To those BUYING in these difficult times....

leftieM

Go and see it! You won't know how right it is until you walk through the door.
It's difficult to know what someone is willing to accept offer-wise. If you can afford anything close to 330k then you should be in with a chance.
I'll ask to join the buyer's thread too. We agreed a house for sale yesterday. We're in the sell-to-rent camp and have been renting for 3 years. We're happy with the price we're paying as we can buy the house and have enough left over to do it up a bit. Most of the houses that sell in these parts are 'in need of modernisation'.
I can't believe that the market is such that we can buy the house we're getting for less than we sold our last house. It was worth the STR punt!

mbaz

chambta wrote: »

In a word, no!

Fab thanks! Going to play it cool for a few days and go back for another viewing then put the offer in. Will keep you posted! :beer:

Grimbal

Oh dear

Just heard that the owner of the property we are nearly at exchange with has just died (expectedly admittedly). This has changed everything, and we're unsure about whether it means that we'll have to start looking again. To summarise
- probate needed which means a delay of months
- this means that we won't complete until autumn time presumably
- means that our mortgage offer will expire
- means that the renovation/extension can't happen this summer/autumn - probably have to wait until next spring
- house is not livable as is, we'd have to stay renting, but would be paying mortgage alongside - something we really would find tricky financially

The frustrating thing is though that we would have exchanged by now had the vendor's representatives not originally chosen to go with another couple, whose chain then collapsed, at which point we picked up the property

spudnik

Hello everyone,

well we found a house, like it but we looked in the attic..... one of the main support beams has split and the surrounding little beams ( i have no idea what they are really called) are starting to bow.

Anyone else found a problem like this? we would like to know roughly how much fixing it would cost before we offer, rather than offer get survey done then renegotiate, with the chance the vendor will say no after paying out for the survey.

We were already considering offering 15k less before we found this!

lucielle

Ask if you can take a builder in to have a look and then gauge the costs against the asking price.
L

lauzt1987

Hi there. Have just read through this whole thread and it has been really helpful as we are first time buyers who have just made our 1st offer and are not necessarily clueless but maybe a little ignorant with regards to everything that can go wrong! So thanks for sharing everyone.

Our situation is that we are renting at the moment, have a 20% deposit and a mortgage agreement in principal. Made an offer this morning on our dream property. marketing at offers over 145,000 and we've offered 146k (we're in scotland). We cannot afford more than 149 so really hoping that they will consider that if 146 is rejected (which we're assuming it will be.) Home report value is 160k but i'm not sure how important that valuation is in the current climate. We are chain free and so are the sellers so hopefully that counts for something!

Would be great to hear experiences of anyone who's bought in scotland and has experience of the offers over system.

Thanks for reading and good luck everyone.

chambta

Had my offer accepted on our second choice property today. Had to go a little higher than we wanted at £132,500 but they (genuinely it seems) need that just to clear the mortgage after a split. They paid £146,000 for it 2006 so I can believe it.

Just waiting for my FTB to get HSBC to survey our place and I'll then get this place surveyed. Want to leave it as late as possible as mines an old place and if he's the nervous type I'm sure the survey will give him an excuse should he be looking for one.

jonny_power

Seen a house we like, going for a second viewing tomorrow so that's quite exciting. Worried that like the last house someone will just spend crazy money on it... it seems Sheffield does have quite a few FTB's in similar situations to us so I think the market is reasonably ok for sellers really (not seen huge price drops in the last 12-18 months).

Also, saw this house on RM, which has some of the worst photos ever (and is quite messy). Made me laugh anyway!
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-18687420.html

milliebear00001

jonny_power wrote: »

Seen a house we like, going for a second viewing tomorrow so that's quite exciting. Worried that like the last house someone will just spend crazy money on it... it seems Sheffield does have quite a few FTB's in similar situations to us so I think the market is reasonably ok for sellers really (not seen huge price drops in the last 12-18 months).

Also, saw this house on RM, which has some of the worst photos ever (and is quite messy). Made me laugh anyway!
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-18687420.html

That house got me all nostalgic. Can't believe the price you have to pay to live slap bang in the middle of student-land these days though! Are you looking to buy in S10?

jonny_power

milliebear00001 wrote: »

That house got me all nostalgic. Can't believe the price you have to pay to live slap bang in the middle of student-land these days though! Are you looking to buy in S10?

Looking at S10 and S6, mainly S6 though which isn't studenty (and is quite a bit cheaper than that house).