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?

It depends on the furniture.

Twenty thousand pounds??!

No.

Nope! They are asking for as new prices and above.

They haven't taken into account that they don't want it and will have to dispose of it if you don' t want it.

Our seller did much the same. I told the agent to be very specific - it ALL had to be out of the house when we walked in. I WOULD charge them for removal if anything was left. And I then ignored any further attempt to flog me their tat!

Tell them no - non negotiable!

We fully furnished a 4-bedroom holiday let with a mixture of new and auction pieces (auction rooms, sometimes eBay), including original, local art work for about £20k in 2018. Because of the nature of the house, we focused on modern country style, eg. handmade yorkshire oak dining table, second-hand high end leather sofas, etc. That total didn't include white goods. It was almost all (a couple of mistake buys, that have had to be purchased again since) very good quality, but it took time to do. I bought some of the new items in the Dec / Jan sales and then was looking almost every day from Feb to June for the remainder of the items we needed.

There is no way I would pay £20k for someone else's used choices with no guarantees, warrantees, etc. The previous owner (-it was previously a holiday let) offered to sell the contents to us for £10k then £7k when we said no, but the quality wasn't good enough for what we wanted to achieve.

£500 per item?!!!!!!!

CF!!

I'd say eff off. This is second hand furniture, not new for old prices. More like £2000

I could & I’d love to! I even know the majority of the items I’d buy if the house suited them (or would adapt my dream interior to the house - most of it would suit anywhere).

Of course you’ve done the right thing turning them down & they are being ridiculous. I’m sure they are upset, now they’ll have to get rid of all their old shit themselves & are extremely unlikely to get a fraction of what they asked plus it’ll be a total arseache...thankfully not your problem!!

I thought you were asking if you could buy all you needed for that, and I was going to suggest that £5k would be plenty with new mattresses and bed frames, second hand everything else. £20k for all second hand is nuts.

Plenty of lightly used furniture around, never any need to buy new.

It's actually pretty misguided and unprofessional of the EA to try and manipulate you into buying it once you'd declined their 'offer.'
Even if they said that, he or she didn't need to relay it to you.

Anyway, no way would I pay that. It's a pisstake.
Some modern furniture does hold its value quite well through, eg Habitat.

Of course you could furnish a house for 5k, if you're not too fussy.
Facebook, charity shops and free cycle along with just having the absolute essentials for eating/sleeping.
But IMO, the house would look shit.

I'd have pointed out to the agent the typo - they'd slipped in an extra "0".

You'll buy it cheaper from whichever charity shop it eventually ends up in.

They have miscalculated somewhat, haven't they? At half that, it might be worth considering, but twenty grand?

lol.

Unless the brown furniture turns out to be Chippendale, I'd give it a swerve.

I mean by my post above that, no, they are mad to expect you to pay £20,000 for their secondhand furniture. Of course you could furnish a house very nicely for that, unless you were dead set on buying everything bespoke. Good grief!

Like a pp I did a count up of what I’d expect to pay for those things new and also came to around 12k, so second hand? Absolutely not. I agree with pp’s that the max offer (and it would be a generous one) would be 5k. It’s crazy they think they could get that much.

How many in your family op? Do you need 3 king size beds?
This is a complete rip off anyway. Try to negotiate the price down.

Your vendors are going to end up giving a lot to the British Heart Foundation for nothing. At that point they might wish they quoted £5k. You’re not responsible for their delusional bubble bursting.

More like 2,000.

Utterly outrageous.

People often give items they don't want for £50 as it's easier than arranging moving and second hand shops give very little for items.

You would deeply regret it.

Theyre nuts. Tell them to get lost. Id say about £1-2k max.

For it to be worth anywhere near that amount, it would have to be in good condition, excellent quality, exactly to your taste and needs in terms of amount, size etc and that you were planning to spend something like that amount.

Only if all that applies should you even consider their kind offer.

Otherwise, no way. All our furniture came from IKEA and us 15-20 years old. It is still in perfect condition and we've had to replace hardly anything. A house full of furniture is never going to be worth that amount to us. You have to decide whether it's worth that to you and it sounds like it isn't.

I’d send them a packet of cheap biscuits and an award for winning themselves a place in the Cheeky Fuckers’ HoF

We have lovely second hand furniture, some antique. The only thing new we've bought was our bed. Did it all for under £2k.

It's an acquired taste as our cottage is 400 years old. I got a lovely solid wood tv cabinet with doors and drawers from a second hand shop for £12!

It's hilarious that the owners claimed they were "doing you a favour" by offering to sell you the furniture for that amount. Apart from ludicrous price, they are downsizing and can't take it with them anyway! If they think their stuff is worth £20,000 then they'll be in for a shock when they have to get a house clearance company in, the offer would be in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

They've probably worked out that they paid £40k or more for it all and, in their opinion, most of it is as good as new to them because they've seen the wear and tear evolve rather than come to it cold.

I bet they’re at home going “£20k is a bargain” hilarious.

I quite admire their brass neck 😂

No way in hell would I pay that for second hand crap they can’t be arsed getting rid of

now. I am also wondering why so quick to sell their furniture

They’re downsizing to a house which won’t accommodate it all.

I'm guessing their downsizing because they're an older couple who's kids have flown the nest. So chances are someone the furniture is probably going to be ancient.

Or they are downsizing because they are skint and trying to scrape what money they can together from selling everything.

Neither of which is your problem. The EA is also being ridiculous dragging you into it.