Only another 20 grand to go :(

chelseablue

Not sure why I'm posting this, maybe someone has been in the same position and got there in the end and could offer some words of encouragement!


We're looking at needing to save another £20,000 before we can think about offering on the sort of houses we like.


Hopefully by the time we've saved it they wont have gone up another £50,000!


Sorry for the moan, its been one of those days

Dhrucku

Even if they did go up on price you'd be the same in real terms.

Interest rates will rise but house prices will fall, so meh.

Marvel1

Could you possibly "downgrade" on the houses?

chelseablue

cjdavies wrote: »

Could you possibly "downgrade" on the houses?

The house's we have been looking at are mainly 3 bedrooms.


We currently live in a 2 bed flat so don't really want to move from a 2 bed into another 2 bed, we would outgrow it too quickly.


Ideally we want to move to a house where we can stay for years, as moving is so expensive (stamp duty for us would be £10,000 alone :eek:)


Plus we have a young son, so need to consider good schools

Hoploz

If your stamp duty is going to be 10k then you're looking at pretty pricey properties.

Perhaps someone might take an offer 20k less than asking price?

LEJC

...or indeed could you move somewhere that required doing up over a longer period of time whilst you lived there....sometimes you can find some wonderful old family houses that are a little tired around the edges with maybe the need for a new kitchen and bathroom but certainly liveable ....probably well under £20k less than the done up versions.

chelseablue

Hoploz wrote: »

If your stamp duty is going to be 10k then you're looking at pretty pricey properties.

Perhaps someone might take an offer 20k less than asking price?

Yes your right, we live in the South East (Berkshire) so prices are high.


Our current maximum spend is £395,000, seen a lovely looking property on Rightmove for £430,000.


Not sure if it's worth even looking, would 30k off asking price be laughed at?

chelseablue

LEJC wrote: »

...or indeed could you move somewhere that required doing up over a longer period of time whilst you lived there....sometimes you can find some wonderful old family houses that are a little tired around the edges with maybe the need for a new kitchen and bathroom but certainly liveable ....probably well under £20k less than the done up versions.

Yes wouldn't mind that at all.


As long as the area was good and the house had good sized rooms a doer-upper would be no problem

sofarbehind

I don't have any words of wisdom I'm afraid but I really sympathise. I know what it's like to feel always 20k short.


It's just a bad day. Your savings are amazing, you should be very proud of that particularly as you have a family. I think a doer upper is probably the answer for both of us. Keep saving and keep looking, soon it will all be worth it.

Ithaca

chelseablue wrote: »

Yes your right, we live in the South East (Berkshire) so prices are high.


Our current maximum spend is £395,000, seen a lovely looking property on Rightmove for £430,000.


Not sure if it's worth even looking, would 30k off asking price be laughed at?

Some people price houses speculatively and would take a lower offer... there's a place we recently looked at which was £525k but the estate agents valued at £470k. It was a probate sale so the owners were in no great rush to sell, and they thought they'd chance their arm. It's been six months without an offer so it's now back on at £495k but they'd probably accept £480k at this point... so that's £45k lower than the original price, but a lot of potential buyers just said "too far out of budget, not even going to bother looking". The estate agents were moaning to us that they simply couldn't get people through the door, and outright told us it was overpriced.

I know of two friends who've bought houses at £30k-£40k off the asking price because sales fell through at the last minute (in one case the buyer was made redundant on the day of exchange), and because they had expressed an interest they were the first people the estate agents called. The sellers in both cases were desperate to go and decided to cut their losses and sell at a huge discount.

So it's always worth going to see places IMO... you never know how things might pan out.

Davesnave

We were always about £40k short, so we sold up, went rented and began targeting properties with cosmetic issues / sellers with money problems.

It took 9 months and didn't cost us a bean, but prices were falling then.

It's a high risk strategy now, especially in Berks, but older tired, badly presented property might still be the way to go, even if you stay with your current property.