Understanding this from the outset of trying to sell your house or flat should help in managing your expectations, and also potentially encourage you to consider alternative methods of selling. For example, you could try contacting LDN Properties or another quick home buying company, because these businesses will often make fair and speedy offers to buy properties even in bad neighbourhoods, and they won’t judge the home as having a stigma due to its location.
Are there any reasons buyers would want a home in a bad area?
Although there are several justifications for why a potential buyer might not want to make an offer on your home in a bad area, the property could still be appealing to other buyers.
Some buyers could consider your property to be a good investment opportunity, thinking that they are able to get what they see as a very affordable leasehold or freehold house or flat, with the plan on waiting for several years and hoping that the neighbourhood will improve and become more desirable. At that point, they would try to resell the property at a much higher price than they bought it.
You may also find some buyers that for whatever reason, such as having family living in the area, will place a high priority on finding a property in your neighbourhood, regardless of any negative attributes such as a high crime rate or low quality infrastructure.
Don’t be alarmed that your home will never sell just because it happens to be in an area currently designated as bad, because you always have options for finding a buyer. Later in this guide you’ll see further details on how to go about best attracting swift and fair offers.
Making your property in a bad area appealing to buyers
Although there is nothing you can do to change to the location of your freehold or leasehold house or flat in a bad neighbourhood, you may still be able to make your home more appealing to prospective buyers with various steps that range in terms of cost, time and effort.
Inside your home, there are various tasks that can help in making it appear more valuable. These include removing clutter from all of the rooms and tidying them, because this will make them seem more spacious. If you have pets, you should clean up after them and keep them secured away during viewings, when people who are interested in your home get the chance to tour it.
Outside of the property, you should repair any broken glass, give the window ledges a fresh coat of paint, replace any missing roof tiles and make other fixes that will help to improve the overall appearance. If you have a garden, yard or other green space, you should also mow and weed that, because a home that looks well-maintained from the outside will likely be viewed far more favourably by potential buyers, as the website My Unique Home explains.
Whilst these are relatively low-cost and simple steps, there are also larger-scale changes that you could consider making to your property to enhance its appeal to buyers.
For example, if there is some type of significant structural problem with your house or flat, such as subsidence or extensive damp, you could assess whether you are open to spending the necessary time and money on fixing the issue before selling. Doing so could have the benefit of making your home more appealing to potential buyers, and it would also prevent a situation where they would reduce their offer prices by the expected cost of doing the repair work.
But many homeowners will simply not have the time, funds or willingness to pursue any of the above steps. If you find yourself in this situation, be assured that there are still options for speedily selling your home on a relatively swift timeline and at minimal cost.
One solution, as explained in further detail in this guide’s next section, would be to contact a quick home buyer like LDN Properties, because they have plenty of experience with buying homes in bad areas. And they can often finalise the purchase of most leasehold or freehold properties within just a few short weeks, without charging the seller any commission.
Four options to sell your house or flat in a bad neighbourhood
There are several options available to you when attempting to sell a leasehold or freehold property that is located in a bad area; you could sell to a quick home buyer, sell at a property auction, sell via an estate agent or sell without any third party help.
Each of the four methods have their own advantages, for example you’ll likely be able to finalise the sale of your house or flat within just a handful of weeks if you sell to a quick home buyer like LDN Properties. And some of the options also have prominent drawbacks, like having to pay potentially expensive commission when you sell with an auctioneer or estate agent.
You should note down your main goals with selling, which should include whether you are willing to accept paying any fees, how long you are prepared to wait to find a buyer, and what your preferred selling price might be. Then compared these details against the information about each of the methods below, and this should help with finding the most suitable choice.
Sell to a quick home buyer
Perhaps the fastest way to sell your leasehold or freehold home in a bad area is by contacting a quick buyer like LDN Properties, as they can complete the purchase of almost any property within a handful of weeks, and that includes exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds.
These companies can move so swiftly because they don’t need to wait for many weeks or even months to get approval for a mortgage to pay for the transaction. Instead, they can immediately access the funds for the purchase, resulting in their very fast timeline for buying homes. If a quick sale is your top priority when selling then this could be the ideal option for you.
Honest quick buyers will also commit to never charging owners any commission when buying their properties, which assists you in reducing the overall expenses with selling your home. That compares favourably to selling through an auction or an estate agent, where you will need to pay them fees for finding a buyer for your property, which are taken out of the sale proceeds.
Quick home buyers are also well known for making competitive and fast offers to purchase properties no matter their location, even in bad areas, or despite any other factors that might deter other buyers such as the age, condition, shape, size or type of the home.
By way of example, LDN Properties launched more than 15 years ago and since then it has purchased many homes across the UK. Its long list of properties bought includes not just houses in a bad area, but also properties with a Green Deal loan, homes with a flat roof, houses with council tax arrears, flats with noisy neighbours, properties located close to power lines, homes where the owner can’t find important documents like the title deeds, flats with an absent freeholder, properties with solar panels and a number of other varied scenarios.
Selling this way is incredibly streamlined, no-stress and hassle-free, starting when you get in touch with the quick buyer about selling your home. Within one hour or talking they should be able to make a tentative offer, and then you will have at least a week to think about it.
For those homeowners who accept the initial offer, the quick buyer will then have one of their friendly team members visit your property in order to inspect the interior and exterior before they make a final offer. You will only need to agree this single viewing of your home, compared to the dozen or more viewings you may have to endure when selling through other methods.
If you then agree to the quick buyer’s final offer, they will move speedily to complete all of the required paperwork with your solicitor or other legal representative, with the aim of finalising the purchase of your home within a few short weeks – and remember that this covers every important step, including paying you the full proceeds and the exchange of contracts.
For your additional security, you should ask individual quick buyers if they can prove they are registered with a third party entity known as The Property Ombudsman (TPO), which writes rules to guard homeowners against fraud in the quick buying industry.
It’s fast, free and simple to check whether a company is genuinely registered with TPO; just visit the organisation’s website and click on the “Find a Member” tab located on the left side of the welcome page, and then type in the name of a specific quick buyer. If they are genuinely registered, like LDN Properties, you will next be shown their membership details. If you get no results then the company is not a TPO member and you should consider carefully if you are selling to them.
Sell at a property auction
When you sell your home through an auction, you will pick a reserve price – the lowest value at which you are comfortable selling your home – and then people will have the chance to place bids on the property, hopefully pushing the final price up as they try to outbid each other.
This is far from the speediest way to sell a home, because you’ll have to wait for several weeks or even months from the date that you decide to sell the property and the date on which the auction is held. Then, if your home manages to sell at the auction, the winning top bidder will have about a month to sign their paperwork and finish their other required tasks.
Auctioneers will also charge commission for the work that they do in selling properties, which includes creating a listing that describes the inside and outside of your house and features photographs of it, hosting the auction and overseeing a successful sale of a property. This fee is usually about 2.5 percent of the final sale price, and it’s taken out of the final auction proceeds.
In some cases, auctioneers might be willing to reduce the rate of commission that they will charge you, or make the winning top bidder pay for some of your costs. They could also be open to negotiating a shorter deadline for the buyer to complete their mandatory tasks to finalise the sale of your home, so it’s worth asking auction houses about these possibilities.
Sell via an estate agent
This can be another relatively slow way to sell a home, because it could take many months or even more than a full year before you find a buyer when using an estate agent.
And buyers can always rescind their offers any time up until just before the exchange of contracts, and they won’t face any penalties. This setback could extend the selling timeline by many months because you would have to start over with attempting to find a buyer.
Estate agents will require that you pay them commission for finding a buyer for your property. This fee pays them for their work in creating and advertising the listing, organising viewings, fielding offers and taking one through to completion. You can expect to pay commission with a range of 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of your home’s sale price, or possibly higher.
The commission that estate agents charge will increase your overall selling expenses, because once contracts have been exchanged, the fee will be subtracted from the sale proceeds. If you’re looking to lower costs when selling then you should consider other methods.
Some estate agents might also have never sold a home in your bad area before, which suggests that they could find it hard to generate interest from buyers in your property. It’s worth asking specific estate agents about their experience with selling houses or flats in your neighbourhood, and avoid using the services of those that don’t have this track record.
Sell without any third party help
You could also attempt to sell your freehold or leasehold home in a bad neighbourhood without any assistance, which puts the burden on you to prepare and advertise a listing, schedule viewings and give prospective buyers tours of your flat or house, and hear offers from buyers.
It’s a lot of work and could prove quite stressful and take up a lot of your free time. You should only think about pursuing this method of selling if you have previously sold a home in a bad area, or a friend or family member who has this experience is willing to help you for free. Without this knowledge, if could take more than a year for you to find a buyer.
Selling without the help of an auctioneer or estate agent does have the benefit of not having to pay any commission, which initially will lower your overall selling expenses. But the costs you’ll face in advertising your property could eliminate the saving made by avoiding fees.
An alternative would be to contact LDN Properties or another honest zero-commission quick home buying company, because this will also let you avoid having to pay any fees for the sale of your flat or house. But it would have the additional benefit of a much more rapid selling timeline, as quick buyers usually finalise the purchase of most properties within a few short weeks.
Top queries and answers about selling a house in a bad area
Homeowners thinking of selling their home fast may have some questions for us, ranging from the areas where property can be sold through to selling a home in poor condition. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked about selling a house in a bad area:
Your top questions when selling a house in a bad area
There is no singular definition of what qualifies as a bad neighbourhood in the UK, but there are several factors that can make buying a freehold or leasehold property in certain areas less desirable. These issues include a higher crime rate compared to other locations, poor public transportation links, minimal amenities, being very remote and other factors.
Prospective buyers might have a number of concerns about making an offer on a property that is located in a bad neighbourhood, and they will depend on whatever the specific issue or issues are that has led to the area earning a negative reputation. Unfortunately, some of the factors could be a dealbreaker that make specific buyers lose interest in your home.
Yes, it’s possible that you could find a potential buyer who is interested in making an offer on your leasehold or freehold house or flat in a bad area because they want to live in exactly that location, regardless of it being a bad area. Another category of buyers that may be interested is investors, who will hope the area improves so that they can sell the home at a profit later.
There are certain steps you can take, such as cleaning every room of the home and removing clutter, because this will make the interior appear more spacious and more valuable. Outside of the home, you can do simple repair work like replacing broken glass, and mowing any lawn or other green space, because this will give buyers a better first impression of your property.
Not if you decided to sell the property without any help, or if you sell it to a legitimate zero-commission quick home buying company such as LDN Properties. However, if you opt for selling your home through an auction or using the services of an estate agent then you will have to pay them commission and this will be immediately subtracted from the final sale proceeds.
It depends on the method you choose for selling your leasehold or freehold home, because you can expect to wait at least several months when trying to find a buyer through an auction, estate agent or selling without any assistance. But if you sell to a quick home buying company then you could see the process completed within weeks, and that includes exchanging contracts.
You should ask individual quick home buyers if they are registered with The Property Ombudsman (TPO), which is a third party organization that publishes policies to shield owners from fraud in the quick buying industry. All true TPO members, like LDN Properties, are required to follow these policies, which should give additional peace of mind when selling your home.
