First-time buyers snap up former States properties
Tuesday 11th November 2008, 2:29PM GMT.
Tim Roberts, left, of joint agent Shields & Co shows Andy Ogier and Chloe Bullock around one of 16 former States houses that were put up for sale on Saturday. Offers have now been made on all of them. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0668606)
FORMER States houses put up for sale at the weekend are already all under offer.
Sixteen two- and three-bedroomed houses went on the market at Jardin de Haut, formerly the Petit Bouet Estate, valued at between £225,000 and £265,000.
The local-market houses were available for viewings between 10am and noon on Saturday and from 1-3pm on Sunday. By 11am on Saturday, serious offers had been received for nine of them.
Offers have now been made for all of them, 12 from first-time buyers.
‘The majority of people buying are first-timers and there are one or two people looking to buy for an investment,’ said Zanette Bougourd of Rutland Hunt, which is selling the properties jointly with Shields & Co.
First-time buyers Phillip Eyre and his fiancee, trainee nurse Lisa Murphy, were looking at the houses with Mr Eyre’s parents.
Miss Murphy said they were a good opportunity for someone with the time and the money to refurbish.
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Personally I feel these people are being sold into a dream which could quickly turn into a nightmare. Those looking to live in the properties for life or at least untill all the uncertainty comes to an end stand a better chance. The investors can’t be very savvy. Least its their money though!
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I read with some dismay that Charles Parkinson is considering abolishing Dwellings Profits Tax because it has only raised 58K tax in its 14 year existence
I thought that DPT was introduced ,not as a stealth tax,but as a means of preventing cash rich speculators from buying up properties at say 100K,splashing £50 worth of paint about and selling them on a fortnight later at 150K
Without DPT all the Petit Bouet houses would have been snapped up by such speculators and sod the first time buyers
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short sighted to sell any housing estate! and to not even make it only available to first time buyers is a loss.
In the UK the council housing estate is something like 4m short of those who want housing, not helped by the mass of property sold off in the past at all.
Guernsey with limited real estate space and States owning a limited supply of housing should not be selling these properties into the private market.
Next the States will say there are no people waiting for states housing!
This is a mistake, even if they needed to be repaired, it would have been better to have kept the properties and repaired them.
Waste of money selling these I think, I hope that this trend of selling off properties stops soon, as once it is gone it’s gone and will always cost far far more to replace.
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I absolutely agree with your comments entirely. Very fresh and a different perspective on this. The qusetions that need answering are:
Is the figure for those waiting for social housing 0 then?
If not why sell off what people are needing?
What are the figures at the time of this revelation and its inception?
Who was the decision maker?
Why was this decision made?
How does it look for those that are desperate?
How do those that are waiting feel about this?
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Are there any States members, or their families, on books of the GHA?
There is a myth surrounding the use of Housing Associations; that they are better value to the tax payer. I would like some clarification on how this is possible, after all States rents get paid to the States. GHA rent/purchases goes to a private company, some which is reinvested, somw which pays someone handsomely. Have the GHA managed to get a cheaper borrowing facility than the Government could? That debt now has to be serviced directly through charging by the GHA, which means higher maintenance costs. Is the GHA accountable?
The estates should not be seen as somewhere ‘poor’ people live rather as a Government asset for creating better and cheaper housing than the private sector. By throwing out families who suddenly exceed the earning limits for qualification, we lose an important amount of revenue for direct investment. Rather than throw them out into the unscrupulous private sector, why not let them, by forcing the issue, save up for a deposit. Once that ten percent (or whatever the going mortgage company requirement) is reached, then they would stand a chance of getting on the private ‘ladder’.
What this policy is doing is forcing opeople into part private ownership with an unaccountable company that is creating wealth for the people running it at the Government’s expense. Losing assets has proven a very expensive game in the UK. There are several studies that show that by subsidising the private sector to provide ‘social’ housing, it costs that tax payer more.
The stigma that Guernsey has over States Housing is deep set, but the provision of housing is an essential part of Government. If it continues to relinquish responsibility to those that need it most then who exactly are they looking out for?
The same mentality that allows States members to mock any argument on taxing the wealthy demonstrates the answer.
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I agree, the States should not be selling off their housing stock. If the States had a programme of maintenance then the properties that they own would not get into such state of disrepair. Instead of getting rid of the tenants who, in their opinion, could easily afford to go into the private sector, maybe they should have offered them first option on their homes instead of selling them on the open market to anyone else including investment seekers.
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