Help me - I'm weakening! (cant face renting anymore)

neas

Ultimately the choice is yours... if you want to do it... You know the risks... its if your 'need to settle' outweighs this risk.

merlinthehappypig

We can't seem to be able to get out of renting however hard we try.

Despite the dozens of daily reductions on propertybee ranging from 10% to almost 20% we keep picking the sellers who obviously don't take any notice of the media.

We viewed 9 houses last weekend and after much debate decided to make an offer on one on at 'offers around £365000'.

Encouraged by propertybee and the local agents we made an offer of £310000, about 15% below asking price, expecting to settle around £330000 or so. The sellers won't drop below £355000. It's been for sale for 8 months.

This crash just seems to be passing us by.

Going to make an offer of £290000 on one for sale at £349950 tomorrow. It's empty and the sellers are divorcing so hopefully some motivation there.

ruggedtoast

merlinthehappypig wrote: »

Encouraged by propertybee and the local agents we made an offer of £310000, about 15% below asking price, expecting to settle around £330000 or so. The sellers won't drop below £355000. It's been for sale for 8 months.

.

In the 90s there were people who had their houses on the market for years complaining they "couldnt sell them". What they meant was they didnt want to move enough to drop the price and were happy enough to wait for inflation to take over. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

EDIT: I remember one of my friends parents had a for sale board outside their house for as long as i knew him. His mum complained bitterly about people viewing and then never offering asking price. In the end she refused to have people in to look but the board stayed out there!

fc123

Had a think today.
As a compromise how about a 12 month deadline?

The compromise is with yourselves and the market (visualise it as a grey, mushy thing).

Go 6 months in rotten flat and up the saving as much as poss. Not spending on being out of grot flat as much as poss too because living in grot flat can end up costing loads as one spend loads so as not to spend time in it. phewww...

It is just a small moment in time.

Spend lots of time in dreamland, looking at houses, viewing houses, logging prices, being really OCD about land registry updates.

12 months time, see where you are and, if you can afford to buy something adequate, don't postpone the rest of your lifeplan.

Problem is, in life, one has a £3k budget for a car....but at £3250 the cars are a little nicer, better, more for the money.
Same with shoes....one has £60 for shoes but the really (really, really) nice ones are £80.

Ordinaries (like most of us) can only dip into the speculating on prices (whether up or down). Hardened types can wait, push a deal etc as they aren't buying a home.
************************************************

Merlin, you are going to have to go to auction to get that percentage under market price.
Unless seller is distressed, they aren't going to go so low. Some will have adjusted the selling price down already.

Going so low just p*****s people off.......unless distressed sale...but don't be surprised if there are no light bulbs when you move in.

Ruggedtoast, if your incomes look reasonably secure, go with the 12 mnths plan. In 30 yrs time, any loss in value will seem trivial then.

I did a post about the 90's and buying through the crash...but no idea which thread I hijacked so can't paste it here.

It got a few thanks so must have been quite good *being ironic not braggy*

ruggedtoast

Thanks FC123 that was a good post, and good advice.

EDIT - actually Ive just been reading the replies and thanks to everyone for your good replies. Theres been a lot of, controversy shall we say, on here lately about various things but theres some decent people about still.

fc123

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Thanks FC123 that was a good post, and good advice.

EDIT - actually Ive just been reading the replies and thanks to everyone for your good replies. Theres been a lot of, controversy shall we say, on here lately about various things but theres some decent people about still.

Of course :A They are hard to find sometimes.......
Good luck....BTW I'm 45 (with big kids now) and have learnt that one can only try to do what's the right thing at the time. Hindsight is great but can't be applied to every situation.
Trust your instinct on things too.

budget_counsellor_shaz

I agree,

We too have got fed up with not having our own house. We have been staying with family since last August!!

Nearly 2 weeks ago we took the plunge and our offer has now been accepted. (Apparently the estate agent renegotiated their fees) We offered about 20% below the original asking price and they finally accepted about 17% below the original asking price:T


The price they have agreed is less than they paid for it 3 years ago:T



We realise that the house prices will probably still go down further. We are happy that we have waited and didn't buy originally last year.............. we very nearly bought a house last year:eek:

All the best whatever you decide to do keep putting offers in they can either say yes or no.;)


Shaz

PasturesNew

merlinthehappypig wrote: »

We can't seem to be able to get out of renting however hard we try.

...
This crash just seems to be passing us by.

...

Apart from your need to be settled, there's no rush .... plenty more opportunities in the pipeline in the coming few years.

I hope you find something soon though as I know you have made your decision and it's what's right for you/your family.

All the best.

lostinrates

You know, the more I think about it the more (if I could find somewhere we could afford and would not outgrow) I think I'd take the hit.

Renting might be cheaper, but moving really isn't. We have moved (bad luck) 13 times in five years. Most of my stuff has been in storage for that time, he rest of my stuff joined it when we went abroad, with all of DHs stuff. Seriously, its not live and death but I miss things, I miss my cds, I miss having the right size cake tin at hand, I miss my books etc etc etc. In living this way we are now able to cut expenditure significantly towards the future, but it isn't fun.

Life is for living and I feel like we are just hovering, waiting to live. Its not healthy.

TT1_3

With everyone waiting and waiting and waiting......and waiting to buy, what will happen to prices when all these people decide to buy?
All this doom mongering is putting people off and there will be a backlog of buyers shortly who all want to jump on the ladder asap while they can because they couldn't during the worst of the credit crunch.

If you buy now in a slow market you can secure at least a 10% drop on the asking price with the 'threat' of a crash. Low offer, then let them sweat it out for a few weeks because nobody else is buying.

If there is a crash, you got a big amount off anyway.
If there isn't a crash :beer: