Offering on a house

[Housebuying]

Posting for traffic!

Just wondering when buying a house (not London!) what sort of offer should you make? What % of the full asking price should you expect to pay, and whereabouts should a first offer be?

House has been on the market just over a month, and needs work (full rewire, new boiler). Would appreciate any advice!

WIBU to offer 85% of the asking price?

Just saw they accepted 350 - well now you know what it's worth, I guess!

(The £350k's) on the proviso that we will not ask for any reduction, no matter what the surveys show

Fair enough I guess, and if you're happy with it that's all that matters, but to me that might suggest knowledge on their part of other things to come

I hope you're having a proper survey done rather than just relying on the lender's own (?), but bearing in mind that you said £350k's a fairly average price for the road - even for larger houses - don't forget you can still walk away

I think £330 is much too low.

If it were me and you like the house enough to pay £360 I would just lay all my cards out and say this is best and final offer so basically take it or leave it.

£360 from £390 still seems a drop
To me however.

The £350k's) on the proviso that we will not ask for any reduction, no matter what the surveys show

That would worry me desperately, for someone to drop so drastically and so quickly tells us one of two things, either they know something you don't, or they have told you to get stuffed and you don't want to admit it, so are making stuff up.

If the survey shows a lot of problems you were not expecting you can still walk away OP. Hope it turns out to be a bargain for you.

In the vendor's position, I would accept your - low - offer, if it was convenient for me to do so, and agree to take it off the market for max two weeks while you got your shit together, had survey done etc. If you couldnt pull it together in time, then it would go back on the market.

In your - purchaser - position, I would be VERY cautious about what the survey might throw up.

I also don't think I'd particularly want to deal with you as a buyer, quite honestly you sound like a PITA who will be looking for every opportunity to pricedrop.

Go me! You're welcome!

It’s on the proviso that we will not ask for any reduction, no matter what the surveys show

red flag. Biiiiig red flag.

It’s hardly a red flag. The survey’s shit you walk away.

Thanks for the supportive comments! We can walk away after the survey if we need to

Well done op, good luck hope it works out

Well done for getting the offer accepted - £350K is a good price compared to FAP.

However be very careful about the survey comment. It's not necessarily a problem, but make sure you get a survey done. I did the same on my place - and was happy to commit to not re-negotiating on survey results, but with the caveat that all bets were off if something major came up.

In particular look at structural soundness, wiring, boilers, damp and the roof - you may want to get more specialised trades in to look at these as a survey will only go so far. Remember that a service certificate for a boiler only means that it was working fine on the day it was issued! Look at the age of it and whether parts/fixes will be economically viable (we replaced a 20 y/o boiler in the first month as it was beyond economic repair, but we'd planned for this).

Thanks @ControversialFerret, that’s great advice. New boiler, rewiring and new carpets we plan to do before we move in. It feels exciting, but we will definitely look at the things you mentioned.

New carpets before you do an extension?

Ime building work has a tendency to trash carpets as everything gets covered in dust - I'd leave that until last!

Carpets are only upstairs, nowhere near the extension. It’s all wooden flooring downstairs. Extension will only be done when we’ve lived in the house for a bit and know what we want to do and where.

I'm currently renovating my downstairs, and the upstairs rooms with doors kept closed are still somehow covered in dust!

We’ve always used damp rolled up towels at the bottom of doors to minimise dust during building work. It’s quite effective! I hate the idea of having to move all the furniture out to have carpets done, and live with the existing loose dirty carpet for however many months!

Make sure the carpet can be cleaned effectively then - if it's polypropelene then you can usually bleach these if needed. There is nothing quite like building work for grinding in dirt and ruining carpets!