Invited to view house out of our price range

getmore4less

If it is sort of thing you have been looking at but just detached then there is probably a bit of expectation setting.

You need to up your budget OR look at lesser places.
What have been the asking prices of the 18 you have looked at

They need to accept they are over priced as there are no offers so if you offer £250 it gets an offer on the table even if rejected.


Surprised you have not done enough research to know the detached premium in your area.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Not looked into the premium on detached because there haven't really been many detached houses anywhere near the price range I've been looking at. The EA contacted me about this remember.

The highest price we've looked at is £269k but it had been on for a while. It's still available too. Everything else has ranged from £230-265k. The house we offered on was up for £250k and that's what we offered.

Anatidaephobia

Estate agents repeatedly tried to invite us to view properties that they knew were out of our budget - some were as much as £150,000 over our max budget (they also DIDN'T offer to show us houses they were selling which were exactly what we had told them we were looking for). In the end, we looked at the houses online and made our own judgements which houses to view, without influence from EAs. If you're curious and you've got the time to spare, then why not!

moneyistooshorttomention

EA trying to artificially plump up viewings on that house.

Personally, I'd be annoyed at an EA being so cavalier with my time that he felt free to waste it viewing a house I obviously couldn't afford.

Definitely would be thinking "Oy, mate, its hard work finding the right house to buy anyway and I don't want you thinking you can help yourself to an hour or two of my time for nothing" about that EA.

I'd also be thinking that I wasn't very happy to be hauled into assisting the EA to tell lies, ie that there was more interest in the house than there really was.

He'll have you marked for a mug if he manages to con you into going to look at it. He's hoping to "play you", as well as con the house-owner that one more person is interested than really is. His thinking will be that he wants you to think "That EA must be telling me this for my own good..ie maybe I really can get that house for much less than its priced at". He isn't! He's just bargaining on people being a bit greedy and a bit naïve. Don't let him think that about you.

What you want the EA to think about you is "Totally fair/totally realistic/nobody's fool".

song_of_calliope

Go see it as you never know - some people would rather sell quickly than wait around for someone who can pay over the stamp duty threshold.
For example, this house near us dropped in price all of a sudden from £300k to £250k. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-38719762.html. When I asked the vendor about the drop he said he needed the money right away even though he knew he house was worth more. If these sellers are desperate you could get a real bargain - it does happen.

duchy

I wouldn't waste my time (although it depends what else you do as to how valuable time is to you personally I guess.

If an estate agent wants me to view something that at least on paper is utterly unsuitable either he is playing me or he has a really good reason like it is overpriced and the vendors are ready to accept lower offers. In the absence of some fairly heavy hints to the latter (I appreciate sometimes they can't say outright)-I'd assume the former and not go. Too many estate agents play silly games -I will only deal with the ones who don't tell me lies (not business exaggeration downright lies I do know the difference Mann and Co)

Westminster

Go see it as you never know - some people would rather sell quickly than wait around for someone who can pay over the stamp duty threshold.
For example, this house near us dropped in price all of a sudden from £300k to £250k. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-...-38719762.html. When I asked the vendor about the drop he said he needed the money right away even though he knew he house was worth more. If these sellers are desperate you could get a real bargain - it does happen.

That house was originally listed a year ago so it is no great surprise that the price dropped over 10 months later. The property the OP is referring to has been on the market for 2 weeks.

TheCyclingProgrammer

So, I said I'd come back and update this thread after viewing it.

We viewed the house yesterday. It's easy to imagine how the property *could* have been worth something close to it's asking price. But once you got inside...wow.

I think the EA agent was being genuine when he said there would be movement on price. £250k still seems like a bit of a stretch, but it was clear he thought he would struggle to get the asking price. The place was a shitheap.

There were plenty of people turning up to view. The first thing he told us was that they had only been told by the vendor that day that some of the work the vendor was planning to do to tidy the place up was no longer happening.

The place was filthy...properly scummy. It also stank. Apparently the previous owners were dog groomers and it appears the dogs had free reign of the house. The kitchen was the filthiest hovel we've seen...the idea that somebody could prepare food in there makes me shudder. The entire kitchen needed gutting and starting from scratch. I let the wife look in the downstairs toilet (to be fair I was carrying my daughter).

This place needed redecorating and cleaning/disinfecting from too to bottom, a new downstairs toilet and new kitchen. That's just for starters.

The place was so gross we didn't bother with upstairs. We just wanted to leave. It was interesting seeing the similar horrified looks on the other viewers too!

The bottom line...anywhere can be made nice but even if we somehow got the place for £250k I'd estimate you'd need a minimum of £10k to get it close to looking ok and only then if you went for the cheapest of kitchens. I wouldn't be surprised if the upstairs bathroom also needed gutting. £15k might be more realistic. More time/money needed than we have. The postage stamp garden was also a bit of a deal breaker for us anyway.

Campervanman

So it was B on your orignal post. Not what I was expecting (I thought like the OP it would be C)! And the agent knew it is going to be almost impossible to sell unless it is a bargin for someone prepared to put in the work and see potential profit.

ClareTeaches

Thanks for coming back to us - I was wondering how it went!

Had a feeling it might be something along the lines of B. Out of curiosity, if you could get it for 240 would you consider doing the work, or is it the amount of work as well as the cost that puts you off?

A friend of mine bought somewhere that sounds like it was in a similar state last year (dog had definitely been using the floor as a toilet, and lots of other stuff). Her and her husband are working on decorating a room at a time after giving it a deep clean (using ALL the bleach), replacing carpets, etc. (Think they might've replastered, too.) It's looking really beautiful so far and no longer smells, plus they got a lovely house for much less than it would've been (which they otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford), but it has been a lot of work.

So there are still bargains out there for the strong of stomach! (First place we ever viewed to buy was along those lines ... It's still on the market!)

Good luck with your search!