Interested in buying a house but not sure we are getting the right price

lincroft1710

Small second bedroom and only bathroom accessed from it is not ideal. Ignore the cosmetics applied by current owner, this house has a major flaw which paint, wallpaper and board floors cannot put right.

Help1234

Thank you everyone for your responses. It is very hard to compare similar properties as the house is very unique compared to the rest of the houses in the town. A similar house on the same road sold for £158,000 in 2015. However that property was far smaller, and the house I am looking at is much more modernised decor wise. We like the house a lot but we want to pay a fair price, not buy it blindly at an overpriced price.

We are conscious of selling it on in a few years. Due to the size and lack of garden, it is not an ideal house for a family (that's OK for me and my parter). Furthermore, the toilet/bathroom with access only through the second bedroom is going to put a lot of buyers off in the future. Therefore we don't want to buy it at a price where will lose money in a few years. We understand there is always a risk with property, but we can try and minimise that risk by at least starting out with buying it for a fair price.

AdrianC

Help1234 wrote: »

We like the house a lot but we want to pay a fair price, not buy it blindly at an overpriced price.

OK, but you can only compare that to what is selling NOW, not what this place may or may not have fetched in the past.

Therefore we don't want to buy it at a price where will lose money in a few years.

It's crystal ball time...

(No, Crashy, don't start.)

We understand there is always a risk with property, but we can try and minimise that risk by at least starting out with buying it for a fair price.

OK, but your choice is almost certainly not to buy this place at £167k or £170k. Your choice is to buy this place at £170k or not buy this place...

Help1234

Yes and I guess that's why I came to this forum. I wondered if you could say based on your expertise with the information I have provided - is £170,000 a fair price? Or would we better off not buying this house. It's obviously a big decision and I want to be as informed as possible. I am sensing however, from the responses so far that you are unable to tell me whether it is a fair price. And that's fine, I am still glad I asked, your responses have been useful for me so thank you.

AdrianC

Help1234 wrote: »

I wondered if you could say based on your expertise with the information I have provided - is £170,000 a fair price?

Well, we ain't psychic! Give us a link to it, then...

glasgowdan

It's a one-bed. That second bedroom is a study. So what do 1 beds in the area sell for?

sparky130a

ReadingTim wrote: »

We were hoping you could tell us...

Do my eyes deceive me or is that tumbleweed i spot...

Tiners

Besides anything else I'd be a little concerned as to why a property has been on the market 5 times in 10 years... why does nobody want to stay there long?

AdrianC

The OP's PMd me with a link to Rightmove. They don't want to post it publicly, so I won't go against that.

The house they're looking at is, frankly, lovely. I've fallen a bit in love with it!

I don't know the town, but the location looks really prime. Both location and house are dripping with character. It's not spacious - only 60m2 - but the layout gives as good a use of space as you're going to get. The real trade-off is the bathroom, which is tiny, with no real scope to increase it. View bed 2 as office/occasional spare, and it's eminently doable.

As far as comparables go, it's at the upper end of 2 bed for the town, but not right at the top. There's a lot of very bland bungalows for similar money. The RM details present it very nicely indeed. There's a few obvious comparables on RM for up to £50k more - bigger, sure, but in many ways I prefer the OP's. The most obvious comparables all have odd flaws - poor location, poor use of space, or just in need of total redecoration. I've told the OP that, if they can afford the extra, to snap the vendor's hand off. It looks well worth the £170k. They'll always kick 'emselves if they let it go, imho. It's that special.

Tiners wrote: »

Besides anything else I'd be a little concerned as to why a property has been on the market 5 times in 10 years... why does nobody want to stay there long?

That's probably a very good question, and certainly one to ask. My gut feel would be that the restricted space means that family growth can't be catered for. 2012 was almost certainly not a voluntary sale...

Cakeguts

There is a problem with it that isn't anything to do with the layout or the size. I would suggest something to do with the neighbours, something that happens behind it, something to do with parking or some other road problem. The present owners have spent a fair bit of time tarting it up for sale? Do they think that it might be difficult to sell because of the problem that most people know about?