just viewed a house thats not on the market yet, need advice?

pinkparrott

Hi everyone, I need a bit o help and guidance.
I am wanting to move and found a empty house near me that i liked. I managed to get the contact details of the owners and managed to view it this morning.
They said that they have had 3 valuations around £250 - 260 k. I know one of the estage agents fairly well and he said he valued it in nov at £250k.

We are now in the process of getting a surveyor to come and do a full survey (as it needs some work). What do i do next? obviously it depends what the surveyor says, but i'm unsure what to offer, as I think the stamp duty goes up also at £250k is this correct.
I've never bought a house before (moved in to my husbands) never mind one privately.

scope

Yes the stamp duty is 1% for properties up to 250.000, and 3% for properties over 250.000.

danm

they are not going to get over £250k for it unless their buyer is particuarly bad at maths, or they agree to pay some of the stamp costs.

Depending on how much i liked the property I'd be tempted to go in at somewhere around £235 pointing out to the vedor that they have no agency costs.

Norma_Desmond

Two 'ifs' here - IF you can afford it and IF you can't live without it, then offer £249.999 subject to survey. It keeps it under the Stamp Duty threshold and shows you're not a time-waster.
We offered full asking price for this house because we wanted it so badly and the surveyor's report was pretty good - no point losing it for a couple of thou!

hearts

I thought 250k was under the threshold? Anyway not to quibble over a penny. ;-) I agree with you. Dont be tempted to mess about and risk losing it for the sake of a few quid.
You might find if the market has moved on since the original survey that they get a lot higher offer.
I was offered a buy to let that I really wanted last week for 90k. I had priced the houses up in November and thought it a bit high so said I'd hold on and see. He had an offer of 112k yesterday ;-( Silly me .

Nenen

I *think* (but please double check) that £250,000 is still 1% stamp duty but £250,001 is 3%

Musto_2

Nenen wrote: »

I *think* (but please double check) that £250,000 is still 1% stamp duty but £250,001 is 3%

Agrees to the massive tax bible that I have on the side of my desk, here at work.

lynzpower

Whats the relationship with the estate agent?

Rick62

It sounds like he would be lucky to get over £250k through an agent (as stamp duty would jump from £2.5k to £7.5k) and the agent fees would be about £4.4k (assuming 1.5% plus VAT), so he should be happy to take £244.5k. If you can get it for less so much the better. I would probably start at £244k less the works identified by the surveyor and negotiate up from there.

pinkparrott

Hi, there isn't a relationship with the agent as such. He's just an old friend of my husbands, and recently valued our house.
Anyway, might not be going ahead, as managed to speak to local planning office this aft and they said it would be highly unlikley that we would be granted permission for a 2 storey extension (partly because the property is ina conservation area.)
so going to sleep on it and see how i feel in the morning, thanks for the advice.