Offering low on already reduced house

Doozergirl

roboticpink wrote: »

sent another offer through today - estate agent got back straight away to say the house has sold in the last two days!

It's been on since JULY, it hardly seems possible that they have sold it in the last two days and I'm pretty upset she didn't think to tell us someone else had offered on it or was even interested.

Gutted.

Sorry to hear that. If it's only been reduced for a little while then it must have been the right amount to tip someone else. Keep an eye out for it though; if it collapses you might be in with a shot.

undetterred

PixieP wrote: »

You do make sense, if you love a house and feel it'll be the perfect home, why worry about £10k? This is my current dilemma, found a house we love, and after the first viewing drove off thinking - 'right this is it, we love it, lets offer £250k (its on for £255k we're FTB) and lets go for it!'. It was only after doing our homework that we realised it it probably overpriced.

Now we could still offer £250k and I think we'd get it. We have the money - that's not the issue. The issue is that we'd want to stay there for 3-5 years. This is a lovely home, but not one we want to raise our family in. We know we want to move out from the city when kids (which we don't have yet) start getting to school age. Although the local primary is very good, so we do have a level of flexibility there just in case. But it's not what we ideally want.

So we're just worried about being in negative equity when we come to sell. We've been saving so long and hard for the deposit, it'll be horrible if we lose it because we've overpaid. You say "£10k won't make much difference in long run", but what about the short 3-5yrs run? I know we'd be happy in this house, but we'd always be a bit worried about selling it when the time comes. Realistically house prices are going to drop about 5% this year, stay stagnant next year, then start rising slowing in 2013 (my opinion from the research I've done). Now if this, or something similar happens, and we've already overpaid by £10k, surely this isn't going to put us in a good position in 4 yrs time?

And yes.. I am a typical nervy FTB!! And as per your advice, I might not listen to your advice, but it's still welcome!

You may as well rent for those 3-5yrs.

PixieP

neas wrote: »

we took a similar risk but house is less money 170k asking compared to 250k so we got less money to lose percentage wise. I cant make the decision for you i just know i did the following to ease my mind

Very thorough answer!! There's more maths in that response than I can really cope with!

I think with us, the decision isn't whether or not to buy now, it's whether to buy this particular house and overpay for it. We'll definitely be buying as soon as we find the right house. We'll also be overpaying on the mortgage - but again, we'll be doing this on whatever house we buy, whether it's one we get for a bargain, one we pay a fair price for, or one we over pay for.

Likewise, as long as we find a house soonish, we'll be on a fixed mortgage. Although my financial advisor said that "Interest rates are already showing signs of going up and some lenders have already increased some of their fixed rates, so I would certainly agree that to buy now and get in before rates increase any further." So we do want to move pretty sharpish.

So I think we'll stick to our current plan, which is to keep on looking and hoping that the EA gets back to us regarding this house. Maybe we'll give it a week and call them and see if the vendor is up for negotiating (was a flat no to both our offers). The thing is that there are no other houses we're interested in at all. Right now it's this, or hope that something else comes up soon. We are really keen to move, because like you I'm fed up of renting and want the feeling of being in my own home (and not paying my landlord's mortgage. I've been here 6 years, and knowing how much money I've given him makes me feel a bit queasy!).

PixieP

undetterred wrote: »

You may as well rent for those 3-5yrs.

Why's that then?

doire_2

PixieP wrote: »

You do make sense, if you love a house and feel it'll be the perfect home, why worry about £10k? !

Yeah whats 10k here and there?....it doesn't matter that for every 10k you pay for a house it works out at around 20k you pay back over 25 years.

PixieP wrote: »

Realistically house prices are going to drop about 5% this year, stay stagnant next year, then start rising slowing in 2013 (my opinion from the research I've done). Now if this, or something similar happens, and we've already overpaid by £10k, surely this isn't going to put us in a good position in 4 yrs time?

Which is?

PixieP

@doire - you mean what research I've done? Load from various sources. It seems like not one person says the same thing. Some say they'll remain the same this year, others say that in order to get back to a perfect economy, they need to drop by about 20% so average house prices get down to equal 2.5 times the average salary.

I'm not saying my ideas of them dropping 5% in 2011 is bang on right - it's just my opinion based on the research I've done (online and talking to my financial advisor). I'm happy with this conclusion and it's what I'm going to be using to plan my house purchasing on. No one know's what's going to happen for sure, best you can do is research and formulate your own opinion.

neas

doire is waiting for that perfect moment.. thats all. You will only know the perfect moment after the event has happened.

But doire is willing to keep renting after 4 years of waiting so far.... after 4 years renting i had had enough.

PixieP

Exactly - hindsight is a marvellous thing!

I've been renting my current flat for 6 yrs - landlord also just pushed up the rent by £100 a month. It used to be a really nice building/area when we first moved in. You'd tell people where you lived and they were like 'oh.. that's nice!'. Was surrounded by similar young professionals. Now it's all students and drug dealers!! Plus the sea view I once had has been replaced with another set of flats right opposite!

So I can't wait to get out and own my own property! And the whole £10k into £20k thing is such an flimsy argument. Surely it depends on your interest rate, number of years of your mortgage, how much extra you pay etc. Plus how much value can you put in living in your own home (well, technically the banks, but more of your 'own' than renting is!). I'd put a lot on that.

neas

one final thing to consider.. when house prices were crashing the sellers just stopped selling the good houses (why only 2 good houses come up in last 8 months in my area)... so you left with the overpriced repos which need tons of work doing to them.. i looked at 30+ houses and only found one that was decent. most were horrible.

geoffky

i would love most of you lot to be my buyers..i would run rings round you with your negotiation skills. 7% off a house in these times is a pittance..we bought last year and got over 30% off and not a new build. in a dead market you will probably be the only player around and the first viewer for months and months,use that to your advantage and always be prepared to walk away and wait.