How much to offer?

burbs_2

Hi

We have spotted a house, 3 bed being sold for £109,950. Went to view it today and liked it. Before we went round we got a phone call from the estate agent selling it saying that they had found the vendor a new property and the vendor was now more likely to be negotiable on price. The house has only gone on the market in the last week or so. It was bought in 2003 for £59,400.

Can someone give me a starting guide to how much i should offer for the property. I have heard we should offer 10% lower than the price and then take a further £5000 off. This would make the offer around £94,000. We would be willing to go up slightly higher but not anywhere near the £109,950 the vendor is after.

Any advice please?

safesound

Good luck if you can get them to go for it
Seriously, I'd start at 95K and see what happens, you never know they may be desperate to move. If they didnt go for it and it was exactly right for me (that means barely anything needed doing to it) I'd make them an offer of 100K and make sure they knew that was my last and top offer. If they didnt go for it, I'd walk away.
Plenty of houses will be perfect for you, but paying more than you can afford will detrimentally affect your quality of life for many years to come. Its just not worth over stretching yourself for ANY house.

You can probably tell I'm not of the school of thinking where you faff around making piddling little £500 incriments. If you want the house make a sensible offer (that you can afford) and go for it, if it doesnt pull off then its not the end of the world just keep looking.