Checked past sold prices and how many have sold?
Sorry missed this one - yes houses do sell fairly regularly. On our road there have been sales in 2006, 2016, 2018 and 2021.
Checked past sold prices and how many have sold?
Nuts to offer over asking for a house at flood risk. If I could accept the risk of it becoming nearly worthless, I'd be low-balling 20-30% off asking, and walking away if they aren't interested.Would you be running a mile? Reducing your offer substantially? We offered over the asking price (by quite a lot given the crazy market down south).
It's probably the most sensible choice unfortunately
Sometimes being in a "flood area" isn't too risky as they can base it on historical events that have long since been sorted, or the fact that part of the property (say a low garden) might get a bit of water, but it's a hell of a risk to take when you are moving in and all it takes is bad flooding in another part of the country to make the insurers not want anything to do with you.
Our house was basically uninsurable for a few years* because of it's location, we're near a stream and the back garden that is ~1m lower than the house floods to a height of ~2-5cm every few years (and about 20cm every 10-15 years) which according to the insurers made the house too risky, despite the fact we're further away from the stream and at the same height as other houses that had no issue (we were getting quotes of 3-5k, a house 20 meters to the side that was at the same height and distance from the stream was £300 simply because his house didn't have a garden than extended to the stream).
The whole of this side of town is also at some risk according to the maps due to flooding that happened ~30 years ago when an old bridge acted as a dam when the stream hit around 75% and the water spread via the roads when it topped the bridge, IIRC the water stayed on the roads for most of the area and they replaced both the bridges in the town built to that design after.
*IIRC after the massive floods in about 2012 even specialist insurers didn't want to know if you said "my garden got a few cm of water 5 years ago".
Sounds a little like the estate they built on the other side of the stream to us.House near me recently sold that I know for a fact has been flooded twice.
It sold for 120k where the equivalent house up the hill a bit would probably go for about 180k.
Still I don't think I would touch it with a barge pole.
We have actually considered thatI wonder in that scenario if you could sell the last few meters of the garden to a reletive for a tenner, therefore making the boundary of your property not in a flood zone any more
One of the problems with that simple approach is that in many areas a good portion of all homes are on them, in some they were built (like the ones across from me) when it was known.Every year we watch the floods and all say "Why oh why do people buy property on these flood plains?" - find something else.
Apologies, just seen post #25
you might have bought a house that 40 years ago had a "low" risk and find out that under a new map it's now "high".
I've never quite understood why if there is a flood area and a need for houses, why not build housing with (open to the air) parking underneath them, that way the actual house is ~3 meters above the ground.
Don't bring... common sense... into this. It has always puzzled me as well why they don't innovate when it comes to building newer housing which might be affected by flooding and climate change, etc. but I guess that means *effort* and extra cost
But it may never, the problem is if no one ever buys a house that is in a "flood area" even a very low risk one, then we're going to need to build probably half a million or more houses in areas that don't currently flood to replace them, and we've already got problems with getting enough houses built.
I've never quite understood why if there is a flood area and a need for houses, why not build housing with (open to the air) parking underneath them, that way the actual house is ~3 meters above the ground.