julicorn's journey 2 - Moving Up

julicorn

Sistergold said:

That is the stress at the moment. As a buyer you are prepared to pay the price but that price is now so elusive to say a particular amount. See if you can really “sell” yourself to the estate agent, that you are serious, ready to proceed, the house is what you want etc, don’t want to waste the vendors time going back and forth, how much will it take to take the house off the market and you are ready to proceed. 

After about two years you would have recovered from whatever overpayment and you save yourself all the aggro. 

IF it does not work out just know and believe a better house is around the corner! 

Thank you so much, honestly. I think I'm starting to get to more of a point of acceptance- we'll throw what we have at our attempt to get it, but if we don't then there's nothing we can do about it, and at least we'll know we tried. I just asked Mr julicorn if we can do some daydreaming about living there today - at the moment it's just Schrödinger's house, for all we know it might be over tomorrow (or just the start, fingers crossed!). But today there's nothing we can do, so rather than fret we can always dream a little (and if something really key comes out of that, we can look for it in a future house).

julicorn

Sistergold said:

With the twitten house does it mean you have two gardens one at the front and one at the back? 

Not quite, it's mainly just the big front garden that's separated from the house by the twitten. There is a teeny tiny little outside space through the kitchen, it's only about 2sqm so mainly just used for a big utility cupboard and to let more light in. 

Aimingforthegoodlife

Hi Juliecorn, oh I have loved looking at the houses!! Did you go see the secret garden house?? I went gah gah over that one, the spiral staircase as well! Some gorgeous houses! I think you are making the right choice with the twitten, no point in playing to many games, you know what you think it is worth and what you can pay, so go for it!! A bit of negotiation room is good, but to much might put the sellers off! Cant wait to see the next update!

Karmacat

I absolutely get the logic of what you're saying about what you're prepared to pay, and the awful fuzziness around what to offer: but please remember the EA is working for the seller, not for you - you've *seen* what online prices really are, and they weren't £600k.  But the market has changed, absolutely, and £600k might refer to one that sold last month, for all we know, and places like zoopla haven't updated yet.  So hard to *know* - that's why going with your gut is a good idea Best of luck with it, I'll be watching for your updates.

julicorn

Aimingforthegoodlife said:

Hi Juliecorn, oh I have loved looking at the houses!! Did you go see the secret garden house?? I went gah gah over that one, the spiral staircase as well! Some gorgeous houses! I think you are making the right choice with the twitten, no point in playing to many games, you know what you think it is worth and what you can pay, so go for it!! A bit of negotiation room is good, but to much might put the sellers off! Cant wait to see the next update!

Thank you so much! We did, that was the one in Hanover that we also quite liked. I think with that one, we're now coming to the conclusion that the kitchen space is a bit too long and narrow, so we'd probably want to change the extension, turning it into a bigger project than we were hoping for straight off the bat. So we've decided to throw all our eggs in one basket for the time being and concentrate our efforts on the twitten house, fingers crossed!

julicorn

Karmacat said:

I absolutely get the logic of what you're saying about what you're prepared to pay, and the awful fuzziness around what to offer: but please remember the EA is working for the seller, not for you - you've *seen* what online prices really are, and they weren't £600k.  But the market has changed, absolutely, and £600k might refer to one that sold last month, for all we know, and places like zoopla haven't updated yet.  So hard to *know* - that's why going with your gut is a good idea Best of luck with it, I'll be watching for your updates.

You're absolutely right, no reason to trust them just because they appear friendly

It was definitely this house he was talking about, we even talked specifically about the weird upstairs layout, the little skylight 'extension' by the kitchen, and the summer house with electricity. According to Zoopla it was listed for £550k in December 2020 and ultimately sold for £530k in February 2021: https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/uprn/22062883/

The one that sold for £550k in March 2021 is also quite easy to find because it's used as a holiday let at the moment. No idea if they did it up after buying it though, I can't find the original listing: https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/charming-cottage-amp-garden-central-brighton.en-gb.html

You see, I've had too much time on my hands and done some detective work

PiggyBankShaker

Stalked you from 2022 Mortgage Free Wannabes thread to say 'Hi' and wish you good luck on your house hunting. I used to live in a rented flat in Brighton many years ago and I totally loved it there and although I could never have afforded to buy something in a bazillion year, it is still one of my happy places.

I feel your pain about the 'what to offer' strategy. We're viewing something on Tuesday which, unless we really don't like it for some reason, we'll probably end up making an offer. In theory we could afford the asking price, but should we? I'm tempted to offer lower (its quite niche and I'm not sure how many people it will appeal to) to give us room to negotiate, but what if someone else offers the asking then and we miss out because we were trying to be strategic? Its a nightmare, so I'm sending you positive vibes and I look forward to your update!

julicorn

PiggyBankShaker said:

Stalked you from 2022 Mortgage Free Wannabes thread to say 'Hi' and wish you good luck on your house hunting. I used to live in a rented flat in Brighton many years ago and I totally loved it there and although I could never have afforded to buy something in a bazillion year, it is still one of my happy places.

I feel your pain about the 'what to offer' strategy. We're viewing something on Tuesday which, unless we really don't like it for some reason, we'll probably end up making an offer. In theory we could afford the asking price, but should we? I'm tempted to offer lower (its quite niche and I'm not sure how many people it will appeal to) to give us room to negotiate, but what if someone else offers the asking then and we miss out because we were trying to be strategic? Its a nightmare, so I'm sending you positive vibes and I look forward to your update!

Thanks for stopping by @p@PiggyBankShaker! Brighton really is silly expensive, that's true. I hope you like the property you're viewing on Tuesday Maybe try and get a sense of how many viewings they have booked and what the interest has been like so far to see how low to start? Wishing you all the best, and please report back as well!

Nichelette

Not to say that what the EA is saying about the other sold house is true, but land reg are taking crazy long to update. House a couple of doors down moved in June last year and I've been nosing out of curiosity but it still hasn't been updated. Not sure if you look at the house board, but it seems some houses are getting down valued at the mortgage stage. Given that they base that partly on sold prices, it would help if they were being updated quicker! 

julicorn

I called them, they already had an offer 'just under the asking price', so I ended up offering the full asking price straight away. Now we wait.