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British Iron and Steel Federation houses are also known as BISF houses, and are sometimes called prefab homes and can be confused with other prefab properties that have a negative image for some buyers. There can be some complications when trying to sell a BISF house, such as the potential presence of asbestos in the home. But it’s not impossible to find a buyer for this type of property, and this guide offers tips on how to sell quickly and profitably.
- What is the definition of a BISF house?
- Are BISF houses considered safe for people to live in?
- The reasons why some buyers are wary of BISF houses
- Potential advantages when selling a BISF house
- Should you renovate your BISF house before selling it?
- Three methods to sell your BISF house
- Queries and answers about selling a BISF house
What is the definition of a BISF house?
There can be some confusion about what exactly constitutes a British Iron and Steel Federation house, also known as a BISF house. That’s because such properties are often commonly also referred to as prefabricated or prefab homes, which were designed to be built quickly and cheaply by using readily available non-standard property construction materials such as concrete construction or steel. Other types of non-standard construction houses and flats included mundic and Wimpey No-Fines property.
English architect Sir Frederick Ernest Gibberd devised the initial design for the BISF house, with a main structure constructed using steel columns spaced apart to allow space for placing metal standard windows. The initial design for both floors had outer and inner cladding, and other features such as timber floors and ceilings finished using plasterboard.
BISF houses were intended to be permanent properties that would have a lifespan of about the same as a conventional home constructed from brick, which could last for 500 years or more.
The Non Standard House Construction website, which provides a forum for discussion of renovating BISF properties, notes in an article that more than 35,000 BISF homes were constructed in the 1940s. Most of these homes were constructed in semi-detached two-storey pairs, although some terraced BISF properties were built using the same steel frame as for semi-detached houses.
Although there are some variations in the exact design of BISF houses throughout the UK, the basic layout and construction is the same. And although they are known as BISF properties because of the British Iron and Steel Federation that originally sponsored them, the bulk of the construction of the properties was done by the private business British Steel Houses Ltd.
Are BISF houses considered safe for people to live in?
From the beginning, BISF houses were generally seen as safe for habitation, particularly because they were designed to last for hundreds of years much like brick houses. But in the decades since their construction, BISF homes have generated criticism from some people.
The reason why mass production of BISF properties eventually stopped had nothing to do with any potential concerns about the safety of the homes. Instead, by the late 1940s politicians were starting to raise questions over the increasing costs and ongoing delays in building BISF homes. And the huge demand for new properties that was created as a result of the end of the Second World War started to abate, reducing the need for mass BISF home construction.
One reason that BISF properties received concerns about their safety is confusion with other types of prefab homes that aren’t as durable and that had genuine safety issues. BISF houses are sometimes incorrectly described as temporary dwellings because they look similar to bungalows known as Arcon or Aluminium B8 homes that have lifespans of only a decade.
Of course, BISF homes can suffer the same damage as brick properties, such as the roof collapsing as the result of a severe storm, or suffering subsidence should the ground underneath the house get flooded or otherwise become too unstable. But generally, BISF houses are as safe as standard construction houses so long as they are maintained properly.
The reasons why some buyers are wary of BISF houses
BISFs are considered to be homes made from non-standard construction materials and as such, the definition alone can unfortunately scare some less-informed buyers away. They might see the BISF designation and immediately not even want to arrange a viewing to tour the property.
The fact that BISF properties are associated commonly with other prefab homes has made many buyers wary of purchasing them, because they have preconceived notions that the house has been constructed cheaply and therefore aren’t safe to live in and are bad investments. It could be considered an unfair stigma, but it’s one that you have to be aware of when trying to sell a BISF house.
Other buyers might be unwilling to consider BISF properties because the longer that such a home is left without proper upkeep, the more time and money will be required to restore it. And although BISF homes are said to have lengthy lifespans comparable to brick homes, some observers believe that the actual lifespan could be much shorter, possible even less than 100 years.
In the event of any damage to your property, such as flooding that destroys the flooring on the ground floor, you might need to pay for special materials to fix the issue, because conventional materials might not be suitable for the home. These materials are often very expensive, so even the threat of having to pay for them in the future can be enough to deter a potential buyer.
As a result of some or all of the issues detailed above, it can be harder, and sometimes almost impossible, for buyers to find a lender who will give them the mortgage they might need to buy your BISF house. Online Mortgage Advisor, a free UK mortgage broker matching service, notes in an article on its website that many lenders won’t cover the loan to buy a BISF house because of long-running concerns about the structural integrity of such properties.
Potential advantages when selling a BISF house
There are a number of advantages of owning a BISF house, and they remain desirable enough that tens of thousands of such properties are still standing and in demand. So if you own a BISF home don’t be discouraged that you will never be able to find a buyer for the property.
Because they were built decades ago, BISF houses are often located in enviable locations, such as near city centres. The location alone can make the property more appealing to a prospective buyer than newer build homes, which are often in suburbs or further away. The value of the land that the BISF house sits on could be enough to secure an offer on its own.
If you own a BISF house, you may also be able to rent the property out to tenants to generate extra income. Investors might look favourably on the potential to buy your home and continue to let it out to renters, regardless of whether you currently have tenants or the property is vacant.
Should you renovate your BISF house before selling it?
Some BISF house owners who are struggling to sell their property decide to try renovating the home in a bid to hopefully increase the amount of interest that the sale might get from buyers.
There are companies available in the UK that specialise in renovating BISF properties, and there are various aspects of the house that can be renovated. When homeowners invest in work to upgrade and modernise a BISF home, it can give potential buyers more peace of mind about the lifespan and safety of the property.
And renovations can be a financial incentive for buyers, because they might even increase the odds that they can obtain a mortgage in order to buy the home. And fixing problems with a BISF house could also make insuring the house cheaper, another appealing aspect for buyers.
However, any work on a home requires money, and you can expect the cost of renovating a BISF house to be at least a few thousand pounds and potentially significantly more.
Options that you have to renovate and improve a BISF property before sale include:
Adding some cladding
Some buyers don’t like the look of BISF house exteriors, and because first appearances matter, which can be enough to deter someone from making an offer on your property. Cladding can be customised to almost any design you can imagine, giving you a lot of leeway in deciding how to make your BISF home look as appealing as possible.
Replace the roofing
Most BISF houses were built with lightweight roofs, which is a concern for some buyers because the roofing might be more easily damaged during storms. And some BISF roofs still contain asbestos, which is an extremely hazardous material. But technological advances have led to replacement roofing options that are light but also sturdy. Various BISF roofs have been replaced throughout the country as discussed in an article in the Northern Echo.
Install PVC windows
A common criticism that buyers have about BISF homes is the fact that the windows tend to be small and relatively useless at keeping the property heated. You could pay to replace the windows with polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, glazing. PVC windows are much better at keeping in heat, and can help to raise a BISF home’s energy efficiency rating.
Place a canopy outside
Unfortunately, the exterior aesthetics of a BISF property can be enough to deter someone from wanting to buy the home, never mind its beneficial features. That’s because the metal posts can be very visible. A simple fix can be placing a canopy outside that will cover up the posts, making the outside of the home more attractive.
Although renovation is an option before listing your BISF home for sale, it will not work for everyone. There could be limitations on what you are physically able to do to the property because of how it was built or its current condition, or both. Or you might simply not have the money or the time available to pursue potentially lengthy and costly renovation work, because you could need to find a buyer for your property in the shortest amount of time possible.
As such, whether or not pre-sale renovation is right for your BISF house will depend mostly on your individual circumstances, including your budget and preferred timeline for selling. Be honest with yourself about these factors, and you should be able to make an informed choice.
Three methods to sell your BISF house
Anyone who owns a BISF house and is looking to sell it will have to decide between using a property auctioneer, an estate agent, or a fast home buyer like LDN Properties. The three different methods have their own advantages, and some of them have disadvantages.
The right choice will depend on how fast you want to sell your home, and how much profit you want to make. Below you’ll find detailed information on how each sale option works, including the average timeline for selling and whether you’ll have to pay any fees for the sale. Choose the option that best fits your budget, your preferred schedule, and your desired profit.
Using a property auctioneer to sell your BISF house
When you get in touch with a property auctioneer to sell your home, they will ask you to set a reserve price. This is the lowest possible value at which you are willing to sell the property, and if nobody places a bid for at least that price, the home won’t sell at the auction. But note that if you only get a single bid at the auction at the reserve price, the house is legally considered to be sold, and the buyer could sue to enforce the sale if you try to prevent it. Make sure to budget the auction of your house accurately, and choose a reserve price that will still give you a desirable outcome if the home sells at that value, after subtracting the commission that the auctioneer will charge you.
There’s usually a wait of a least a few weeks or longer between the day that you agree to list your home for sale and the day that the auction takes place. The auctioneer uses this time to advertise the listing for your property, which includes photographs designed to make the exterior and interior as enticing to buyers as possible, as well as text detailing the main features of the house such as the number of rooms, the total square footage, construction year, and more.
And there can be a further wait of an average 28 days after a successful auction sale for the buyer to complete all of the paperwork and other steps involved with buying your home. Some auction houses set a tighter deadline, whilst others allow buyers more time to do this. Always check with specific companies for their policies on what happens after a successful auction.
You should ask each auction house that you speak with whether they have successfully sold a BISF home in the past. This should give you valuable insight into their ability to generate interest in your property from auction attendees. If an auctioneer has never managed to sell a BISF property before, there’s no guarantee that they will be able to do so with your home.
Because auctioneers will do most of the hard work involved with selling your home, they expect to be paid commission if the house sells. The fee auctioneers charge is often based on the property’s final auction sale price plus VAT. To calculate your actual net auction profit, you will have to subtract this commission from the sale price. This can make auctioning your home a less-attractive option if your top goal is ensuring that you maximise your overall sale profit.
Using an estate agent to sell your BISF house
Another method of selling is to contact an estate agent, who will also put together a listing for the home and advertise it in their office, online, in local newspapers and elsewhere, hoping to get the attention of people that might be interested in buying your BISF house. The estate agent is also usually responsible for scheduling and hosting viewings, where prospective buyers come to your home and tour the interior and exterior to see if they want to make an offer to buy it.
But there can be a number of downsides in selling through an estate agent, including the fact that many homeowners believe viewings to be very intrusive and inconvenient, because it requires the house to be kept in a pristine condition, and estate agents generally prefer that the owners aren’t home when the viewings occur. If you’re looking for the least stressful option for selling your BISF house, the viewings alone could be enough to deter you from this method.
There are also no deadlines of any kind associated with selling your home via an estate agent. It’s not unheard of for any type of property sold this way to not attract any serious offers from buyers for at least a few months and, in the worst cases, more than a full year. That can be a major problem for those homeowners who need to sell their properties quickly.
And you will have to pay estate agents commission if they are able to successfully find a buyer for your property. The fees that they charge will often be based on a percentage of your BISF home’s final sale price, although some estate agents can charge much less or much more. Ask each estate agent that you talk with about their fees, and make sure that you account for these costs when planning out the budget for selling your property.
Do some research about various estate agents, and search specific company names on the internet because this can potentially reveal negative news stories or bad customer reviews that could help deter you from using certain estate agents. Searching for companies can also help you to read good reviews from customers that might encourage you to use a certain business.
As you’re doing this research, be sure to ask for quotes from several estate agents about the price at which they think they can sell your home. Some estate agents will give you a fantastic quote to get your business, even if they know that they’ll only be able to get a buyer at a much lower value. By asking from quotes from several estate agents, you’ll be able to calculate an average sale price among the various quotes for a more accurate valuation of your home.
Another question that is important to ask estate agents is what experience they have will selling BISF properties. Some companies only know how to sell conventional brick houses or other limited categories of homes, and might have never sold a BISF property. If that’s the case, they may not have a good strategy for selling your home. You already face a possibly reduced audience of interested buyers because it’s a BISF property, and therefore your goal should be finding an estate agent that knows how to sell such homes quickly and at a good price for you.
Using a fast property buyer to sell your BISF house
The third option for selling your BISF house is contacting a fast property buyer like LDN Properties. We provide homeowners with a streamlined, no-hassle and zero-stress way to receive speedy and competitive offers for selling all types of houses and flats, including BISF homes and other properties that were built using non-standard construction material.
We have experience with purchasing many ages, conditions, sizes, types and shapes of leasehold and freehold properties throughout London, including BISF houses, flats that have current tenants with a very long time left on their rental agreements, properties that are suffering from structural integrity problems including subsidence and dry rot, houses with solar panels, flats located in buildings on noisy roads, and homes where the owners can’t find the title deeds, to name some examples.
As the name suggests, fast buyers can provide perhaps the fastest way to sell your home. The experts at LDN Properties have the ability to complete the process of buying a property often within a handful of weeks, and that includes all steps for purchasing the home such as completing all of the required paperwork, exchanging contracts, and paying owners their proceeds. That can make a fast buyer the ideal choice for people who need the fastest BISF home sale they can get.
Another important benefit of selling your home to LDN Properties or another we buy any property company is that the trustworthy companies will never charge you any fees. Our philosophy is for homeowners to receive all of the proceeds from whatever sale price they are able to get for their property.
We understand that owners want to be able to trust whoever makes an offer to buy their BISF home, and that’s one of the reasons why LDN Properties is proud to be fully registered with an independent organisation called The Property Ombudsman (TPO). This entity is responsible for issuing regulations that are designed to guard homeowners against potential scams in the fast house buying industry, and genuine TPO members must adhere to all of those policies.
Thankfully, it doesn’t cost anything to check whether a company is registered with TPO, and it’s also a speedy process. Visit TPO’s website and under the “I am a consumer looking to…” section on the left side of the homepage click on “Find a Member.” You’ll be prompted to enter the name of a fast property buyer, and if the company is truly a TPO member then you’ll instantly be able to see their registration details to prove their legitimacy.
Be very cautious about engaging with a fast buyer that claims it is registered with TPO but that does not appear on the organisation’s website, or a company that explicitly refuses to join TPO, because both situations increase the potential that you’re dealing with an illegitimate business.
Top queries and answers about selling a BISF house
Homeowners thinking of selling their home quickly typically have a few questions for us, ranging from the how much repair work they should do before selling through to selling a home in poor condition. We’re sometimes asked how to find out when a house was built for which we have written a guide on the subject. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked about selling a BISF property:
Your top questions when selling a BISF property
No, but some people commonly confuse BISF houses as being of the same quality and durability as other prefabricated homes. A BISF property is one constructed to the design sponsored by the British Iron and Steel Federation, and they are meant to be resilient houses that could have lifespans of hundreds of years, much like conventional brick homes.
The answer depends on your own circumstances, because if you have the funds and time to spend on renovating your BISF home — for example by adding some cladding — then the work could help to make it more enticing to potential buyers. However, not all homeowners have months and money to spare on such work, and it’s not essential before selling the house.
You might, depending on how you choose to sell it. If you use a property auctioneer or an estate agent to sell your BISF home then you can expect to pay them commission, which will reduce your total sale profit. But if you sell your house to a fast buyer like LDN Properties, which does not charge any fees, you will be guaranteed to receive the full proceeds from the sale.
This also depends on the method you use for selling, because an estate agent can take a number of months or even a full year or more to find a buyer for the property. Selling via an auction might take at least a couple of months. And using a fast home buyer can be the quickest option on average, because they can usually finalise the sale in just a few short weeks.
Yes. Even though BISF homes have received some criticism over the years for their durability, the potential presence of asbestos, and other factors, there are still some advantages of owning such a property. For example, they are often situated in prime locations including city centres, and some buyers find them very attractive to use as potential rental properties.
No. Unfortunately, BISF homes have received some criticism in the past by people who consider the properties to be cheaply built and not safe to live in. But the truth is that BISF properties were designed as sturdy homes that were meant to last for hundreds of years, and there are typically no specific dangers of living in a BISF house compared to a brick property.
No, although buyers often have significantly fewer options when they want to get a mortgage for a BISF house compared to brick properties. Many lenders see BISF homes as riskier investments, due to fears about their stability and lifespan. As such, owners of BISF homes might want to sell to fast home buying companies to avoid any mortgage complications.
