Balham | Phil Spencer: Secret Agent | BBC Documentary

the property boom's well and truly over and some might say the smartest move would be to stay put and enjoy the homes that we have but what happens when that's just not possible we're either going to sell it or i guess my mortgage provider will come and take it from me we've got a little oliver here and we've got another one on the way so basically we're running out of space with record levels of unsold properties sitting in agents windows right across the country something has to be done to get the market moving every day i'll be making it my mission to get an offer on a house that's not selling even though we know we need to sell it we've just given up so we've just lost her and to make sure i know exactly what's been going wrong i'm going undercover if they don't know i'm their secret agent hello fox exposing unsold houses dirty little secrets it's scarcely presented well is it with pants on display secretly rewriting the property particulars is what i like to call the brutal truth and confronting some very unsuspecting owners with the hard facts when you're selling your house it's just not good enough don't look horrified it's just knackered it is so huge [Laughter] today my top secret mission is a top floor flat where everything's a little bit blokey and it's very clearly a bloke's pad it feels studented and in my battle with the same sex you might say i end up getting the bum deal not sure i signed up for this this week i'm taking on a challenge right on my own doorstep in southwest london [Music] compared to much of the uk this is one pricey patch with family homes selling for up to and over a million pounds and the flats are hugely expensive too with some selling at well over 350 000 pounds for a two bed put that together with the 33 deposit first time buyers are having to find and it's little surprise that some properties just aren't selling just looking in this estate agent's window here shows a pretty classic example of the problems in the current market there are about a dozen two bed garden flats they're all chasing a very limited number of fires in fact while family homes can fly off the shelves in as little as three weeks some of these flats have been on the market for a year there's one property that i'm told really could do with my help [Music] this three bed flat in balum with a garden is on the market for just shy of 350 grand it was the first rung on london's slippery property ladder five years ago for graeme mcdougall and david makai they pulled resources with their friend rich who's currently enjoying himself on honeymoon but now their lives have changed and they're desperate to sell but can't friend rich has just got married so he needs to get a place with his wife graeme's came to buy a place with his girlfriend and i've already moved out with multiple flats rents and mortgages to cover the lads are losing money every day this property remains on the market but after 15 months and a shocking 42 viewings there's no deal in sight really frustrating that we can't really move on with our lives until this is sorted out [Music] in my 15 years of property i've negotiated hundreds of deals and i'm convinced i can shift this flat so unknown to david and graham i'm about to become their secret agent and to kick off i'm going to check out the property to see what needs to change if i'm going to find them a buyer well it's a nice enough street have a look inside and it is a great building but as soon as i step inside i'm hit by a multitude of problems i'm up big hallway absolutely filthy carpet oh i see the story continues in here the floor bounces that could be something serious and this i think that people can walk in bounce on the floor go i'm out of here i'm not interested botched diy and blokey minimalism is not a good look at the best of times but i know for a fact it's also turning off large numbers of would-be buyers in 15 odd years of house hunting more often than not i've seen the woman makes the choice and a woman walking around here is not going to be offering on it so we need to change that [Music] looking around the student e wear and tear continues along the hall with a disused first bedroom a lived-in second bedroom and the third bedroom could be stunning but it's currently being used as a laundry third bedroom and again it's lovely and light double aspects really nice good size oh crikey not sure i want to look around a flat i'm thinking of buying fine people's pants on view [Music] i'm beginning to see what's going on here judging by the particulars graham and david have started off their house sale with good intentions and a well-dressed tidy flat but after 15 months of unsuccessful viewings i think they've given up kitchen's again potentially a very nice room it just looks grimy and plugs the plug sockets don't fit but the biggest horror of all is the garden or should that be jungle oh crikey look at that but the rampant weeds exposed cracks and smalls on show are only part of the story i suspect there's an even bigger stumbling block i'll have to deal with if i'm gonna get the flat under offer information from the agent confirms my fears there's a problem with the flats leasehold it turns out that there's only 76 years remaining on the lease most mortgage companies are not going to provide a mortgage to someone to buy a flat for 76 years it's this is a dwindling asset but that's not all that's dwindling time is running out too as the boy's secret agent i'm lining up potential buyers for an open house in less than a week i'm convinced i can seal a deal if the boys put in some serious work and a bit of cash it's a shabby and it's a shame because it's a potentially a very nice flat balum is prime first-time buyer territory with good transport links to central london bars restaurants and most importantly price range but with dozens of properties lying unsold buyers can afford to be picky take 23 year old rebecca thorkildsen for example so what sort of a place you're looking for two bedrooms um with a little garden hopefully that's what i want okay two bed garden flat and are you gonna be living on your own or um well i'm living with my flatmate at the moment and i think she'll move him with me as well so be the two of us so we know what she does want but what rebecca definitely does not want is a bouncy flawed bachelor pad with a jungle out the back my mission as graeme and david's secret agent is clear to get buyers like rebecca interested i need to turn their lazy lads pad into a dignified des res but when my identity is revealed surprise hello there are you thinking i'm agreeing on this i disclose the contents of my secret dossier i've done my own brutal sales particulars if i bring a buyer around here these are the sorts of things that they're going to say will they be able to take it like men not so much shabby chic as just plain shabby i'm on a mission to get britain moving again one house at a time deposits are up mortgage approvals are low and the average uk agent has a whopping 74 unsold properties sitting on its shelf so i'm going undercover across britain working as a secret agent trying to shift those hard to sell homes it's cluttered they don't know it yet but i've taken on the task of finding a buyer for graeme mcdougall and david mackay's top floor flat in balum round here two beds with a garden can fly off the shelves in as little as three weeks but not this one it's a boy's flat the only thing that's missing is the smelly socks of course owners graham and david had grand plans for it when they first moved in our grand plans were they wanted to get a nice fun sort of bachelor type pad aesthetics it's literally just doing painting in hallways or bedrooms we're quite proud we did it ourselves proud of it they've got to be kidding and it gets better first thing any group of single guys would think is hot tub we didn't quite realize how big the hole had to be and or how long it would take to actually dig a six-foot hole uh so i think we got about two feet down and then lost interest we also realised that we also need to get water in the hot tub and where that was gonna come from when the flat is two stories up etcetera etcetera we didn't plan out a title but it seemed like a great idea at the time after 15 months of failed viewings graham and david still haven't realized that buyers can't see past their botched jobs so it's time for me to step in as their secret agent surprise i'm thirsty how are you doing i'm here on this hi graham hi nice to meet you i'm dave hi dave i am your secret agent i'm gonna try and help you sell this place it doesn't look as though you guys have been trying particularly hard yeah i mean there's there's various things which if we were staying here we would we would do i've had a couple of people which have come in and uh i'd like to buy anyway yeah i've made some offers but they've they've fallen through um so unfortunately why do you think they've fallen through uh i didn't give a reason to do the first first one i'm stunned graeme and david don't really know why the flat isn't shifting no wonder it's been on the market so long i mean how motivated are you right now um well right now we're very motivated because there's three of us who own the property and one of those just got married okay so he wants to buy a place with his wife yeah so that kind of no it's really the time where we think we need to okay who's who's living here out of the three of you that own it so it's me and my girlfriend live here just now and you're local but uh yeah just down the road in clapton so well you bought something else rented now i'm renting somewhere else and then haven't seen us obviously cover mortgage market mortgage here as well so out of the three owners you're the only person that's living here although the three three of you are still paying for it yeah okay so you're very motivated yes we need to get this shifted we do it's going to take a lot of hard graft but it'll probably cost only a fraction of the asking price and it'll be worth it the other thing that i wanted to talk to you about here is if i stood right on it yeah um which is the bouncy floor to be fair when this is advertising tv as the easiest fit together wooden flooring on the market and did you do it yourself we did yeah this is comedy and people walking into a flat don't want to see it yep it's putting them off and therefore it's affecting your your marketability and your price yep in most cases the more bedrooms there are the more money a buyer will pay but not here because it looks like a student flat so i want to tackle a fundamental flaw in the property's layout i mean have you thought about addressing and perhaps presenting the flat to suit your target market to suit the people that are buying this and we have discussed them doing a few different things to it and i guess just because there's three of us and so it's like a committee getting together the first thing i'd say is there aren't many buy-to-let investors in the market at the moment that just aren't 90 of of people around here looking for this type of flat are owner occupiers okay and the greatest target market around here is for two bedroom flats this layout and this you know it suits you guys but you guys are not the normal market and you're not the market that you're trying to attract so we've got to work on that okay a little enthusiasm might be useful changing the layout is crucial if we're going to tap into the first time buyer market and it's an easy problem to solve as is my next concern and this is obviously the best bedroom and it's it's a really light lovely room it's scarcely presented well though is it with people's pants on display and it's just bags of rubbish but i might downgrade it to clutter i guess i suppose that's something we don't really fully appreciate i don't think to be honest you know because it's like your house you can live with it the people hopefully come in and see a potential you know and think well how would they put their own touch into the room we've got to help them come in and um and imagine themselves living here and imagine themselves loving living here at the moment they walk i'm assuming people will walk in and go well whoever lives here at the moment doesn't really love it or look after it and neither will i and out they go right i take your point that um yeah from that point of view we've got to make people want to live here you do probably no surprise is what i'd like to talk about next the garden garden garden the jungle yeah let's go enough a little bit if graham and david thought their viewers could see past the laundry surely they can't have thought they'd see past the state of the garden accessed by a shared path at the side of the property it's littered and completely overgrown these men behaving badly should be ashamed of themselves i mean have you guys ever used this god uh we did for the first summer when we uh we and we did some work to it so there's a path in here there's uh the shield inside either side but within a month or so a couple months it was overgrown it'd be nice to know actually not how big the garden is at the moment because um so you can't see any of the fences um and so yeah you want these protected buyers to get you know a concept of what they're actually chipping in for really buyers think well i can't even see the garden i don't therefore i'm not paying for it i'll choose one down the road we've got to sort it out you know we've got sorted yeah i'm sounding harsh and i know but there is a lot of work to do but i love the flat and i love what it is and where it is um but in the current state in the current market you ain't going to get it great fair point but you will by the end of the week we're all laughing now but if graham and david don't invest some serious time and effort in the sale of this property they won't just be hemorrhaging tens of thousands of pounds off their 350 grand asking price but quite possibly their friendship too the short leasehold will have to be sorted but for now i need graham and david to understand what buyers really see when they walk round this flat time for the brutal truth my version of the property particulars you've got your sales particulars and they are sales particularly i advise buyers as well as sellers and i've i've done my own brutal sales particularly if i bring a buyer around here these are the sorts of things that they're going to say and it's very clearly a bloke's pad i'm afraid it feels studenty emotionally everyone's moved on you just want to get shot of it all in all there is quite a lot to do um it's whether you've got realistically whether you've got the time to do it or whether you've got the money to pay somebody else to do it i think it's just about picking the things that are really going to make the biggest difference and i also want to go and look at your price your 349 price is it is it is it to do with the price or is it just to do with the presentation so let me work on that and i'll get back to you great yeah that's great with less than a week to find potential buyers for this flat i need to have a look at our competition and graham and david need to face up to what has to be done to sell their flat this three bedroom top three flat stunning views over the pound rooftops which is just as well since the interior for anything but stunning he's trying to wind us up that's why he's going out of the room indeed the guy's marketing material says the flat benefits from private section of rear garden i say it'd benefit from a meeting with an industrial sized strimmer situated in the heart of commuter territory this flat is perfect for uh someone with no job who's time to fix plastering cracks well too that's after after battles we do have jobs we don't have time to do all this and all the work things done their particulars say it's carpeted throughout yes it is but you might want to wipe your feet when you leave i do residential property ideal if you're after student dicks with flexible flooring yeah probably knew that was going to come up finally it's a three-bed bite outlet and it should be a two bed first time buy not so much shabby chic because just plain shabby harsh but fair especially in this pricey neck of the woods where other vendors often have more to give well there's a lot of very nice garden flats on the market at the moment so the competition for the guys property is quite fierce graham and david are marketing their property at just under 350 000 pounds but so are more than 200 others in just a three mile radius in nearby south fields this two-bed with private garden sold after just three weeks on the market for its asking price of 375 000 pounds and not surprisingly with its light bright reception rooms dine-in kitchen with separate utility room and general air being easy to maintain it's a far simpler sell for the busy young professionals of south west london than graham and david's flat is and just three minutes away this two bed has direct access to a gorgeous garden it's on the market at only 335 grand owners tim and denise samuels have thoroughly outgrown it though and desperately need to move on fast we've got a little oliver here and we've got another one on the way so uh basically we're running out of space because the uh the second one's during the day now this flat is immediately more arresting than the boys place but something's stopping it selling so i'm going to try and help them out too as part of my mission to get the market moving again so tim you've been on the market for quite a while yeah it's been about six or seven months that we've been on the market what do you feel is the problem why is it sticking not too sure really why things haven't gone as planned and have you had advice from the agents uh not specifically no the house is on a main road which will detract lots of people but we do think that the garden is really attractive your challenge of course is to get people through the door because i think if you get people through the door they'll like the flat and they'll love the garden your details and your marketing has got to be 100 spot on beautiful though this flat is i think tim and denise need to think about how they're dressing it like most people in britain trying to sell their home they can't just chuck out the kids clutter so some temporary storage has been arranged nearby i'll do anything to get the people of britain moving now i know what graham and david are competing against it's time to see if they'll do what's needed to get the flats sold with the average sale price in this street just over 300 000 pounds 22 properties have sold here in the last three years good news but graham and david's asking price is substantially above that the bad news is that there is a lot of good competition out there a lot of flats and they are selling two bedroom flats presented well are selling easily and quickly and affecting good money this is one of the biggest flats around and the space that you're selling is worth close to what you're asking but we do have to change the condition of it i think it's good news yeah i think that's great news really um until this time i i'm not hearing i'm thinking i'm willing to put a lot more effort into no but that's great news actually i'm really keen to then do what we need to do to the place to get it to go as close to that price as possible so graham and david are realistic about price and they've also signed up to make over the flat just what's needed if i'm gonna deliver on my promise of selling it to find out what they've let themselves in for first things first the dodgy floor so that on top of that is bouncing exactly around okay basically it's a dog's dinner the manky sofas will need to make way for a dining table and the third bedroom with the laundry on show will have to be turned into a chic adult living space making the most of those double aspect windows yeah ikea don't really explain about uh taking stuff apart again didn't the two other bedrooms will require a thorough cleanup as will the kitchen and outback the garden will be restored to its former glory but local landscaper pedro thinks it might be a much bigger job than we first thought pedro are you back here somewhere i am phil it's not the easiest point of access no it isn't well this is being sold as a garden flat garden might be somewhat of a loose description and you've got um a lot of old favorite enemies here um especially this japanese knotweed here japanese this is japanese i've very very invasive um isn't it isn't japanese not with the things that can grow inside concrete it kind of grows through concrete through tarmac it's incredibly difficult to get rid of nasty stuff we got our work cut out [Laughter] don't think they'll be having many barbecues no no as you can see i'm ideally suited for um a bit of gardening work very well prepared today how do i actually suggest that the boys deal with this well i mean i think really yeah as you say you're very well dressed for this um you need to get a a good pair of shoes uh some loppers yeah loppers bulldozers more like nevertheless my rescue mission for the marketing of this flat is underway but can the boys change the habits of a lifetime and get it ready for my open day i'm not sure these windows might ever have been cleaned it may well be the first time these windows will be cleaned it stands to reason that if you're trying to sell your house on a crowded market you have to stand out from the crowd simple isn't it but apparently not for david mckay and graham macdougall whose three bed in balum is standing out for all the wrong reasons but i've stepped in as their secret agent to find out what's going wrong and they've now found the time and money to undertake a rescue medicine there's no going back okay all right then starting with the bouncy floor i wonder what's under that this is a lot of the reason why it's found yeah we um we kind of intentionally put this stuff on top just to um because the sound insulation is not great and obviously these flats so we're trying to do our bit to uh help them yeah but uh yeah it just made all those things made up learned alone sound like a bouncy castle [Music] and it's not just the unfortunate flooring that's going to the skip we're shredding every bit of evidence of this flat's dodgy past [Music] graeme and david are gutting the third bedroom and turning it into a lounge they're going to clean up every corner of this far from pristine property after they've cleared out the bedrooms in their own unique world and all the hard work to bringing out the action man in them feel satisfied after doing that it was um particularly kicking the bed in yes and that was a highlight yeah that was a personal favorite i mean friday feels like a bit of a deadline so it has to be done no matter what if it's not then we're not going to sell it yeah and we really want to sell it so we'll get it done i think it makes me want to sell it more and know that we've done this bit as well good effort and not before time because there are other flats on the market with a lot more going for them than this one just four miles away in south fields this first floor flat is on the market for 350 grand and like graham and david's property it doesn't have direct access to the garden but that's where the similarities end this is the sort of flat people aspire to live in the vendors have really made the most of the period features and that's reflected in the amount of interest the properties had in the three weeks the flat's been on the market it's had seven viewings and one second viewing and i just know first-time buyer rebecca who i met earlier should see it too so i've sent around there for a look really nice really nice size room lovely windows nice and bright of course with a well-kept garden and simple but stylish interior rebecca's sold very nice [Music] so it just underlines how much graham and david need to do if they're ever going to sell their flat to a first-time buyer like rebecca first up the garden the serious landscaping will have to be finished by the professionals but the boys have agreed to kick off the weeding and i'm going to lend a helping hand [Music] we got two left yes two rates this is the right garden yeah so this is your shale path i see it says yes yep up we haven't seen now for a while [Music] it's probably the time to mention i've got really bad hay fever but i'll keep going textbook circus excuse david [Music] not sure i signed up for this but i'm into it anyway oh look there's a path and everything the compost yeah i don't we don't i don't think we've ever used that i'm not even sure what it is i'm pretty sure we've never used that no you probably haven't seen it in a year we're making quite a good impact quite quickly it's quite satisfying actually before i leave there's just one final problem i want to tackle for the guys earlier they told me they didn't know why two sails on the flat had fallen through at the last minute i'm willing to bet it's something to do with a short leasehold on the property which can often be a bit of a stumbling block for buyers trying to secure a mortgage if it is the reason for both of graham and david's failed sales they need to know coffee for you that's very kind two sugars i'm hoping their estate agent adam can shed some light on the matter so you've had the property under offer twice are you able to tell me what kind of figures it that was um it went under off in the region of 320 okay which obviously is a fair drop from the asking price yeah um and at what point at what stage in the convention process did those deals collapse literally a week before we were due to exchange incredibly frustrating unfortunately it got to the stage we thought everything was going very well and uh suddenly the solicitors and indeed the buyers stopped talking to us and they disappeared do you think it was the least the cause that caused the problem between you and me yes blimey well this isn't just between adam and me in the end it's a major problem that graham and david have got to face up to a first-time buyer has not been through this before likely to be getting some parental help for deposit parents might not know about leaseholds first time buyers certainly won't know about lease holds presented with the flat with 76 years they're just going to find a different flat with 86 years and the problem goes away so we need to we do need to deal with it okay and we're aware that people might want to extend it but clearly we don't really want to put a lot of money or throw a lot of money into doing it when you know somebody might not actually realize as well who's buying it and also you know so therefore we haven't extended it what we have done however is we did a bit research into how much it was going to cost us um so just on the internet and then we um we spoke to the leaseholder who's he's more than happy to extend it as long as we gave him a market valuation for it what kind of money are we talking we offered him 10 before um and uh he was expecting something closer to 15 which was based on the uh the price he got for the police uh for the bottom flat right the harsh reality is if they want to sell this flat they're more than likely going to have to stump up the cash for the lease extension but it's time for me to leave i want graham and david to really take responsibility for the transformation of their flat this week while i'm out working with potential buyers you're happy to get stuck in yourselves yeah absolutely i mean yeah for a few days hard work then so as long as uh you know if it gets a gets uh a result then that's what we're here for and not dragging on longer so good stuff what's your mate he's on not honeymoon rich which he's a lucky man being away this weekend he's a very lucky man yeah i mean obviously he's on his honeymoon and he's going to get come back with them hopefully and part of money for himself maybe you should send him a bill and that's true for all time yeah [Music] much of graham and david's trouble and 15 months on the market could have been avoided if they just discussed their target market with their estate agent [Music] although at the moment first-time buyers account for less than 25 percent of all buyers in the uk if that's who's buying in your area you have to think things through put yourself in their shoes the average first-timer deposit is 33 this year if they've managed to save that amount they're not going to gamble it on cracks and damp think about creating a dining area if they're grown up enough to own a home they'll want to entertain friends and family make the most of outside space some simple plants with a table and chairs suggest a garden that will be enjoyed not labored over and if you're selling your home and don't know who your target market is simple answer talk to your estate agent while graeme and david get on with fixing up their former lad pad and the landscapers declare war on the jungle outback my mission to get the market moving continues i'm trying to line up serious buyers as well as trying to persuade some of the people who viewed it before to take a second look at my open house adam the agent is hitting the phones with renewed vigor there's been one other inquiry that we've had through okay and because i want as many people as possible to get moving i'm also taking my first time by rebecca to see the gorgeous garden flat there's no denying merton road's a busy road but the place itself is set back off-road and it comes with a parking space yeah this is a big benefit owners tim and denise might have outgrown the property but it has everything rebecca has asked for what's more since i advise them to de-clutter and redefine the space the samuels have worked wonders by removing the sofa from the nursery they've given the bedroom definition by swapping the huge dining set for a smaller one they've opened out the living space and harsh though it may seem removing all traces of baby has turned this into a perfect pad for young professionals come on through see what you think uh we've got a two bed garden flat it's been on the market quite a while they're asking three three five for it very keen to go and the front bedroom here i thought was really very nice yeah it's really really nice stunning fireplace um but a really lovely garden yeah that's really nice it's not gonna be difficult to maintain to maintain another entertaining space i mean i really do look at this as another room um what do you reckon i really like the garden i love the garden and i like the front room and i thought the entertaining space was a little bit small just a little bit i'd want that a little bit bigger if that would if that was possible with my budget again the message from rebecca is clear and typical of what first-time buyers want a decent garden space somewhere to entertain well the vendors have at least done what i'd suggested but i think at the end of the day rebecca just wants a little bit more space living space than this offers but i also hope that she appreciates that having a garden as beautiful as that one also entails a compromise like the road it's a bit of give and take [Music] graeme and david's flat has the potential to tick all rebecca's boxes but it's only now that they've started to make that a reality with just a day to go before i bring my buyers around the facelift is starting to take shape the new flooring's going down and the garden well it's actually starting to look like a garden again [Music] and graham and david are waving goodbye to five years of single man syndrome dave when was the last time you cleaned the windows uh we're not too sure but i'm i'm not sure these windows might ever have been cleaned it may well be the first time these windows will be cleaned i do scrub up well it's been less than a week since i began surveillance on this three bed flat in balum back then it was a student he buy to let at best now it's a pristine pad for london professionals the original layout was putting off first-time buyers swapping a bedroom for a living room has created two bright and spacious reception rooms with clearly defined entertaining space the new furniture came in at around 450 pounds but it can all go with the lads when they move and what a difference it's made here by rolling up their sleeves and tearing up the badly fitted laminate with their own manly hands graham and david only had to pay for relaying the floor and 600 pounds is money well spent for something that doesn't bounce and doesn't scream don't buy this flat the two other bedrooms have been transformed from student digs to selling points with just a dab of paint and some new bedding out back it's amazing what hard work and 250 quids worth of landscaping can achieve all in we spent just over 2 400 pounds but at less than one percent of their asking price i think it's worth every penny on top of which the guys assure me they're trying to complete on the leasehold extension with the freeholder so it looks like everything's in order we had a couple of late nights a couple of 11 o'clock finishes including a day's work on top of that so yeah it's been pretty tough but um i think it's well it's definitely worth it definitely satisfying getting it all blitzed in one go isn't it that's a big difference for me we want the sale we need the sale don't we we all got different parts to move on to our lives but when i return to host my open house can i deliver on my promise of getting the boys an offer oh wow this looks completely different [Music] in my guys as secret agent i let myself into graham mcdougall and david mackay's home aired their dirty laundry and asked them to change the habits of a lifetime now it's viewing day and the pressure's on i've managed to line up a couple of very serious buyers so i'm just hoping that graham and david have done enough to the flat to get a sale and to make doubly sure i'm having one final secret agent snoop around to check there are no nasty it's surprises they've done but this doesn't exactly really well they haven't cleaned that window it's a bit dusty the paintwork still a bit ordinary i kind of wish they'd done a bit more difficult as it is to clean your bedroom every single time you have a viewing if it gets you anywhere near your asking price it's worth the effort again quite gone the distance in the bedrooms the kitchen leaving them dining room i think that works extremely hard and pleased the type is good enough but it's one of the few gripes i have as all in all graeme and david have worked wonders first class job this is absolutely i'm blown away i'm blown away that they've done everything that i've suggested and it looks as good as it does it just looks like a different flat altogether it does absolutely absolutely it just yeah it brings the different stories to the place we've often talked about you know having people over for dinner and just not really had the space to do it the fact that this is going to make it so much more sellable uh for whoever else we can get through and is looking for a place around here we're finally going after the target market as well which is so it's an obvious thing to say but you know two bedrooms two sections yeah absolutely we've got a bit of a fire about selling it as well again whereas it was just ticking along and ticking along and you know it hasn't sold again still hasn't sold but now i think we're back up for it again yeah we're gonna go and bang in the estate agents we know they can do some well let me do my job first graeme i haven't been lining up prospective buyers for nothing you know first up my old friend rebecca who i know already likes one of the other flats i showed her but i think she should also consider this one so building itself position yeah it looks really nice period property and yeah okay let's have a look inside yeah as well as rebecca i've got other buyers looking round and i'm keen to get their opinions too well i know you've seen this flat before sally so i'll be very interested in um in what you make of it today because we've changed things round a little bit oh wow this looks completely different they've definitely made the most out of the space yeah because it could feel quite small it's good you can fit another sofa in here yeah yeah no it's nice it's really nice and i think before because it had the bed in here you could they were telling me that it would work as a reception room but i couldn't see how it's quite homely with these little features yeah yeah i like it oh wow this looks completely different i like having a separate dining bit to the actual kitchen so so this is a proper dining wow and you've still got two doubles yep first bedroom yeah lots of space i can see potential in here i'll take potential and then the other ones through there it appears you've actually got two decent sized rooms oh i like it and what about this one if i if i had that room and rented out this room yeah so five or six hundred pounds a month this would bring you yeah the kitchen's had a bit of a spring cleaning oh yes much better much tidier yeah no it's nice they brightened up the kitchen yeah you can smell the paint yeah i think space-wise it's actually you know a good-sized space it's usable you can see what you're buying yeah totally before it just looked like a nightmare to have to clear that all out you could turn that up and make it look nice it's definitely needed some work yes you should have seen it last week the girls are thinking with their heads but the boys are just being well boys i mean i'm thinking jacuzzi here maybe yeah decking on that hot tub decking and you know what they've even cleaned the windows [Laughter] always good everyone's making the right noises but what i want is to convert that to offers so what's the verdict when you saw it a month ago why didn't you go for it um although i know that you've got to have vision when you start looking at houses it just looked quite a lot of work for a first-time buyer in a busy job to actually get it up to where i wanted it to be and i wasn't sure about the living space the living space to me looked as if it wasn't actually workable now this looks much more okay good and is it yeah a free hold or is it it's a leasehold um it's currently got 76 years left on the lease but the owners are um extending that right at the moment they're marketing at 349 grand right is that negotiable yes because because it needs quite a lot of work i think the thing you could see yourself living in definitely it's got the right amount of space and as you said for value for money is fantastic so definitely it's something i consider it's really comforting for me to know that she's seen it before and discounted it and actually looks as though she's taking it quite seriously now but the most serious interest is coming from rebecca my challenge now is to get her and the lads all on the same page when it comes to price i think if somebody bought that flat spent 10 grand on it it would be worth what they're asking so that kind of gives a buyer or yourself a figure to work from i do see it as an opportunity not necessarily to add value but to buy at a good price and build in your value at that point you know something to seriously consider um could you picture yourself living there yeah okay i could well as you know i've showed somebody around this morning very serious buyer big cash deposit um she liked it she doesn't particularly know the area but i've really tried to upsell all the benefits of bala and all that it has to offer certainly impressed by the space and the layout um she's keen she likes it if she decides to go for it i think she won a deal but but i'm kind of at the moment just angling her in the right way to go for it because i think it's a crack and flat i love what you've done with it that smells good positive well yeah i mean the fact that we've got people there interested from the moment they walk in and whatever else that's good as we're talking rebecca's been having a wander round balum and she's come to a decision i was thinking maybe putting in a cheeky offer of 312 and maybe they'd accept that but i'm not sure but we could give it a go that's almost 38 grand under the asking price but i can see where she's coming from and previously graham and david have accepted offers at 315 000 so would i be able to cut a deal here where are you guys at financially you've got it on for three four nine you've accepted lower bids in the past where are you at now what what would you take um obviously the leasehold becomes a part of the deal um i mean we accepted a price at uh 315 and so uh we've got to be realistic about the fact that um we've put a little bit of money into it so i think we'd want a little bit return for it so you know upwards of 330 then becomes something that we'd be uh i think pretty willing to accept yeah ah so the gap widens i don't know if i'll be cutting a deal between graham david and rebecca today however before she could even formalize things another of the viewers drummed up for that day swooped in and made an offer of 320 000 pounds that was closely followed by three others it just shows what a small amount of cash and hard work can do graham and david are still waiting to hear back about their leasehold extension i certainly hope it comes through because that amount of buyer interest isn't to be squandered i really hope they're on the move soon [Music] so

Channel: BBC Documentary

Views: 23,791

Rating: 4.7733335 out of 5

Keywords: bbc documentary, documentary bbc, bbc, Phil Spencer, Property agents, Letting agents, Moving home, selling a house, house documentary, DIY SOS, Phil Spencer secret Agent, Property market, buy a house, house market uk, leeds, brighton, bristol, harrogate, orpington, Real estate, Phil spencer full episodes

Id: ToJ9UCALPTY

Length: 46min 44sec (2804 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 23 2020