Would you pay more than a house is 'worth' if you loved it?

CloudCuckooLand

Offer £111k.

Running_Horse

Why has it been on the market for two years? And will you have similar problems selling it on in the future?

Having said that we probably slightly overpaid on ours. But it is a unique non-estate house in a nice area, that probably only ever comes up every twenty years. When we are retired having raised our family in twenty years, we won't care about having paid five or ten grand too much.

Kyrae

Perhaps they need to get at least 112k to pay off their mortgage, or need it for a deposit for a new house, etc, might be a good reason they won't accept less.

If you love the house, go for it. Who knows what will happen with property prices anyway, they might go up, they might go down. What matters is that you love the house.

vegasvisitor

I have to say, you're only talking about $2k so if it was me I'd just go for it.

Others have also pointed out though that it doesn't sound like a long term home, so maybe there's no point in loving a house like that. However, we all have to work up the property ladder to get where we want.

I wonder though, can you improve the house in a way that would help with resale? A house we like just now is in a bit of disrepair so although it's been on the market quite a while we feel we could modernise it up to a much nicer and sellable standard. I'm so fussy and would like to choose a kitchen etc anyway so it is probably best that we buy a house that needs things done to it. That said, the owner is being a bit unrealistic about the market too, but we'll see what happens.

If you really love it and know you'll be excited when you get the nod then buy it! I hope it is easier to sell for you when the time comes though, hopefully it is just the market that is the issue?

montrose5

If you like it that much why not pay out a couple of hundred quid for a valuation. It will let you know what the house is actually 'worth' in black and white and also any hidden nasties. If it's worth more than they're asking in the present climate game on. If it's worth less, it's a bargaining tool (anyone else making an offer and then finding it's worth quite a bit less may well back out anyway).

Sammy85_2

We overpaid on our house, because it has a prime position on the estate and is on a large plot. Its our "family" home, or will be when we get around to having a family! We plan to be here for another 30years minimum, so in the grand scheme of things, an extra £4k was nothing.

I wouldnt have overpaid if i couldnt see myself being here long term. (i wouldnt class 5yrs as long term)

downshifted

Just walk away - something else will come up :-) There are more properties coming onto the market now and actually if you save up a bit longer you may find you can afford something better in a few months time

jackieb

We paid £7k over the valuation. They wanted offers over £172k. We offered £172k. They said they were looking for a lot more but would take £5k more - so we offered £177k and got it. When the valuation came back (after offer had been accepted) it was valued at £170k.

That was a bit of a bummer, but it was exactly what we needed. It's been a bit of a doer-upper. We'd had offers on a few other houses (always over offers over price) and never got them. One house was O/O £205k, and we offered £218k and we didn't get it. We didn't want to pay anymore. It went to a closing date and it went for £250k. Another house was O/O £175k and we offered £192k - again it went to a closing date and we didn't get it.

At the time, 4 bedroom houses were very hard to come by. We felt lucky to be able to get this one, and do some work on it, and pay less than what we would've done if we'd bought another house. It's a good area and we like it here - we've no intention of moving and we had a good deposit to put down anyway. When our sellers asked for another £5k, we told our buyers that we also wanted an extra £5k (we wanted O/O £95k, they offered £100k. They offered the extra £5k straightaway when we asked). We were very lucky in that we sold our house to our first viewers. House went up for sale on Friday - we had an offer in on Monday.

karenlisam

How long would you be planning on staying in the house and is 112k within your budget

If you are going to be there for a good while and love the house then I would consider it

Book another viewing maybe and think about the points while you walk round.

If they rejected 110k but will take 112k then have you the finances to ask them to sell the house for 110k and then you buy "something" from them and give them the 2 k cash rather than pay mortage interest on an extra 2k? Is that legal anyone.??????????
2k is such a small amount in the scheme of this that I find it quite odd they wouldn't accept 110 after it being on the markey for so long/

bitsandpieces

Also depends on how much £2k is to you - if you overpay by £2k, how long will you have to work to earn it back and is this worth it?

Getting a valuation might be a good idea, if the sellers would downvalue the place if the surveyor downvalued. Otherwise, could be throwing money away