Viewing a house

Legacy_user

Tomorrow we are going to view a house. It is priced 'around' £180,000. Now, its back to the dark ages. Its not been modernised and is going to need a hell of a lot of money spent on it to make it liveable. For a start its going to need new windows and a new roof - let alone central heating and stuff.

We have looked around and can buy something a lot better for our money, but its a detatched house and is in the area we want. We are going to view it tomorrow, but have no intention of offering anywhere near that figure. Now, when do we talk about negotiating the price? We have never been in this situation before and dont quite know the etiquette in this situation.

dippy

If you like the place, you could put an offer in writing after returning home tomorrow night. You can also list a number of reasons why you think the house is overvalued and why you are putting in a low offer, such as house prices have been falling nationally from July of last year, the items in the house that need renovating and how much you think they'll cost, other inconveniences, etc.

Poppy9

You really need to do some groundwork. When I have been interested in a property that needs renovation I have looked at the difference in price to a fully modernised property to the unmodernised. In theory the difference will be the cost of the work - but it usually isn't.

I would ask if you could take a builder with you to view the property so you can assess how much needs doing and what it will cost. Add at least 10% to the builders price for hidden horrors.

We nearly bought a house that was 15k under modernised properties 10 years ago. Us looking at it we thought 15k was doable for a new kitchen, bathroom, windows, ch. We took a builder with us who had a good nose around while we chatted to owner. He found some serious cracks which weren't going the right way (I didn't know there was a wrong way) and he recommended a full structual survey. This made us wary especially as there was an empty plot next door to the house which was just grassed over. No one knew why it was empty as every other inch of available land had been built on when the houses were built in the 60's. Council were no help but my oh did know that a river run under the roads so he thought it might be something to do with that. We decided we didn't want the hassle as we had a baby on the way etc so didn't make an offer and bought another house nearby. Met the new owner of the original house a couple of years later and they were tearing their hair out as they had serious movement problems and their insurers were unhelpful etc.

ocemeer

how did the viewing go? helps knowing how long the property has been on the market as if its a long time people drop the price in order to sell.
if they dont accept your first offer and you have the guts to wait a bit wait before doing anything, you might find something better or may find they come round to you way of thinking. (am naively doing that at the moment on a house that needs lots of work but is a house that hugs you)

garysletters

I'd put in a really low offer and get it turned down, then add a bit more and even if its turned down, they may come back to you a couple of months down the line!!!

Bozzy20

Judi,

Like you I found a house that I really liked and it was in a location I've been focusing on. Unfortunately, like yours, this house needed a lot of work done too - ie. central heating, new kitchen and bathroom. I made an offer which I believe reflected the true market cost and the costs the work would cost which was £15k below asking price (I estimated about £15,000 for the work). The seller rejected my offer so I increased my offer by £2k then another thousand and both offers were turned down so I gave up and looked elsewhere! That house is still on the market four months later!! I bet the seller regrets turning down my offer!

deemy2004

Also put an time limit on your offer to put extra pressure on the seller

Say its good for 1 week otherwise you will look elsewhere.

FJSRiDER

Al_Mac wrote:

You don't negotiate directly, so no need to worry of saying the wrong thing.

While you don't negotiate directly (as the vendor has an agreement with the agent) I've found that chatting with the owners, getting their home number 'for a possible second viewing', making a second viewing and talking about making an offer works very well.

We bought our current house 14 months ago and got it for £7000 (5%) less than the quite reasonable asking price.

Remember when you make an offer the agent will ask the vendor - if they are prepared they will be able to make an informed decision immediately.

(Actually with the house above I had initially offered £15k less to the agent and waited three weeks before making another viewing....well, it was snowing and January and the old couple really wanted to move - they had already told me they had two offers fall through at the end of the previous year)....

mike_paterson

Make sure that you understand the value of the property when completed - this is key.
Also remember that the Estate agent is working for the vendor and not you, and that he will want to maximise the value of the sale where possible.

As stated earlier always go in way low (but not so low that the vendor thinks you are taking the pee) - you can always raise your offer.

Good Luck
Mike

System

Thanks for replying guys. The house was worse than we thought. We knew the roof needed replacing as there was more lead in it than tiles. The windows were the old fasioned aluminium glazing - and lord was there some windows!!! The kitchen floor was 6ft square. There was enough room to fit a cooker, skink and tiny worksurface. The other side of the wall there was an outside loo. We would have had to knock the loo out to get a kitchen half the size of an acceptable one. The verandah was brick built with a wooden frame on top which was in need of replacing. The outbuildings that they used as a selling point, were wooden, rotten, and the garage was had an asbestos roof the windows were rotten. The garden was in two levels. The bathroom was awful, like something out of the ark, and would have needed gutting. The estate agent tried so hard to make something out of it, tried telling us that builders have been looking at it for the land. MrJudi told her that it was well over priced. She agreed, she told us she would have put it up for £150,000 but it was the client who had told them how much they wanted for it.

She did say we could put in a cheeky offer, but she said, if it was accepted, there would be no way that the seller would pay any more if the survey bought something major to light. Due to the fact, we would probably have had to live in a caravan for a good few months whilst the house was being made livable we just left and put it down to experience.

Pal

If it is really that bad, why not put in a seriously low offer, like £100k? It sounds like it is going to need £50+ of work just to get it liveable anyway.

Put the offer in and just leave it on the table for a couple of months. Assuming that the people selling it are either going into a home or selling because a relative died, they might just get sick of waiting after a while and accept your offer.