House dilemma....what should we do??

Moomum

House 1 - We are about three weeks from completing. Its a 5 bed, detatched in a conservation area. Lovely quiet cul de sac, 250 foot garden. Needs some work and new bathrooms/kitchens. Piping etc all random places, and boxed in. No real features as is a 30's house. £675,000

House 2 - Repossession, 6 bedrooms, huge loft conversion, needs completely renovating. On a very desirable road and lots of lovely features but at least 6 months work. On for £515 and bids now at £600k, we could prob get for £625.

What would you do? House number 2 is a style of house we have been waiting 2 years to come up but we are so close on the other house it seems silly to start again.

Any opinions would be great

sunshinetours

You say you are three weeks from completing do you mean exchanging? Its quite a key point if you have or haven't exchanged yet as you may be liable for a £67,500 loss of deposit if you pull out after exchange

Problem, aside from the obvious moral dilemna's of letting down the vendors of your house 1, is that you would not be guaranteed to get house no2 so you would certainly be taking a chance. Also 6 months of work sounds expensive so is it affordable assuming you buy for £625k?

Presumably you must love house 1 to be buying it, so revisit it under the pretence of measuring up or something and check you are still getting the feel for it

Good luck - difficult as noone can really tell you what is the correct answer emotionally

hazyjo

Have you actually viewed House 2, or are you going by what's on paper?

We love (and are hoping to buy) a certain style of house on a particular road. But, even though they're all very similar in layout, we viewed one and both hated it!

Jx

Moomum

Sorry, just to clarify. We are few weeks from exchanging and yes have been contemplating the moral aspect but so hard! We have viewed second house and it's amazing! Absolutely huge! I know, the risk of ending up with nothing is huge. The second house is looking for completion within three weeks. The work is affordable to us but it will be a huge project, esp as we are first time buyers.
X

sunshinetours

House 2 risks:-
- may not even get it at any price as its a repo (can you actually complete within 3 weeks?)
- May end up overpaying for it as already a bidding war
- Do you have detailed costings of potential renovation work or guesstimates -again you could overpay
- Are you comfortable taking on such a big project as first time buyers?

Really have to try and weigh up the perceived positives of house 2 against these and any other negatives

hazyjo

Until you have a survey on House 2, you can't say 6 months' work and you can't really gauge how much it might all cost. It could be a money pit.

As I've said before (ahem) - size isn't everything! Try remembering what you loved about the other house. I agree another visit might be in order...

Jx

tyllwyd

There is a long thread somewhere about gazundering - some people are for, some against. Pulling out of a house purchase at this late stage because you saw somewhere you like better is pretty much the same thing. How would you feel if you were in the other person's shoes?

I do have sympathy - £600K is a heck of a lot to spend if you aren't completely happy with what you are buying. But why did you let it get this far if you don't really want to go through with it?

Moomum

I understand what you are saying, I was blissfully happy with house 1, until I saw House 2. I regret looking on rightmove , not sure why I did! It's a horrible thing to do to the vendor but £675 k is a lot of money and I dint think I can part with it as I feel sorry for him. We are still ughmming abd aaaghing and OH has even said if we don't go for house 2 then maybe we should still pull put of house 1 seeing how we were willing to jump ship at first opportunity. Another viewing of first place is def on cards , lots of thinking and sleepless nights ahead me thinks. Thanks for the advice so far

X x

themull1

go with your gut instinct as long as you don't lose too much money!! if you don't, you will always regret it. see if house 2 will complete quickly?

poppysarah

tyllwyd wrote: »

I do have sympathy - £600K is a heck of a lot to spend if you aren't completely happy with what you are buying. But why did you let it get this far if you don't really want to go through with it?

There's been loads of threads recently by people who seem to have not visited a house before they've bought it then moaning about some pretty obvious defect...

People get the mentality that houses will stop existing if they don't buy one soon.

Moomum

poppysarah wrote: »

There's been loads of threads recently by people who seem to have not visited a house before they've bought it then moaning about some pretty obvious defect...

People get the mentality that houses will stop existing if they don't buy one soon.

No defects at this one and we visited it plenty of times, I guess we just didnt know what we truly wanted until we found it elsewhere