house been on the market for 3 months, 2 offers both buyers not followed through!

meanmachine_2

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

This is possibly me being a skinflint, but it seems a lot of money for a realtively ordinary house.

Then again, I'm not used to prices in the South-East.

Oh didn't you hear? We're all city workers with fat bonuses who bathe in champagne. Loadsamoney!

No, you're right. It's pricey for a standard detached in a bog standard Essex town.

No offence Rayleighians!

stolt

the kitchen is one area that i thought could put potential buyers (family) off, its not particularly big, and is one of the reasons (apart from third daughter) that we want to move, we do want a family kitchen/dinning room.

yes i think its expensive for what it is, i'm sure further up north this kind of house is 200k but its relative to what is going on down this way, its crazy. but then I'm willing to pay an extra 100k for a extra bedroom and bigger kitchen. I just think its the way things are down this way at the moment, i would much rather ours was less and therefore making my next house cheaper but its not happening at the moment. I just wish I knew when the market would change but I don't and like alot of other people the thought of waiting around until it does might mean its another 6-10 years before we can move. I don't know the answer.

The only good thing i can say about rayleigh is that it has shot up in value, if anybody knows this area, its in easily in price bracket of places such as brentwood and shenfield which were traditionally sought after areas. Its a small town but has quick links to london, m25, shopping centers etc but then not it doesnt have the same kind of feel as bigger places such as chelmsford and southend which some would consider too towny, busier places.

I thought the room sizes were good, I'm definatley struggling to find lounges and master bedrooms on a four bed house in this area which match what we have now.

CB1979_2

if you like it so much there, would it not be more beneficial (ie cheaper/less hassle) to try and get an extension on the back of the house to give you both the bigger kitchen & extra bedroom?

first off you'd save on stamp duty, ea fees, solicitors fees (surely approximately £20k???)

granted it'd eat into your back garden a bit though.

stolt

CB1979 wrote: »

if you like it so much there, would it not be more beneficial (ie cheaper/less hassle) to try and get an extension on the back of the house to give you both the bigger kitchen & extra bedroom?

first off you'd save on stamp duty, ea fees, solicitors fees (surely approximately £20k???)

granted it'd eat into your back garden a bit though.

yeah i'd happily stay here, but the wife after seeing some of the newer builds with the utility rooms, on suites etc (neither of which we will probably use) wants that kind of thing now. I did think about seeing if i could possibly build into the loft (which would mean that we lose one of the bedrooms for stairs and then have to re-locate the water tank up the loft and still try to get two bedrooms in the loft. not sure if its big enough to do that with. Also maybe allowing us to build up to the front of the garage (single storey) and we could re-locate the kitchen there and it would also have space for a kitchen/diner. I don't think the council would let us do that, something one of the neighbours said about a building line at the front of the house. for the 100k i was going to spend on another house, we could really do what we wanted to on this one, but i think we are limited to what we can do here.

CB1979_2

nah I appreciate that, I'd defo have a look though, for £120k you could potentially do ALOT to your existing house!

now I'm not too sure about building costs but it'd be at most half of what you would be spending on getting a couple of extra rooms, etc.

and by the time the work was finished, you probably wouldn't be anywhere near completing on your 10 person chain! lol

Bogof_Babe

Is the kitchen as it stands fully fitted out in modern style? If so I would get a photo from the best angle added to your particulars, because probably like me the women (who, lets face it, tend to drive these things forward ) are assuming that there must be something wrong with it. If it's light, bright, modern and well-laid out they might be pleasantly surprised.

Nice as it is, the dining room/area is not essential, if there is room in the main living room for a table for occasional use. Most people eat off their laps these days anyway, so if you had a gate-leg table for entertaining, then could you incorporate the dining space into enlarging the kitchen? Of course this depends on the ground-plan layout, which I notice is lacking in your details.

As for the extra bedroom, if that is the only stumbling block then you could always split the biggest bedroom into two, as I think you said some others in the same street have done. Your daughters won't be at home forever, and it might be beneficial to save money now in order to help them out with Uni or whatever later. It's all a trade-off at the end of the day.

stolt

thanks for the last two replies, after your last suggestion it has definatley pushed me forward in just checking with the council about the building line to the front of the house. I definatley agree that i could have the house of my dreams if i could build on what we have, bedroom sizes were happy with the lounge and dinning room are fine to. Plus if we could build into the loft aswell to create two rooms that would be very appealing.

ginger_nuts

can you build on top off the garage

stolt

ginger_nuts wrote: »

can you build on top off the garage

i'm not sure you can, i think there are building restraints on the house that will not allow it.

mr.broderick

nelly wrote: »

Drop the price.....and try to get some more logs in the fire

That tickled me.

Hasn't this house been featured on mse before?

I remember the jungle in the foreground...........