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?

People really overestimate what second hand stuff is worth (when it’s theres), and underestimate how much it costs to move or get rid of.

Sofas and beds are a nightmare to get rid off as the person buying needs a van, can barley be given away for free. Everything else is £5-£50 on FB Marketplace

I had someone try to sell me the contents of a flat I was moving into (previous tenant) all almost new IKEA stuff but she’d only take 20% off the RRP. She also got upset when I said no

No. Don't give them £20,000. Absolutely not. Unless their secondhand furniture is antique and museum quality it's definitely not worth anything close to £20,000.

It's not very nice of me but I'll admit to a small giggle that their 'non-negotiable' stance lasted such a short time

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. There's no way they'll get significant money for those items and if they sell them bit by bit, they'll have an army of CFs to deal with on Facebook marketplace/ebay etc or a house clearance company will give them hundreds not thousands for the stuff, if they'll pay them at all.

In your circumstances, if I wanted some or all of it, and it was things I liked, I might consider paying a much smaller sum, like £2k for the things I wanted to save the hassle of finding new things, but other than that, I'd not be interested. But I'd not insist on the stuff being cleared unless that's actually what you want to happen.

If they do leave things behind - then you could always sell what you don't want. When we bought our house, the owners left a horrible overbed wardrobe unit thing (think 1980s MFI fake mahogany with gold fittings) and our bed didn't even fit in it. I got about £70 on ebay for it and the couple who bought it, came and took it away the day after the auction finished.

@funnelfanjo

We had an opposite issue recently. The vendors were elderly and moving into sheltered accommodation, so the sale included all contents excepting personal items. We understood that as white goods and furniture and curtains/blinds, garden furniture etc. Most of it perfectly serviceable, meant we could use the property straight away and replace to our taste over time.

Trouble is, they left everything for us. The only thing they did is empty the fridge and freezer and most of the wardrobes. Beds were still made up with PJs under the pillow, soap and flannel by the sink. Lots and lots of tat ornaments and trinkets, pictures, pots, pans & plates, cupboards full of bedding and old paint tins, old hoovers... It took a week to empty, clean the place and sort into piles for charity shop or the dump, then hours of back and forth ferrying it about. Then cleaning from top to bottom. Two sheds rammed so full we just hired a skip as we didn’t have the energy to sort them after dealing with the house.

They genuinely thought they were doing us a favour selling us a property we could use on Day 1 but we ended up doing all the hard work of house clearance. Oh and they left £70 debt on the electric meter just to rub it in, even though we’d specifically asked about that before exchanging.

This reminds me of when my Mum downsized from a 3 bedroom house to a one bedroom retirement flat-it took the whole family weeks to sort her stuff into "tip, charity shop and keep" piles before the move.

@sueelleker at least in our situation we didn’t have any sentimental attachment to the stuff and could dispatch without emotion.

It was a good rehearsal - we’ve both got elderly mums in their 80s living in 3 bed houses too and can see the day coming soon when we’re going to have to help them downsize. How to do that while dealing with the memories will be tough for me - DH says he doesn’t attach sentiments to objects but he’s a bugger for keeping stuff that might be useful “just in case”.

DH says he doesn’t attach sentiments to objects but he’s a bugger for keeping stuff that might be useful “just in case”.
Oh yes, I've got one of those as well-last time we moved I got rid of a load of stuff, and he's never missed it.

@Dogoodfeelgood

Hmmm - a nice king size bed with headboard new would be around 2.5k - you have 3 of those there so 7.5k - then a corner sofa and chairs new could easily be 4K - you’re up to 11k on those things alone. I do think you wouldn’t be able to buy all that new for 20k however if you did you would be choosing things you like... I think they were rude to respond that way though.

depends where from. 2.5K sounds like a huge amount to me.

bed base etc fomr Ikea/Wayfair or even the high street bed shops is £500 max (and can be less)
matress, well they advertise matress on TV for a couple of hundred. replced ds double bed natress for £120 a year or so ago.

So yes, in theory it COULD be 2.5 K, it i smore likely to be much much less.

They're really cheeky. stand your ground

Our vendors offered us the opportunity to buy the shed and greenhouse. We said no thank you

They left them anyway. I wonder why?

I have also struggled to get rid of furniture. People don't want to buy second hand. You put it on Facebook for £10 and then you get bombarded with messages asking if I can deliver it .

Have ended up having pay the council to take unwanted items away. Even freecycle is a struggle with some things

yes definitely say they MUST REMOVE everything !

They are mad , plus why would you want someone else's beds ?? .. but your own stuff ! You can buy necessities and the rest of it as time goes on but £20k .. no way!

The sceptic in me says that no one thinks they are doing a favour by leaving things. They can’t be bothered cleaning up their own mess, and they try and spin it whatever way.

As for OP’s question - and this is all down to personal taste - I wouldn’t accept even if they counter offered for £2k. I would be stipulating that they get their stuff out of there. The seller is completely deluded.

Why would they think you have the same taste anyways .. beyond belief ! 🙄

@Altah

The sceptic in me says that no one thinks they are doing a favour by leaving things. They can’t be bothered cleaning up their own mess, and they try and spin it whatever way.

As for OP’s question - and this is all down to personal taste - I wouldn’t accept even if they counter offered for £2k. I would be stipulating that they get their stuff out of there. The seller is completely deluded.

I agree! I have arranged with our buyers that we will leave curtains/ blinds, and a few other bits. They are helping me out as I won't need to remove them, and they get some window covering etc. until they get their own made. No £ changing hands.

Our last house was bought with everything included apart from a painting that they wanted us to pay for (we said no). It too ages to get rid of all the bits they didn’t want - like a house clearance really. I understand why they did it though (in their 80s)

What are they going to do with it if you don’t want it.
House clearance will offer a few hundred pounds to take it away.

I’d LOVE to see a spreadsheet with a breakdown on how much they’ve valued each item. There’s 38 items and for a total of £20K that’s an average of £526 for each individual thing. Deluded thay are.

Agree they are probably trying to avoid having to get house clearance in. Make sure they don't leave it all there for you to deal with!
The house clearance place we used for DM's house is also an auctioneers so anything remotely decent is going in a sale. It's a shame to throw away quality furniture but if it's not your taste then don't hang onto it.

I suspect they just don't really have any idea how little they'd get, have done a quick "how must did it all cost us, asked you for a (possibly modest) percentage of that ...... but it's still far more than they'd get.

I've been sorting out a relatives flats via a POA then probate and things really do go for incredibly low amounts. We had to deal with a sale of a foreign property so although we cleared personal things (paperwork, cupboards, linen), we offered to throw everything else bar 3 items in free. That was slightly different as the cost and logistics of trying to sort clearance aboard during Covid was hideous. We decided though that if we didn't want to clear everything we had to offer enough things so that it was worth the buyer taking everything then getting rid of things in due course.