Invited to view house out of our price range

TheCyclingProgrammer

Just wondering what other people's thoughts are on this...we're looking for a property around the Chelmsford area and our maximum budget is £250k. We've only seen 2 houses we really like so far from about 18 viewings and we offered on one, but lost out as somebody offered over the threshold.

I had one of the estate agents ring me the other day asking if I'd like to come and see a 3 bed detached around the area we are interested in. The only problem is, its £295k. I wouldn't have even enquired about it myself but the agent insists "its worth seeing" and "there may be some movement on the price.

Now, the market around Chelmsford is a bit crazy like many parts of the SE right now, with places selling fast and often for asking price or more. It seems like it would be tough to even get something on for £250-265k down to £250k right now, let alone £295k.

I've had a look at the property on RightMove and the only explanation I can see for the higher asking price is that its detached although I'm not sure how much value that adds - it doesn't look that big. But then looking at prices of houses sold on the same street, it doesn't seem far off.

So I'm wondering what the EA's motive might be here. Possibilities are:

a) He thinks I'm bluffing on our max budget. I'm not and have made it quite clear why we can't pay more than that. We couldn't even borrow enough to pay £295k if we wanted to.

b) The house is really overpriced and the EA knows it.

c) He's just trying to get lots of people to view to make it look like there's lots of interest.

Right now I'm leaning towards c - he knows our budget and even if the house is really overpriced (it might well be) I can't see the vendor accepting an offer 15% below asking. If the EA genuinely thought it was very overpriced and wouldn't sell anywhere near its current asking, I would have thought they'd encourage the vendor to lower the asking price. But am I missing anything else? This is the house:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-45903986.html?premiumA=true

Update (30/5/14): we went and saw it, the place was a dump. Really gross. Place has been relisted at £265k (see latest post in this thread).

Westminster

Not that it directly answers your question - but I like to use a few tools out there when looking at particulars.

Firstly, there is a firefox plugin for Rightmove called PropertyBee that will give you information about any other propertybee user who has viewed that rightmove page before and can indicate changes. All this tells me for your house is:
A propertybee user first found this house on the 29th April and the listing was upgraded by the EA on the 30th to a premium listing and on the 11th of May another user found it was no longer a premium listing. (So the EA initially made a financial effort to drive viewings which ran out a few days ago - lending weight to your theory of c)

Then loading the same house on Zoopla tells you it was first listed there on the 30th April. Zoopla also tends to provide previous selling prices where this information is available and also a history of any price changes along with the dates those occurred (none of this appears for this house - so all we can say is it came onto the market just over 2 weeks ago)

And for my own guess at what is going on - I suspect it is elements of all 3 but probably c is the main motivator.

Before I wasted my own time - I would directly ask the EA why they think it is suitable for you to view and how likely it is that the vendor will take a massive hit to drop below the 3% threshold (!!!!!! all chance I would guess as it has only been on the market for 2.5 weeks)

Annie1960

I've checked it on Property Bee. It seems to have been on the market for only a short time (29 April 2014) - but of course it could have been on the market with a different EA prior to that.

Another house on that road sold for £240K over a year ago (January 2013) so if prices have been shooting up in your area I would imagine it will go for over £250K, but you will know the area better than I do.

Have you asked the EA what he/she thinks it will sell for?

PasturesNew

He's probably trying to get bums through the door, so (c), but the other two also apply.

You can't afford it and in a moving market it will probably sell well before it was ever reduced to £250k. So, go if you're nosey .... but it doesn't sound like you think it's a great house anyway.

TheCyclingProgrammer

PasturesNew wrote: »

He's probably trying to get bums through the door, so (c), but the other two also apply.

You can't afford it and in a moving market it will probably sell well before it was ever reduced to £250k. So, go if you're nosey .... but it doesn't sound like you think it's a great house anyway.

There aren't any photos to make a reasonable judgement so I'll probably still go if I'm in the area (as an aside: if they're resorting to tactics like this to get bums through the door, why on earth haven't they gone and taken some proper photos and put them and a floor plan up on RightMove? Maybe they'd have more interest then!).

I have questioned the EA directly about the price and reiterated our maximum budget and he was quite coy about it; all he would say was "there may be movement on the price". Maybe, but not that much I would have thought.

Annie1960 - I took a look at recent house sales down there too and came to the same conclusion. If a similar house sold close to the threshold over a year ago, they are going to be above it now, certainly. Prices have increased generally across the whole area apart from the one or two less desirable areas.

m_13

We went to see a house on at £290k. The agent indicated they would take offers substantially below the asking price as they appreciated the work that was needed on it. We offered on the property and were told they'd had 22 different sets of viewers. It took them 13 days to come back and say no, they'd only accept £280k which isn't substantially below the asking price in my opinion. They've told the agent the are happy to wait another year to find a buyer and it's been on since summer 2012!

ClareTeaches

Personally, I'd go take a look, even if just to show yourself what the area/road/a detached is like. You never know, perhaps the inside needs lots of work, so the EA thinks it'll go for less - there aren't any photos inside, after all, maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe there's something about the vendor's circumstances that means they want/need a fast sale ...

Who knows, but if you view and you don't like, it's all academic, anyway.

Let us know if you do go - I reckon there might be some awful decor or something! ��

picky123

Dont go.

A house on for 20% extra than ever house you have seen is always going to be nicer than everything else you will have seen.

If you have no flexibility in your budget, why risk the heartache.

Have to question why no interior pics, maybe there are deeper issues here. 2 weeks is long enough to sort out the photos

Halle71

Hmmmm. Yes, no interior photos. As an EAs best marketing tool I would want to know why. In our area the only properties that don't have photos are wrecks - usually probate or auction.

Maybe the vendor insisted on an asking price above the EA's recommendation and the EA is trying to get people round whose budget matches what they believe it's worth? They could already have had people in with larger budgets who have rejected it.

TheCyclingProgrammer

picky123 wrote: »

Dont go.

A house on for 20% extra than ever house you have seen is always going to be nicer than everything else you will have seen.

If you have no flexibility in your budget, why risk the heartache.

Have to question why no interior pics, maybe there are deeper issues here. 2 weeks is long enough to sort out the photos

To be fair, if I liked it enough to put an offer in I would be doing so fully expecting it to be rejected, so that doesn't bother me.

It was far more disappointing having our offer turned down this week as we thought we has a good chance.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Halle71 wrote: »

Hmmmm. Yes, no interior photos. As an EAs best marketing tool I would want to know why. In our area the only properties that don't have photos are wrecks - usually probate or auction.

Maybe the vendor insisted on an asking price above the EA's recommendation and the EA is trying to get people round whose budget matches what they believe it's worth? They could already have had people in with larger budgets who have rejected it.

I suppose that's a possibility. I don't mind something that needs some work but there are limits. After accounting for our deposit, stamp duty and moving costs we've got about £6k to spend on doing up a new house which won't go far if the place needs serious work.

I'm going to go tomorrow; I'll report back as I am intrigued.