To think I can furnish a house for £20,000?

[LKnope]

We’ve bought a house. It has four bedrooms and two receptions rooms.

The owners are downsizing and moving to a two bedroom cottage so don’t require all the furniture they have in the house.

We’re moving from a two bedroom flat so don’t have an awful lot of furniture to bring with us.

As part of the sale, the estate agent mentioned that they’re downsizing and I asked if they’d be interested in maybe selling some furniture. They do have some nice items and it’d mean that we would be able to move in and not have to think about buying stuff for a while: we wanted to live in the house and figure out how we want to decorate and style it before buying all that much. Plus wait time for new furniture at the moment seems very long.

They came back to say yes, they’d sell us the following:
3 x kingside beds with headboards
1 x single bed with headboard
8 x bedside lockers
2 x chest of drawers
2 x wardrobes
1 x 32” Samsung TV
1 x fabric corner sofa
2 x fabric two-seater sofas
2 x armchairs (fabric)
2 x coffee tables
1 x dining table
6 x dining chairs
1 x hall console table
1 x tv cabinet
2 x IKEA storage sets (in kids’ rooms- we already have the same ones so I know they’re IKEA)
2 x children’s desks with chairs (I think these are IKEA too)
1 x washing machine

All for a non-negotiable price of £20,000.

Now, it’s very objective because we have no idea of where most of the furniture came from and how much it cost new but, at the end of the day, it’s secondhand furniture. It’s perfectly nice but clearly used.

I sent back a nice, I thought, note to the estate agent to say thanks but no thanks and that the price is above what I would expect for secondhand items and it’d make more sense to buy new given the price.

I’ve received a call from the agent now to tell me that the vendors are very upset and went to a lot of trouble to do me a “favour” to even consider letting me buy their furnishings, and they think I’m kidding myself if I think I could buy furniture new for the amount they quoted.

For context, if it matters, I have budget to decorate with new furniture. We just considered this for convenience until we figure out what we want to do in terms of decorating long-term.

For further context, we paid above asking price.

AIBU to think that £20,000 would buy a significant amount of new furniture, and that their response was shitty?

If you put that £20k on your mortgage you would end up paying a load more in interest for it as well, most furniture can be bought interest free, end up costing a fortune it would

What they're offering is worth about £9,500k new. So absolutely not.

We have a 4 bed with 2 reception rooms, not a chance we spent that on furniture. We furnished 90% of the house from free gifting sites and charity shops. The only things we bought new were essentials for us, new washing machine, mattresses. As we started buying new things we just regifted the old bits again. Our first sofa in the house cost £60 from the Heart Foundation charity shop.

They have already got more than they asked for the house now they are trying to get more out of you. If anything your probably doing them the favour by taking it off their hands.

Also why do estate agents get so involved - fuck off like !! Estate agent y we bought through was ringing us constantly for updates - I said our solicitors have it in hand your not involved anymore Mate 😂 in the end I had to block him when he called several times the day I was in labour in hospital 😂😂

@Fupoffyagrasshole

Also why do estate agents get so involved - fuck off like !! Estate agent y we bought through was ringing us constantly for updates - I said our solicitors have it in hand your not involved anymore Mate 😂 in the end I had to block him when he called several times the day I was in labour in hospital 😂😂

When I sold my first house the agent was involved until the day before exchange - thank Christ, because the buyer decided literally hours before exchange that he wanted to pay £5k less, which was a hell of a lot in 1994. All the agents worked really hard to hold the chain together because of that tit. He didn’t get his £5k!!

Of course YANBU.

the vendors are getting very confused between the prices they might have bought things for and what they could possibly hope to achieve by selling furniture second hand. I would have thought the Estate Agent should have explained this to them, rather than passing on daft messages about them 'being offended'. They will now have the hassle of getting rid of it all, for very little return.

Some people don’t understand that 2nd hand furniture is only worth what someone’s willing to pay for it.

20k sounds a lot! Especially for second hand. Doubt they will get that amount anywhere else even assuming they are quality brands.
Have you priced up how much it would cost you to buy it?
If you particularly love an item could you offer to buy just a few bits?
When we moved we said we were interested in buying the curtains , seller came back with an extortionate price , we said no, a week before we moved they offered them to us for half the original price they asked so they may come back to you if you politely say no thank you we cant afford that.

I've not read the thread but I cannot believe the cheek and I reckon they may clear one grand if lucky selling that on ebay.
I ebay a little, do charity shops and free cycle and almost furnished our house with beautiful item's for next round nothing.

White goods is a different matter of course! But no! I can't belive how cheeky they ate!

Second hand furniture is worthless, they are dreaming...I end up pretty much giving it away on Facebook and some of it is nice brands and always good condition etc.
Not surprised they are disappointed...20k for that lot would of been jackpot for them!

Mil was keen tp off loads dh bedroom items on us when we moved and told me that this plain ugly book shelf had cost £500 from John Lewis in don't care if it cost a million it looked kikePlain office furniture.

First of all I wouldn't bother having any more exchanges re the furniture with the estate agent or the vendor. I would however be a bit more wary of the whole thing as this suggestion that they were doing you a favour offering you their old furniture at a ridiculous price suggests to me they might try other off the wall things. The idea that you want their old beds is daft, for one thing let along 3 king sized ones you probably won't need. presumably you already have a bed of your own as do your children! God knows why they've taken offence.

That is insanity..

My superking bed frame (Original Bedstead Co) cost 550 in a sale.
My mattress cost more (850)
Two as new leather sofas (ok they don't match, but they are good quality or were until a dog ate them slightly) 90 all in, including delivery! (Charity furniture warehouse!) One is a 2 seater, one a 4 seater!

My 7ft desk is an arts and crafts refectory table, extends to 9ft, £95.

You can absolutely furnish even a big house for half that, and a tiny FRACTION of that if its all second hand.

Is it definitely the vendor who is being sensitive, and not the agent? Just worth bearing in mind… I agree with the advice to be very polite about it all, to keep your sale.

They can’t take it with them so in reality, they are the ones in the weak position here. They are probs desperate to offload it. Just say no.

@YouShouldSeeMyNewHouse yes I hope karma bit them on their arses. Who knows. But we did fix the damage and we're still in the house many years later. It was worth it.

That’s nuts. Just decline.

They're insane. Just say no.

Cheeky fuckers! I agree that some older people have no clue about second hand values (and I'm not dissing older people - I'm pushing 60 myself!). You see it in charity shops where older volunteers have priced Primark tshirts at £4, and then wonder why they languish unsold on the rails.
We furnished our first house mostly from furniture auctions and did it really cheaply. The only furniture that really holds its value is stuff like Ercol. (Although we did sell a 20s oak framed sofa on eBay for a very good price a couple of years ago, and someone drove all the way from Cornwall to Yorkshire to collect it. We'd bought it from an ad in a supermarket for £30and it turned out to be a very good make!)
Just ignore the vendors. They sound entitled and rude.

They probably don't realise that you need to price second hand furniture very low to sell it. It's often given away especially beds and mattresses as most people aren't keen to buy second hand.

I didn't realise that furniture was so valueless until we came to clear IL's house, over 10 years ago.

Anything flat packed was just skip fodder. Some 1960s stuff had up-cycling value as very paintable, the Lloyd Loom stuff had some resale value. Things like the barely used electric reclining chairs have are sale value because they are the sort of thing people are looking to buy and would love as a bargain (I wish I had been able to keep them).

The nearly new large wardrobes that weren't particularly cheap were offered to the new owners for free before they went in the skip and they accepted.

We were lucky to find an old fashioned house clearer who sold on stuff and gave us some of the money. Most of them are just there to skip the contents of damaged lets these days.

Our house is a mix of new and old. Moved in from a much smaller house 3.5 years ago so have bought a lot of "new" furniture since then.

In our main front room (as opposed to The Other Front Room) where I am sitting now, we have (admittedly it is rather packed but not at all cramped)

Next chest of drawers and Laura Ashley console - from previous house, cost total of £800 new, 8 years ago.

G-plan sofa bed. Seats 4. Ex display £900

Stressless recliner set £150 on ebay. Replaced ikea sofa that didn't last very long at all with a lounging teenager.

Rug £250 from barker & Stonehouse.

Pine "map table" used as TV stand and large, customised matching book case from peak furniture - £900 in total

TV is an LG one, bought recently for £600. Replaced a 14 year old 32" crt that got moved into the other front room (dh made the stand for that himself from scaffold board)

Very useful and capacious cherrry stained monstrosity of an M&S sideboard, probably dating from the 90s but very well looked after - £120 via gumtree.

Floor lamp, table lamp and ceiling shade, just over £200 on total from John Lewis and IKEA.

Cute little £35 IKEA side table.

Big round mirror - admired it in Fenwick where it was £130, bought it from Taskers online for £85.

Curtains came with the house. Love the pattern but they have moth holes and are too long for the windows. Will make their replacement myself.

The rest of the house tells a similar story. Stuff we've had years. Stuff bought inexpensively from Dunelm, IKEA or slightly less inexpensively from Next. Ebay and gumtree bargains, stuff bought in sales (like our vi-spring mattress) and stuff made to order, with a smattering of dh's handiwork, here and there (he's partial to rubbing his wood)

Unbelievable. They are deluded.
£2k possibly but £20k

The vendors are clearly insane. I would struggle to pay £2k for that list of used furniture, never mind £20k!

They sound batshit and if they’re ‘upset’ that you won’t pay £20k for their old stuff , I’d be concerned about the sale going smoothly and the state of the house if it does.