First time buyer - How much should we offer?

Thrugelmir

clemce said:

I am just worried, would it be shooting ourselves in the foot to start so high or would it close the door to any negotiation if we offer lower?

The property is bound to attract a lot of interest as has huge potential. Good sized garden as well. Registering your interest by making an offer will suffice.  You can always go higher. 

clemce

Thank you all.
You all summarized quite well the reasons why we are interested in this house: looks old but looked after and we could live in it as it is. We have 2 young children so we are hammered by heavy nursery fees each month (1500 pounds), therefore it would be nice not spend a lot of money on it straight away. We also like the idea of making it our own, we've already decided on a top price we could offer, fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Thank you all for your time and wise suggestions!

Ally_E.

Are you sure it's 80s wood paneling? The house looks like 1930s semi with the paneling and stained glass windows typical of that period. It has scope to extended to the side and the rear, great potential.

Ramouth

Lovely house.  The panelling in the stairs is particularly nice - original 1930s I would have thought - hope you were planning on keeping it.  Good luck with your viewing and subsequent negotiations.

Ally_E.

There's one that went for £210k within 1/2 mile https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=71660778&sale=12051115&country=england Is the area just as nice as the one you're viewing? On the deprivation map both are in the top percentile. 

Irishpearce26

I guess you'll need to do comparative market research, if similar house that are modernised are going for say £20-30k over that price then you know the price is about right.

clemce

I believe it is a semi from 1930s yes so a good built as long as it's been looked after during all these years. We're thinking about a rear extension (lean to conservatory) and in a further future a loft conversion with en-suite.

Skiddaw1

I really like it. Lots of original features and I would agree that in general it looks in good nick. The garden is fab....

Good luck OP!

Crashy_Time

Ally_E. said:

There's one that went for £210k within 1/2 mile https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=71660778&sale=12051115&country=england Is the area just as nice as the one you're viewing? On the deprivation map both are in the top percentile. 

According to your link prices have barely moved in 17 years, is that a red flag?

Beartricks

Everything we've seen since Christmas has gone for way above asking. We were a bit naive when we offered on the first house we liked.

We're looking at similar properties to yourself and went in at £10k under asking. I'd be surprised if the estate agent didn't write us off as time wasters after that because that particular EA has been funny with us ever since.

We offered 10k over on another more recent one, that was priced a bit more realistically, and didn't get it. One unique property we saw was on for 220k and got an offer of 50k over asking which subsequently fell through and was snapped up by the next highest offer which was closer to 30k over asking.

It's silly at the moment. We're looking at a few fairly different areas and they're all getting snapped up by offers way over what houses we're going for 18 months ago. I'd be surprised if there are many houses going for below asking at the moment and based in the 30 or so properties we've seen I personally wouldn't be offering below asking price.