Advice on Site for Sale

RonnieL

Hi Guys,

There is a site for sale in an area my wife and I are interested in. The asking price seems too good to be true in some respects, considering the location, but there is no planning permission so I'm guessing that is part of the reason. The site is in County Galway, on a lane where there are several two story houses already, and the site is zoned residential. There was an application over 10 years ago to develop the site for a commercial venture, which was refused on the grounds that it is zoned residential.

The reason I'm posting is I'd like peoples advice/opinions on things to consider, and how to proceed.

While the asking price seems low, it's still a lot of money and would represent the vast majority of our savings, so we're obviously cautious about taking a big risk. I saw another old thread on here where people adviced the op to approach the planning office to feel them out. Is that a good idea? We obviously don't own the site, and haven't even put an offer on it, so I'm wondering if we'd be laughed out the door?!

Also, assuming the planning office are ok with a house being built on that site in general, what do they take into consideration about the applicants? The reason I ask is I've heard over the years people talking about housing needs etc. My wife and I both bought apartments during the boom in the village where the site is. We've been living there happily for almost 8 years, but we've now got two young kids so apartment living doesn't really make sense for us anymore. Does that represent a housing need? Would it be a factor?

I'm conscious of rambling on, and I think if you've read this far you get the jist! Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ronan

BryanF

RonnieL wrote: »

1. I saw another old thread on here where people adviced the op to approach the planning office to feel them out. Is that a good idea?
2. We obviously don't own the site, and haven't even put an offer on it, so I'm wondering if we'd be laughed out the door?!
3. assuming the planning office are ok with a house being built on that site in general, what do they take into consideration about the applicants?
4. My wife and I both bought apartments during the boom in the village where the site is. We've been living there happily for almost 8 years, but we've now got two young kids so apartment living doesn't really make sense for us anymore. Does that represent a housing need? Would it be a factor?

1. yes
2. no - you would be best to figure out what the zoning is first though. if there is a 'rural housing' zoning requirement or green belt requirement, 'A3' for example, you''ll struggle to show housing need. (I'm speaking form Munster experience and I'm not familiar with the Galway development plan/planning authority which is where you should be researching)
3. housing need: you own houses and live within a village, if the site is outside of the village this may well be an issue. waste treatment can be a problem on a small site. there may be other issues particular to the site, seek advice form a local architect
4. you would need to convince the local planning authority of this - best to contact them to discuss (or a local architect/planning consultant if you don't wish to show all your cards at this stage)

any purchase should be subject to receipt of planning, best of luck with it!

john_cappa

How low is too good to be true ?

RonnieL

BryanF wrote: »

1. yes
2. no - you would be best to figure out what the zoning is first though. if there is a 'rural housing' zoning requirement or green belt requirement, 'A3' for example, you''ll struggle to show housing need. (I'm speaking form Munster experience and I'm not familiar with the Galway development plan/planning authority which is where you should be researching)
3. housing need: you own houses and live within a village, if the site is outside of the village this may well be an issue. waste treatment can be a problem on a small site. there may be other issues particular to the site, seek advice form a local architect
4. you would need to convince the local planning authority of this - best to contact them to discuss (or a local architect/planning consultant if you don't wish to show all your cards at this stage)

any purchase should be subject to receipt of planning, best of luck with it!

Thanks Bryan. On your 2nd point, I did find the development plan for the area online, so I'll give that a good read later. Regarding numbers 3 and 4, the site is actually closer the village than the apartment we live in right now, and when I looked at the details of the previous application for the petrol station, it stated that the town water supply would be used, along with the public sewerage system. Since posting this initally, I found a section of the county council planning site which states they have a pre-planning process, which seems to be geared towards people like us. We need to send in a map identifying the site and include any relevant details, and they will do a report. It's not clear what the report will include or how quickly it will be done though. Does anyone happen to know? I might ring them and ask in the morning. Appreciate the reply.

RonnieL

john_cappa wrote: »

How low is too good to be true ?

Well the asking price online is less than half what I'd expect to pay for a site in the location, but then I don't have any experience of buying sites, or even looking at buying them (we just noticed this one and looked it up on daft). Having said that, we rang the estate agent today, and he said there is already an offer on the site of 5K over the asking price.

BryanF

RonnieL wrote: »

I found a section of the county council planning site which states they have a pre-planning process, which seems to be geared towards people like us. We need to send in a map identifying the site and include any relevant details, and they will do a report. It's not clear what the report will include or how quickly it will be done though. Does anyone happen to know? I might ring them and ask in the morning. Appreciate the reply.

send in a copy of the land folio map form the auctioneer, and take a Google screen snap of the site and give coordinates. don't bother with a house design until you appoint a designer, just stick with the main questions 'can i build' and 'what are the main issues to be considered'

rayjdav

RonnieL wrote: »

Having said that, we rang the estate agent today, and he said there is already an offer on the site of 5K over the asking price.

This could be/is a total load of b***ix tbh. With all due respect, from experience, their word is not to be totally taken at face value. They are hardly going to say that there is no offer/offer of 10k less the asking price.

If you live in the area approach the land owner. All they can say is talk to the auctioneer. Have we learnt nothing from the last couple of years people?????
Outside of the big smoke it is still a buyers market so the ball is in your court and you should keep it there.

RonnieL

rayjdav wrote: »

This could be/is a total load of b***ix tbh. With all due respect, from experience, their word is not to be totally taken at face value. They are hardly going to say that there is no offer/offer of 10k less the asking price.

If you live in the area approach the land owner. All they can say is talk to the auctioneer. Have we learnt nothing from the last couple of years people?????
Outside of the big smoke it is still a buyers market so the ball is in your court and you should keep it there.

I'll definitely keep that in mind. In fairness, we did think that he might be talking through his hole. I wasn't speaking to him myself, but apparently he said they had one offer, so why would someone come straight in with an offer 5K over the asking price. Anyway, we'll see how it pans out. THanks for the replies. If anyone else has anything else to add, please do.

tedimc

Had similar dealings with auctioneers lately.

If the offer was €5k over the asking price - why is it still for sale? If you can, I would approach the land owner directly and see if they are willing to deal.

We had looked at numerous sites, some without planning and while the CoCo can not really tell you a lot with out owning the site, they will give you a good indication.

RonnieL

tedimc wrote: »

Had similar dealings with auctioneers lately.

If the offer was €5k over the asking price - why is it still for sale? If you can, I would approach the land owner directly and see if they are willing to deal.

We had looked at numerous sites, some without planning and while the CoCo can not really tell you a lot with out owning the site, they will give you a good indication.

Thanks for the reply Ted. I don't know who the land owner is, but I suspect it is a developer who developed a nearby estate. I'm definitely taking what the estate agent says with a pinch of salt.

I'm going to set up a meeting with the planning office anyway. It's understandable that they won't be able to say anything definitive, but I don't really fancy the prospect of taking a huge punt on a site, only to be left with a very expensive field should a planning application be turned down.

I'm totally unfamiliar with this whole area, but I'm wondering if it would be possible to do a deal with the seller where they'd agree to take it off the market while we apply for planning? Looking at it from their side, it seems unlikely that they'd want that, for the same reasons i.e. if planning is refused they'll never be able to sell it. They'd probably be better off getting planning permission themselves and selling the site for a whole lot more.

BryanF

RonnieL wrote: »

I'm totally unfamiliar with this whole area, but I'm wondering if it would be possible to do a deal with the seller where they'd agree to take it off the market while we apply for planning?

best to post in the Accommodation & Property forum

rayjdav

RonnieL wrote: »

I'm going to set up a meeting with the planning office anyway. It's understandable that they won't be able to say anything definitive, but I don't really fancy the prospect of taking a huge punt on a site, only to be left with a very expensive field should a planning application be turned down.

I'm totally unfamiliar with this whole area, but I'm wondering if it would be possible to do a deal with the seller where they'd agree to take it off the market while we apply for planning? Looking at it from their side, it seems unlikely that they'd want that, for the same reasons i.e. if planning is refused they'll never be able to sell it. They'd probably be better off getting planning permission themselves and selling the site for a whole lot more.

Normal practice is that you don't buy an agri field but you enter into a contract of sorts with the seller to purchase subject to planning. In this climate He will not have many knocking on the door so as before, the ball is in your court.
You have the option of outline permission whereby the cost is drastically less if your not sure how planning may pan out. Regardless, the technical issue of site test will need to be done. Maybe bargain that the seller foots this cost and you buy on grant???

RonnieL

rayjdav wrote: »

Normal practice is that you don't buy an agri field but you enter into a contract of sorts with the seller to purchase subject to planning. In this climate He will not have many knocking on the door so as before, the ball is in your court.
You have the option of outline permission whereby the cost is drastically less if your not sure how planning may pan out. Regardless, the technical issue of site test will need to be done. Maybe bargain that the seller foots this cost and you buy on grant???

This is great info, thanks a million. I think the approach you've suggested is the only one that would appeal to us realistically. Outline permission would probably be the way to go too, because we're not too fussy about the specifics of the house, we'd just like to know if we'd get permission to build a house on the site.

Assuming we look to go down that route, who should I be looking to engage to do what, and at what ballpark cost? I'm assuming I'd need a solicitor. An engineer to do a site test? What exactly is a site test?!

Thanks again for the replies - really helpful.

tedimc

We bought a run-down house in a rural setting:
€2,000 for solicitor fees, but it was a long drawn out sale with numerous banks involved.
2% Stamp Duty on land. 1% on house.
Registrations fees of a couple of hundred euros.
€800 for engineer, but that's on the higher end I believe.

Don't forget CoCo planning fees if you are building - I think some counties can be up in the 10s of thousands???