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?

I needed to downsize. Great condition Next items I sold for around 25% of price paid or gave to friends or charity. I couldn’t sell a lovely sofa bed in the timescale. However, the landlord paid nearly new price for good quality blinds and curtain poles (I provided details of the ‘as new’ cost) which blended well into his colour scheme.

My point being for the favour you’re doing the vendors, they could sell to you for less. They won’t get what they think they’re worth and won’t have the ease of selling all in one go!

If you’re doing a basic room at Next prices, it’s:
£1000 double bed;
£300 ottoman etc;
£600-£800 wardrobe;
£600 chest of drawers;
£500 bedside cabinets.

So, minimum £3000 per room. You have four of them so £12000. Then downstairs...

£20000 is just do able at high street prices. At least you’ll get your own taste. I’d only go for show home furniture, not vendor’s.

Sorry but maybe I'm crazy but isn't half the fun picking up nice bits here and there. You can get second hand beds on gumtree for next to nowt, new mattress job done. Sofas can be pricey so bag one in the sale. Make do till you get what you like. You would end up ditching most of it after a year because it's not your taste.

My advice is to have a look on websites/shops and make a note of how much you would spend on new ones. It's unreasonable to say if it worth or not as long as we don't know the aprox price of furniture. If it's cheap material it doesn't worth otherwise it could seem a bit much but reasonable. If you write down prices of new quality ones you'd like and the difference it's not big I would buy new ones (especially mattresses and sofas which it's better to be new).

Buy furniture from top brand resellers in warehouses, like new Next sofas etc @£300 each more or less depending on size, from ebay. And u Dont have to wait!

I'd rather have new so I know who has been in it

British Heart charity shop have nice furniture in most areas, as do other charity shops. I would not pay that for a load of stuff that I didn't choose. Just say that you do not have that much cash to spare and will have to furnish gradually, or say a relative is giving you items to start you off

@sue69m

I'd rather have new so I know who has been in it

Why do you need to know who has been in it? As long as it is clean and in good condition, what does that matter. Do you care who has been in your house before you buy it?

British Heart Foundation furniture is pretty good; they don't accept rubbish and they thoroughly steam clean it , even if it is clean, before putting it on the shop floor.

No thanks. I don’t care if it’s designer, antique whatever. £20k🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 got to be absolutely kidding me!

They would never get £20k for that list of items if they sold them separately, and you are saving them a lot of hassle too, listing things, dealing with buyers who don't turn up etc. etc.

Yes it may cost a bit more for you to furnish the house with new items - but that's not what you're discussing here - you're buying their secon-hand stuff.

You are actually doing them a favour if they want to get rid of the furnitire anyway.

£8k maximum and that's more than they would get otherwise. It's honestly difficult to GIVE sofas away because of all the faff of collecting them (I know because I tried and it took 6 months to get rid of mine!)

Of course as others say it does depend on the furniture... if it's all solid wood great quality stuff then they might be reasonable. But I'm going off the fact that a few of the things you mentioned are from IKEA, and assuming it's all similar quality.

The truth is second hand furniture is often only worth around 1/10th of the price of new stuff because of all the hassle related to buying and selling it.

The owners naturally value their taste and loved items and have thought about how much they paid and not what the value of second hand furniture is.

I moved from a 2 bed flat to a 4 bed house with 2 sitting rooms, dining room and study.

Cost me a lot less than £20k to furnish it! And I brought nothing with me as I rent out my flat.

A mixture of new bedroom furniture and second hand sofa and dining furniture.

They’re trying it on.

Some of our bedroom furniture is from here.

www.furniturefactoryclearancecentre.co.uk/product/paris-5-bedframe/

@Twowilldo50

The owners naturally value their taste and loved items and have thought about how much they paid and not what the value of second hand furniture is.

Their ignorance is no excuse for subsequently being outraged by someone who does understand the second hand market though.

No way! They are cf! I’d want to buy my own stuff over second sofas and beds.

As someone who has just sold a house with the furniture , we gave it away. Otherwise you are going to have to go to the hassle of finding individual buyers for every item, paying for removal and storage of it doesn’t sell - or giving it away to charity. So whilst it might have helped you a bit, you are doing them a massive favour!

£20k for second hand furniture is excessive unless it’s bespoke. I’d ask for a breakdown of what they will sell each item for and you can judge for yourself what is value and what isn’t. YANBU

Their ignorance is no excuse for subsequently being outraged by someone who does understand the second hand market though.
They're probably the sort of people who would be outraged that you wanted to re-decorate too!

Some people are weired when they sell their houses. I had a friend who told prospective buyers that they were not allowed to disturb her cats graves in the garden when they moved in.

They are obviously batshit, and it is pretty strange of the EA to encourage them in their delusion. This could lead to bad feeling which might jeopardise the house sale. Their second hand stuff is probably worth around £2,000. £3,000 if you wanted to be generous.

But now you know their reaction it's probably best just to back away, saying something like you've had second thoughts and can manage with what you have already.

British Heart charity shop have nice furniture in most areas

Why on earth would you get rid of a load of second hand furniture just to go to all the hassle of replacing it with second hand furniture. How long would it take to find exactly the furniture you need, then buy it and kit your entire house out?

They are changing their luck. It will cost them to dispose of it all and store until they sell. You can do much better than £20k!

Chancing*

Perhaps go to view the furniture and offer what you think is a reasonable price.

They rather shots themselves in the foot by saying the price was non-negotiable. Normally if they’d offered that, OP could have come in with a counter offer of what things were worth to her. More they are stuck with all the stuff to get rid of and it’s their own fault. Them then coming back and castigating OP about it is batshit.

However, if there is are any specific items that would do you, it might be worth offering for them at a Gumtree kind of price.

I do know someone who bought some reproduction chippendale furniture (it’s horrible) and genuinely thinks it’s an investment and will go up in value. She’ll have to pay someone to remove it I bet.

Once you move everyone you know will try to donate something that they dont want anymore. Wait and see sweetie you will be better off getting bits at a time, it makes it a home not just a house.