To put VERY low offer on house?

[HopingForSomeLuck]

Seen a house we really like - great location, good size! It needs a lot of work (though all cosmetic - new carpets,paint throughout, new kitchen...)

It's advertised as POA (price on asking? Price on arrangement?) Though I expect they r looking for around 520k AT LEAST.

We can only afford 420k

AIBU to view it and offer 420 on the off chance of a miracle?

Or is that just rude and insulting?

Did you call the agent?

Neighbour opposite made an offer £100K under asking price for house just to see (not expecting acceptance), but they got it - turned out it was a company house for an employee who had moved on and they wanted it off their books and had not had much interest. So you never know!

You can’t know if a low offer will be accepted until you know the price point / region they are expecting.

If they are marketing it for a reasonable price considering the work required then you can certainly make an offer but they have factored it in. Let’s say similar properties in “move in” condition go for 550 and they’ve marketed theirs at 490 to reflect the work needed. An offer can still be made but you can’t realistically expect to get it loads cheaper.

An estate agent is going to value the house at the rough price they believe they can achieve in the current condition. Nothing stopping you making an offer of course but you can’t offer without knowing a) what they expect to achieve b) whether this is reflective of the condition

Exactly @GinDaddy

If it's on Rightmove, even if it's POA, it will sit in the order of the price so look at the other houses listed either side and it will give you an idea.

Linky?

POA - ask the price, then tell us what it is and we will tell you if 420k is reasonable.

Same as blueuggboots - Rightmove POA houses lay in price order so you can gauge the price by the previous and later listing.

Yes to what the others have said about POA
But if i got an offer for 100k less than a reasonable asking price I would tell the buyer to fuck off

has there been a survey done.ifs it a big house and nothings been done for that long i doubt cosmetic is the only thing needed.you need to look behind the wallpaper.

Well, if they are thinking 520k, 100k is quite a big percentage off that. We bought our house for a lot less than it was marketed for (it similarly needed a lot of work, but wasn't a total wreck), but it was initially marketed at a stupidly unrealistic price that, I think, put a lot of people off even viewing it. They later dropped the price. We ended up buying it for roughly 17% under the initial asking price, about 8.5% less than the reduced price. But we were in a really good position (we had cash buyers for ours) which made our offer more favourable.

If it’s had nothing done inside for 60 years it sounds like the owner has died and the relatives are selling.

I would put your offer in - they might want a quick sale.

We have done this and the offer was accepted. The vendors lived next door and they liked us so wanted us as neighbours. We were blown away it was accepted and would never have guessed they would have approached it that way.

They can only say no.

What I would be wary off is if nothing has been done for a very long time it is likely to need re-wire, new heating and possibly a new plumb to make it habitable.

Like FunontheBeach, we did this for a big doer-upper (the newest bathroom was 1960s, and the heating system was a good 30 years older than that) - and we got it because the elderly lady selling it really wanted a family like hers to buy it and enjoy it, as she had.

Even more amazingly, we ended up lowerng our offer even further after survey (we had factored in the heating, kitchen, bathrooms and complete gutting and redecorating ... but hadn't put in the fully lethal electrics, the long term poisoning from the water system AND the leaded windows that bulged terrifyingly in the wind...) and that was still accepted.

POA is bloody irritating. I'd have to be utterly besotted with the pics to bother to ask how much it's on the market for, and I rarely am. It just opens the whole estate agent marketing crap of wanting your name, address and blood group etc before they'll agree to disclose anything.

Whenever I see 'POA' I just think, 'oh well bugger off then.'

We moved in once the electricity, plumbing and heating were safe, but life was very basic for quite some time. Lived with the 1950s kitchen and 30s / 60s bathrooms for a couple of years, but we love it now.

Call the EA. They can advise you of the asking price and the seller’s situation. Of course, they will talk up their valuation. Even go ahead and book a viewing if you’re keen. I think you’re unrealistic though to think that they’ll accept a low ball offer so early in the process. May be keep an eye on the listing. A house a few doors down from me was just listed for a daft price, it was reduced by 12% within 2 weeks to a more sensible number (I assume as they had no viewings).

I would add that stretching yourself on a property that also needs work could be a miserable choice. You don’t actually know the extent of the work and upgrades needed to electrics, plumbing etc until you’ve had a survey and actually moved in!! I say this, as we’re experienced home owners and did not have a full idea of how much we’d end up spending on the house we bought last year. We had a full survey, but it’s been eye-opening just how much was missed or wasn’t clear until we were a few months in.

And needless to say, hardly any jobs come with lifetime security in the current market, so you do need to have a fallback if you were to lose your income stream.

We got a rubbish offer for a house that needed a lot doing to it. Seriously wish we had accepted now.

There was a post a few weeks ago about putting a low offer in on a house. OP got slated but they did it and after a little negotiation, they managed to get it for a lot less than advertised.
I would ask the estate agent what price it is. Gauge it from there. The worst they can say is no.

POA can happen because the seller thinks nosey neighbours won't ask. You need to call the agent and ask for a guide price. Do your homework on recent prices for comparable properties in the area.

If it genuinely hasn't been touched for 70yrs assume plumbing, wiring, heating, possibly windows depending on quality of maintenance during that time.

That is a lot of money to pay to have done so what matters is how much needs doing immediately and how much you can phase in over, say, five years.

The discount for a doer-upper will depend to some extent on location, current market etc. Try to guage the likely competition. If its sought after for long term family homes and the work is cosmetic there will be more takers than for places in need of the next level of work.

We bought a wreck very cheap when there was a dip in the market becuase it was more than cosmetic work needed but it was not a place a builder could have converted.

We still live here and its been a great house/location but it was very hard for the first few years with small children so think through carefully what needs doing as well as price.

Just ask. Whatever you do though don't tell them your budget. That's insane.

Look at what similar houses are going for in the same area or close by too. Will give you an idea of what it will cost.

Definitely ring tomorrow and ask for the price ...take it from there.

So what if the seller tells you to fuck off? The EA won't tell you that anyway.

You don't ask, you don't get. In your case, you are not trying to be clever, you only want to offer what you can afford, not much else you could do.

You still need to check the realistic price bracket so you don't offer too much! No one can know without the details. Around here, you won't get anything for £420, at least nowhere near a 3 bed house. In other parts of the country, you will....

We put in an offer 45k below the asking price and it was accepted, but that was because it was on the market for over a year - they’d accepted an offer that fell through after dragging on for 6 months - and it was being sold by the children of someone who had died, so by that point they were keen to shift it. We already had agreement in principle on the mortgage so could move quickly. It was also in the middle of the 2008 crash and (I suspect) we were the ‘right’ sort of family. If it’s brand new on the market they’ll be unlikely to accept if they can get more. As it happened, we’ve spent over £100k sorting out the kitchen (it wasn’t even plumbed for a washing machine), bathroom, heating, boiler, electrics, garden, flooring, etc. and there’s still lots of work to do. It’s now worth about the same as other houses on the street. So even if you get it for the low price, there may be a lot to do.