to put in a lower offer after the surveyor's report

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First time buyer.

Put an offer in on a house before Christmas and the surveyor's report came in just before the hols. There were loads of niggles and it was described as a headache house which he then valued at 8k less than our offer. We offered the report to the EA and they had to get people in to assess fixing the niggles. This could only be done last week.

Well the quote has come back, missing half of the niggles and focusing on the easy to fix stuff. This totalled 3k and they've offered to reduce the price agreed by that much. However, one of the outstanding issues could be a few thousand to fix.

As we think they've had their chance to get proper quotes and have failed, we're going to offer the surveyor's valuation (the one 8k below the orginal agreed price).

Is this reasonable? The EA inferred that the vendor could only afford to drop the reduction above or she would have to drop out of the chain. I feel ridiculously naive.

They are getting frantic as it's holding up the chain, however, it is a full 25k under what they were originally hoping to get in November. The market is buoyant in the area due to good schools.

I called another EA in the neighbourhood for a 'chat'. Without knowing of the problems he said max 330 for the house. I know 5 k isn't much difference but if we need it to fix up the place, then we need it.

We'll see what the response is. It's nervewracking!

Argh - good luck - let us know what happens.
It's all very exciting and hideous at the same time isn't it?!

Stalemate

They say 330k as they can't afford to go lower. I don't know if we can afford to do the works needed so off to do a spreadsheet.

Good luck. House buying sucks donkey balls.

Tell them your offer continues to stand but don't feel pressurised into it, especially in this environment.

Can't you get your own workmen in to price the jobs? I've never handed my surveyor report to the "other side" .

You don't have to do all the work on the house immediately. I have friends who have been in their place 15 years and still haven't done any of the things the surveyor recommended.
I only do what is necessary for safety and easy living and then do bits and bobs when the money allows. My houses are always a work in progress - I think most peoples are.

You have come this far - forked out the money for a surveyor - do you really want to start all over again?

Stand firm - as a first time buyer you are in a strong position - and if the chain is in risk of collapsing it is likely to cost them more than a 5K reduction in price.

Another grand has been knocked off. Need to speak to DH but he's been in meetings all morning.

Thanks for the hand holding!

Oooh, so exciting in a nerve racking way! The place we're buying was undervalued by bank surveyor, incorrectly in our opinion. Bank would still only lend 75% of valuation, but we got the price down a little (not to valuation price but we knew it was wrong, any sane person would!) and we found the balance.

In your shoes focus solely on what absolutely needs to be done to make it safe and habitable, the rest can wait. I am surprised that a house needing 'only' £8k of work was deemed a nightmare house, doesn't sound a lot to me!

Oh, buying a house is guaranteed to send your blood pressure shooting through the roof.

As a first-time buyer you're in a strong position with nothing to sell. And remember that the estate agent works for the seller, not for you - they will feel perfectly comfortable in subtly misleading you to the advantage of their client. It is their job to get you to pay as much as possible.

out of interest what has the survey thrown up as needing to be done?

Ours threw in damp problems (it's a Victorian house! damp is a given), evidence of woodworm in the attic (but the surveyor couldn't access properly to see if it was active and the vendor had had treatement done at some point), ancient heating system (which works fine).
The damp problems have mostly been rectified by the fact the previous owners weren't using a large portion of the upstairs and barely heated the house. We've been here two years and by unblocking the chimneys and heating the house properly we've dealt with the damp.

It didn't pick up the fact that the original stair case to the main bedroom needed replacing, or that some of the windows had had it - with the windows they'd been recently painted which hid a multitude of sins.

Some of the smaller things that were picked up can wait to be rectified until we have the funds to do so, the windows and stair case were an unexpected hit on the funds we'd put aside for fitting a new kitchen.

Always worth putting a lower offerin and nice it paid off (kinda) on this occasion. Do re-read the report though as all surveys look terrible. Our last one did but on a re-reading we realised it was all optional stuff (for example they recommended a new fuse box as the standards had changed a couple of month previous but the fuse box was fine and functional). Don't be surprised if they don't see the stuff as urgent as you do, all surveys seem to recommend re-wiring for example but if the wiring is functional and not dangerous then they aren't going to want to pay for you have have new wiring.

If they cant drop the price and you don't wanna increase could you ask them to leave something else (White goods/shed) which'll mean you don't need to buy those and have more free money for repairs?

Late to the party but for my comment...you are simply in a negotiating situation OP. Offers and counter-offers are the stuff of house buying (or not buying).

You have a reasoned argument - the surveyor's report so make the most of this plus your very valuable status as a FTB status. Haggle gently, firmly and consistently.

Good luck.

As a vendor I would be bearing in mind that Surveys always come up with all manner of 'niggles' that no regular house owner would bother to deal with anyway. And that the price reflects the level of general wear and tear and state of constantly needing something doing that houses always need.

Negotiate, use the survey, but in the end the result depends on what price the vendor will accept and whether your lender agrees to lend the amount needed - as well as what you think about needing to get all the listed works done.

So. We accepted their counter offer of 329k. It will only cost 1.5k to fix the damp and we still have some money in the bank to do the other stuff (one quite significant).

Brill, good all round then!

Well done for getting a deal. Next time, it's always making any offer 'subject to survey' then they're not going to be surprised by any comeback.

Good luck with your move

Glad it's worked out OK...we had a similar situation when we bought this house. Offered well below asking price (it was a doer-upper, old and big but needed EVERYTHING doing to it). We listed what we had factored into our offer (need to completely redecorate, re-do bathrooms and kitchens) as part of the offer, had it accepted.

Surveyor came back with need for total rewiring, re-plumbing and new heating system and - the killer - complete set of new windows (old ones literally swayed in the wind). We phoned the letting agents side of the EA asking for their recommended tradesmen (it was a 'posh' national chain and I checked out their recommendations), and got them to do all the estimates. Even though we didn't release the survey report to the EA, they couldn't really wriggle because we were using 'their own' trades. Got the full cost of those extra works off the house as well - think in all we got 20% off the initial asking price and this was just at the end of the boom times. We were in a good position - buyer desperate to sell, we had already completed the sale of our old house.

Definitely 'don't ask, don't get'. Very un-British, but we had a fixed pot of money and were quite prepared to walk away as we had no more money that could be put into the mix so we could play 'hard ball' as we simply couldn't move towards their position at all.

I'd offer the valuers price only and stick at it. Explain that the niggles will cost X to fix.

325 on a house marketed at 339 is fine. Only a 14k reduction really on an expensive house