An estate agent who made his first sale in 1968 is selling the same house again before he retires – for 100 times the original price. Andrew Morris was aged 18 when he helped Michael and June Stafford buy their first home in Hereford.
The couple paid £6,000 for the four-bedroom detached Victorian property in the fashionable Broomy Hill area of the city. After Mr Stafford died in 2017 aged 92, his wife June, 85, was forced to move into a care home.
The couple’s three adult children have now asked Mr Morris to sell the Prince Edward Road property for a second time. The vast property is now on the market for £595,000 – almost 100 times the original price tag 55 years ago.
Mr Morris, 73, said: “I have never been in this position before in my career, to be selling a house where the same family have 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.”
The double-fronted two-storey property was originally built in 1860 and boasts four bedrooms as well as a large cellar. Mr Morris, who now owns his own estate agents which is named after him, said the jump in the £595,000 asking price told its own story.
He added: “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.”
Despite being seven years above the national retirement age for me, Mr Morris says he has no plans to retire any time soon. He said: “There will probably come a time when I have to stop doing this but I still love what I’m doing.
“You are often helping people buy homes where they will enjoy a life-time of memories and this house is certainly proof of that.”
