How I sold my flat for a £100,000 profit through Bushells!!

Even in these tough times it is possible to buck the crashing property market, thanks to a good agent, some big slices of luck - and a good conversion. Wardrobe stylist Rosie Clarkson, 26, bought her two-bedroom garden flat in Acton, West London, in July 2006, for £200,000. She then spent £30,000 on a side extension and sold it at the height of the banking crisis - just after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in September - for £325,000. She banked almost £100,000 profit in the process.

‘I obviously had no idea there would be a property crash when I spent all that money on the extension,’ said Rosie.
‘If I had known it was going to happen I probably wouldn’t have borrowed the extra money for the extension and would have just stayed in the flat.’ The side extension helped to turn a once cramped flat into a spacious apartment, with a 30ft by 17ft open plan kitchen/dining/living area.

Selling agent Bobby Cherian, of Bushells, said: ‘It was a huge improvement but wouldn’t on its own have saved Rosie from being yet another victim of the property meltdown.’
Cherian says the most important factor that sparked the sale was luck.

He explained: ‘She got the right buyer at the right time and they had cash. They’d already sold their property and a quick, profitable sale could still be achieved.’
He added: ‘Rosie’s flat was exceptionally well modernised. She made it into a very desirable property and there was no chain.’
The second slice of luck, says Cherian, was that Rosie’s buyers were public-sector workers rather than, say, City bankers.

‘They had safe, secure jobs and had been looking for two years so they had no problem getting a mortgage to cover the price of the flat,’ he says.

‘These days that is a minor miracle in itself.’
The third thing was that Acton is not an area particularly popular with City people.
‘Places such as Clapham, Fulham and Wandsworth are really suffering at this end of the market because they are so reliant on buyers from the City, but Acton attracts a much more eclectic group of buyers,’ he says.
Rosie’s buyers - a policeman and his wife - fell in love with the flat at first sight, according to Cherian.

He said: ‘This couple walked in and wanted the flat within seconds.’
Now Rosie and her partner, Peter Beeckmans, are renting a flat in Camberwell, South London, while looking at properties almost twice the size of the flat.

‘I’m in a win-win situation because I have the cash profit from that sale sitting in the bank,’ she says.

‘I’m paying less for the rent than I would for my mortgage and I’m viewing flats that were originally on sale for £450,000 which are going for between £320,000 and £350,000, so I’m going to end up with a much bigger flat for the same price as I sold for.’
Rosie admits that she is sitting back and waiting to see if prices keep plummeting ‘because at this rate I may end up with my dream home for even less than I sold my flat for. ‘I am just hoping this property crash continues.’

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