APARTMENTS at One Smithfield, the block taking shape in The Northern Quarter at the Swan Street end of High Street, have come back onto the market.
"This leaves developers little time to find genuine buyers and could cause a mini 2007 with a glut of unsold coming to the market all at once that developers need to shift aggressively.”
All 77 apartments were bought by GRE Assets, an investment fund, at the beginning of the year and the scheme has been marketed to buyers in the Middle East.
But it seems there was not enough interest and now floors one, two and three are being sold in the UK through a variety of Buy-to-Let companies, including Modern Living Properties, a subsidiary of GRE.
Prices range from £128,000 for a 452sq ft one bed on the first floor to £194,000 for an 818 sq ft two bed, both have balconies but parking is an extra £20,000.
That’s working out at about £283psqft for the one bed and £237psqft for the two bed – pricier than Potato Wharf at the other end of town in Castlefield.
The bad news for would be buy-to-livers is that you have to have cash.
Because GRE bought the whole tower from the developers MUSE they can only assign contracts to buyers until after completion, something nervy mortgage companies will not currently lend on.
One Smithfield from High Street, Northern Quarter
So if you do have the readies, you'll have to find a £2,000 reservation fee, 20% on exchange and the full remainder on completion. You could then raise a mortgage on the property. But Modern Living were unclear about how long after completion you would be able to refinance.
It’s a shoddy situation that with such a lack of new stock in the city desirable blocks are sold off to investors only to come back around with strings attached. That the City Council and the HCA were accomplices to the deal does not sit well either.
One experienced city centre investor believes prices are being artificially pushed up by the lack of stock and genuine buyers are being deprived of purchasing at the right price.
He also warned that a cooling of the overseas investment market could have a severe impact here.
He said: “Other companies are still active in this type of activity but with a slowing overseas exit they could get halfway through these schemes and renege on contracts. This leaves developers little time to find genuine buyers and could cause a mini 2007 with a glut of unsold coming to the market all at once that developers need to shift aggressively.”
GRE Assests: One Smithfield Square, Northern Quarter
