First time house buying advice please!

renegadesofjunk

Hello! My first post on the forum as I'd like a bit of advice.

I'm in a position to buy a house but on quite a tight budget. There is one house I have viewed twice, I think it needs some modernising in the living room but really it's just cosmetic and other than that the house is ready to move into, with nice big bedrooms, a newish bathroom and a well kept garden. It's on for £105,000, and I know that the vendor has had an offer accepted on another flat dependent on selling this house. I don't really want to spend over £100,000 if I can help it so would probably put in an offer of £95,000 and see what she says.

However, there is another house in the area that is on at £99,950, and from the pictures is more of a blank canvas (the walls are white so I could easily paint over them), has space for my bike at the front, and is further from the main road, however the bedrooms are a bit smaller (but the living room and kitchen are bigger). I was due to see it yesterday but was held up on the M1 and couldn't get there in time, they are not able to show me round until Thursday.

In the mean time, someone is looking round the first house on Sunday, obviously I am concerned that between now and Thursday, offers will have been accepted on both, OR an offer will have been accepted on the first one and I won't like the second one.

I know that this is the nature of the beast but I am just wondering if anyone had any advice? Should I tell the EA for the second house that there is another one I'm interested in, will that encourage them to show me round sooner? Or just wait?

Any help much appreciated!

Daisy

sirmosh

Generally speaking houses aren't selling that quickly so I wouldn't panic, most people who view won't actually make an offer in most cases. Obviously I don't know your area as well as my own but if you miss out on these houses there will be plenty more just like them (perhaps even better).

drummer_666

there's nothing stopping you making an offer on house number one, and then viewing house number two

it can take weeks even to hear back with a rejected/accepted offer anyway, but if it's quicker that's fine too. you can back out after having an offer accepted if you want to

renegadesofjunk

Thanks both for your replies. I guess if I don't feel ready to offer right now, there's no reason to suppose the other viewer should either. I think my concern is I met the vendor yesterday and she was nice, so I don't want to mess her around by putting in an offer and retracting it. I have contacted the other EAs and managed to change my viewing to Wednesday, which is a little better. I guess I'm just finding it extra stressful as it's my first house purchase and I don't think the courtesy calls from the EAs help much either!

Yorkie1

I agree that it's better to wait rather than get a seller's hopes up by an offer which might later be withdrawn.

You could always tell the EA that you'll be in a position to decide on an offer by the end of next week, and ask them to keep you informed if anything changes e.g. an offer made by anyone else.

renegadesofjunk

That's what my instinct is telling me too, though buying a house for the first time can be hard to navigate! The EA for the first property is going to keep me in the loop I hope, I guess if I miss out it just wasn't meant to be...