Naive first-time buyer, please help!

Gwhiz

If you have house number and postcode (or street name) we can look up how much the vendor purchased it for.

hazyjo

Do the mortgage providers know you're paying the £20k back? If not, it will drastically affect what they'll offer to lend you.

Agree, try not to get emotionally involved. Hard, I know.

Zoopla can't be trusted for valuations - sometimes it's hundreds of thousands off(!), only trust it for actual sale prices.

Remember also, if it's hard to sell now, it will hard for you to sell it too. Think hard about how long you're planning on staying there and whether it will still suit in a couple of years' time. If you're likely to want to move again (for a garden or whatever), it might be worth looking at something else as you just don't know which direction the market's going to go in. Don't want to have to sell in a falling market if negative equity might be a problem...

Jx

antigherkin

Well, the original plan was that he would take out a mortgage on our behalf and we would rent from him, then buy the property from him once we had saved a deposit, but after a meeting with the bank he was able to set up this arrangement instead. It sounds like we need to clarify exactly what the arrangements will be in terms of paying him back. He did originally want it to be a gift, but we would only accept it as a loan.

SpeedSouth

antigherkin wrote: »

I don't know what the vendor paid for this property, but found out from Zoopla that the house next door (which is a similar spec) went for £135k in 2006, the same as the asking price for this one now. .

I'm in an almost identical situation to you at the moment. Hoping to get my AIP tomorrow with the view to making an offer. The house I'm looking at is overpriced realisticaly too, backed up by the time it's been on the market and reductions it's had. I only have one similar property sold within the last 10 years so we will see how that goes. If I was using the same figures you are though for mine I would suggest based on the fact the end terrace sold in 2006 for 135k (depending on postcode) it should be less than that at present.

Have you seen the one over the road for £15k less? What is about that one that you don't like/want? As that suggests the one your looking at is very overpriced already?

antigherkin

Gwhiz: I do have the postcode, but a bit reluctant to put it up (just in case the vendor Googled his property and found this thread!). I have checked on Zoopla and on Net House Prices and they have information on sale prices for the properties either side, but not for the one we are looking at.

Gwhiz

antigherkin wrote: »

Gwhiz: I do have the postcode, but a bit reluctant to put it up (just in case the vendor Googled his property and found this thread!). I have checked on Zoopla and on Net House Prices and they have information on sale prices for the properties either side, but not for the one we are looking at.

OK.. your call. You can send me a PM if you would like the information.

antigherkin

Hi adam81. Yes, I have seen the one over the road. It is a little bit smaller than the one we like and would need more work to get it looking the way we'd want it I think. I'd say it is a fair bit overpriced, but I know the vendor has already turned down an offer of 95k on it. That's the other problem: the vendor is a friend of my family, so I would feel a bit awkward negotiating him down.

SpeedSouth

If nothing else then that £95k offer gives you an idea of what others think it is worth. You don't know the situation obviously but it might have been a devloper making a cheeky bid, but it would strike me as a high bid for a developer if it's been on the market over a year.