Estate agent instructed to resale same house 55 years later – and it costs 100 times more

An estate agent who sold a house for £6,000 in 1968 has been instructed to resell the same property.

Andrew Morris was just 18 when he helped Michael and June Stafford purchase their first home in Hereford.

Michael has now sadly passed away and June has been forced to move to a care home, and by chance, Morris is helping to sell their home in Hereford to a new owner.

The four-bedroom house has been listed at an asking price of £595,000 – almost 100 times the original price.

Morris said: “I have never been in this position before in my career, to be selling a house where the same family has lived for so many years.

“There’s a lifetime of memories in the house and I certainly remember selling it when I was about 18.

“I was doing an apprenticeship and a young couple were looking to buy because the husband had got a teaching job at Hereford Cathedral School.

“From what I remember, they looked around the property, which is rather imposing and grand in scale, and they fell in love with it.”

Andrew, who runs his own estate agency in Herefordshire, said the surge in price is a good example of what has happened with the housing market over the years.

He continued: “It just shows how high property prices have gone.

“At the time I sold this house, most family-sized properties were selling for around £2,000 so this one was top end even then.

“To be now selling it for just about 100 times the original price shows how long I’ve been in this career.

“Showing people around the property certainly brings back lots of happy memories for me and I’m glad – such a beautiful family home it must have been.”

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Rob Hailstone

    Would be interesting to know what the agents fee was then, the solicitors fee (no conveyancers about in 1968), and other associated costs.

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    1. Nick Salmon, M.D. Property Industry Eye

      I would guess the old RICS scale fees Rob. 5% on the first £500, 2.5% on the next £4,500 and 1.5% on the residue if my memory serves me well.

      Don’t know what a solicitor would have charged – but I do know that the likely ‘referral fee’ for the agent, if they introduced buyer or seller to the solicitor, would most likely take the form of a very good lunch and the probablity of receiving instructions on the next probate sale that came the solicitor’s way. Simpler times…

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