House buying dreamer now seriously considering it for real!

hethmar

Do you want a neighbour who cant wait to gossip? I just wonder if he wanted to put you off for his own reasons.

Maddie

Philkm, the £2.5k I stated was for survey, solicitors fees etc. I reckon the do the house up properly would cost about £40k.

hethmar - he did like to talk but seemed like a nice bloke, and another neighbour shouted out hello to him as he arrived home, so he can't be that bad.

Maddie

Spoke to the EA on Friday and they said they'd been 2 offers under the asking price and one over but from someone who wasn't in a proceedable position.

We went to see it again on Sunday just to get another look and make sure we hadn't missed anything.

We decided to put in an offer that wasn't too low in given that there are 'apparently' other offers on the table, yet not so high that we would be disappointed if it was accepted straight away iyswim.

So offered £138k today. EA said that there had been higher offers which had been rejected, but said she couldn't disclose what these were (i don't really get why not). I asked for them to put it forward to the vendor in any case.

I can't see us getting it if there are others trying for it, but it is kind of fun in any case

hazyjo

If there have been better offers, they'd have taken one. Sounds like a money pit to me. Be very careful and take a deep breath and step back for a couple of weeks. It's very easy to pay more for something because price negotiations have taken place. Set your limit and stick to it. If you're thinking of spending a lot more on buying it, it might be worth finding say £500 and getting a survey done on it before offering. Might seem like a waste of money, but could save you a whole lot of stress and money in the long run. Try not to set your heart on it... look closely at property at the top of your budget and compare.

Also, the mortgage company might lend on a structurally sound, immaculate property, but might be reluctant to let you have the full amount if the property needs a lot of work.

Good luck. I know how stressful it can all be! Personally, for my first property, I'd just want to get in and enjoy somewhere. You can fall out of love with a house very quickly when it needs lots of work. And if you're working full time, it's stressful and eats up every bit of spare time you have, and you never feel settled. Tread carefully and definitely look at other properties in your budget to compare.

Jx

hwalkerh

If you go on right move. Got to the house price section and then the price comparision report and put in the postcode. This will show if it has been on there for a higher price etc at anytime in the no longer available section.
Have a look and see what it turns up.

In regards to the house, i would say if it is structurally sounds then go for it if you are happy to do the work. You soon get use to living in a dated room as you do it up, people give you furniture as first time buyers and if you do the work yourselves and source things of the internet then it doesn't get to expensive.

We bought as FTB 3 years ago and are now on the last room :-) done it in our own time. Heating was the most expensive thing at 4k, but after that we spent 6k on everything else doing it all ourselves (doesn't seems bad when spread over 3 years). Thats with all appliances, new kitchen and bathroom, carpets, plastering 3 rooms, everything. I may have got a lot of bargains but it doesn't look cheap, someone said it looks like a show home :-)

As long as you are happy to do the hard work it is worth it

Maddie

At the moment there is nothing else in our price range that we would be interested in. However, I'll try to remember that there will be other opportunities in the future.

The thing is we don't want to buy somewhere which is almost good enough, as I'll end up back on rightmove dreaming 6 months down the line.

I'll have another chat with the mortgage broker before considering any higher offer.

Cheers for the rightmove tip hwalkerh, I'd never noticed that section before! I don't think my house is shown in the no longer available section though.

We have all our own furniture, it has worked well living in several steadily less furnished rented properties.

I guess now we just have to wait and see :-)

Maddie

Well after two weeks with no news, I rang the EA. Apparently the equity release co. usually reply directly so they weren't aware that we hadn't been contacted.

EA said they are really looking for offers around 5-10% of the asking price (as you would expect), and the EA would recommend any offers that came in of around 155-156k to the vendor. I asked if there had been any around this mark yet, and apparently not, other than the one of around the asking price from someone who is not in a proceedable position. Therefore the other 2 offers must have been cheeky ones too.

After a chat with my hubby today, we decided to put in an offer of 149500, which is about 12% below the asking price. It seems to have been taken a lot more seriously than the last one, EA said she'd ring the vendor straight away and get back to me this evening or tomorrow morning. Actually feels a bit scary now since it is more likely to be accepted!

sinbad182

Good on you for having the ambition to buy a fixer upper as your first place, but isnt a 11k jump in offers quite a lot?

tawse57

If your first offer does not embarass you then it is too high is an old house buying saying.

Why tight credit could be good for first-time buyers
http://www.moneyweek.com/blog/why-tight-credit-could-be-good-for-first-time-buyers-00241.aspx

There is also an article on the Telegraph today that sellers need to reduce by 10% just to get people interested. I would be offering 20% to 25% less personally.

Best of luck.

This is not financial advice.

sinbad182

This board is full of people saying offer 20-25 percent less. Funny that round my way, the sold price/asking price comparison for the last 6 months is nowhere near that.