what to accept??

josephine36

I`ve not posted on here before (but I do read the boards daily!)

I would be really grateful for some advice on what sort of offer we should be looking at accepting on our house.

Its a 3 bed semi (in West Yorks), about 25 years old, we have totally refurbished it over past 18 months (new bathroom, kitchen, GHC, windows and doors, etc) and have had it on the market for about 10 weeks priced at £125,950 (it was valued at 130,000). We had not intended moving, but need to move to be nearer my in-laws who are elderly, (F-i-L is in hospital having suffered a severe stroke and will need support when he eventually comes home).
We have also said we will pay stamp duty.
We received an offer yesterday of 112,000, which we rejected, as we are hoping for something much nearer the asking price, but I am now wondering what would be a reasonable offer?? (it was a shock to be offered almost 16,000 short of the asking price)
We have seen a couple of houses in the area we need to move to which are both up at £140,000 and of course what we receive for this house wil dictate whether we can afford them!
Sorry for the long winded post, but cant think how else to explainthings.

Jo

Malestrom

It seems that you've answered your own question really Jo:

We have seen a couple of houses in the area we need to move to which are both up at £140,000 and of course what we receive for this house wil dictate whether we can afford them!

So, you can't accept any offer that is too low to allow you to move. If you want a £140,000 house but can only afford it if you get £122,000 for yours, then £122,000 is the lowest offer you can accept. Don't forget that you may be able to make a lower offer yourself, based on what your buyers are offering you.

What you've been offered is just the buyer being cheeky and testing the water. £112,000 is way too low IMO, I would be looking for around the £120000 mark at least, thats already ten grand below your highest valuation.

Charlton_Taz

It's a case of weighing up how long you can wait where you are against your keenness to get moving.

Remember...you can also haggle the price of the house you want down too because it is likely that there are people in the area you are looking who are suffering a dearth of buyers too!

I moved a few months ago and it took me 3 months to sell my old house...i finally accepted an offer 8% off the original asking price which was the only offer we had I hasten to add(I encouraged a few more grand out of my FTBs by agreeing to leave all my kitchen appliances etc). Due to the slow market the good thing was the lovely house I seen at the beginning of my house search was still on the market three months later ...was then able to get a reasonable few grand off the place I'm in now too cos I had sold my house.

Good luck!

josephine36

Thanks for that -

not used to the property market really, so wasnt sure what was an acceptable offer. We did think no less than £123000 (bearing in mind that we are paying stamp duty), but of course its only worth what someone will pay, and we do need to move sooner rather than later.

Blimey! Wont be moving again thats for sure! :eek:

Jo