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?

Are they an older generation?

I do find my mothers generation has very little idea of what second hand furniture fetches now, ie virtually nothing.

And many British people become so deeply uncomfortable when in any sort of financial transaction that they become unreasonable. Like people who take a low offer on their house as a personal insult when it's just a move in a negotiation.

Ah here.

Sure you’d want new mattresses for the beds so that’s an extra cost.

My mam downsized and tried to sell some of her furniture. She had lovely solid wood units and beds etc and got very little for them. She lives alone so a lot of it was hardly used stuff too. Good luck to them trying to get 20k for second hand furniture.

You’d be doing them a massive favour taking it not the other way around. Cheeky feckers. Just ignore them I reckon

Hmmm - a nice king size bed with headboard new would be around 2.5k - you have 3 of those there so 7.5k

A nice king size bed with a new headboard would be damn sight cheaper than £2.5k

Do you even want 3 Kingsize beds?-at the very least you'd need new mattresses & you might not have any/much Kingsize bedding!

If it's stuff that they don't want to take, why not just give it or charge very little?

I mean are they intending to take all the beds and then store & sell the ones they don't want??

That's a ridiculous amount of money. Have they seen how little second hand furniture goes for? £5k would be worth considering if it's nice stuff.

Absolutely no from me.

Just say no thank you.

I also would rather have time to work out how I want to use the house first, their furniture might not suit your family. As long as you have enough beds and chairs the rest can wait a little bit. Buy in haste repent at leisure!!

You could definitely furnish a second hand house for much less than £20k.

It may very well have cost them double that but they can’t expect to recoup more than about 20% off the cost if high end and in immaculate condition.

If course you could pay £2.5k for a nice king-size bed, you could spend the whole £20k on one king size bed alone.

But you could also get a very nice, comfortable king size bed for around a grand, or even less. Plus, if the mattresses are more than about 5 years old, they're getting near to needing replacing anyway, so effectively worthless.

They are taking the mickey asking for £20K and I would laugh at the fact that they are upset at you saying no.

You have paid over the asking price for their house so they have a good deal. If they had asked for £5K then that might be a fair price. Hopefully they realise that it will be hassle to get rid of some of their furniture and leave a few items for you.

People do get cheeky though I asked if our sellers could leave the carpets downstairs for convenience and they wanted £1K for a very old terracotta coloured carpet which I declined. They took every bit of carpet so we had bare concrete floors downstairs and floorboards upstairs.

They're jokers. I buy a lot of second-hand furniture and people often over estimate what their items are worth. Even higher end brands like Heals and John Lewis lose most of their value second hand.

Way too much for second hand furniture.

That or we were totally naive as we asked for 7k for

• x2 double beds plus lockers plus matching dresser
• x2 single beds and two lockers
• x2 wicker chairs
• x2 dressers
• dining table with 8 chairs
• x3 couches x4 armchairs
• desk and office chair
• x2 nest of tables
• hall table
• Welsh dresser
• x2 tv units and x2 TVs (not smart TVs)

Nahhhhh. No thanks.
£20k. They’re taking the piss.
Would love to see how much they actually end up getting for it.

If they are downsizing they will not be able to take it all with them and it is a real pain getting rid of used furniture. I agree with everyone else that they are overpricing.

I sold a flat I had previously rented out, and knew the buyers were young first time purchasers coming from rented. I got my solicitor to ask if they wanted any of the contents, free, as it was going to be a hassle to dispose of it. Everything was functional but obviously used. They said they would take the lot - they were happy, and so was I.

No way over priced for 2nd hand. I know they think it‘s worth what they originally paid for it but in reality it‘s not.

YANBU OP. Did you reply?

I'd be tempted to apologise, say you're sorry for the offence caused and understand completely that they will now be selling the furniture for far more gain than they generously offered it to you.

@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.

But no one knows how old the beds and mattresses are! They could be brand new, they could be knackered.

OP do you need to furnish the whole house the minute you walk in? Presumably you have enough beds and places to sit for your family atm. Take those with you, then furnish the rest of the house as and when you have the funds to buy stuff that is your choice and that you know the provenance of.

Your vendors are having a laugh, I bet they haven’t factored in a discount for the money they will save on removal costs.

We furnished our first apartment (3 beds, living/dining room, kitchen for 4000Euros. Including 2 sofas, massive dining table,chairs, super king bed, double sofa bed, bookcases, TV stand, TV, washing machine, drier, fridge freezer...

The Superking bed is still going strong 11years and 6house moves later, but just got a new mattress.

This is odd OP. Most people have these things anyway. I would have said you have everything you need.

They're barking.

They're taking the piss. It's all second hand and there's no guarantee it would all be to your taste and in perfect condition.

They've got the hump because they've now got to sell or move it all themselves.

We sold our 4-bed, 3 recep house a couple of months ago to a young couple who hadn't got much furniture at all , they were moving from a small flat.
We gave them a three to four seater leather sofa, a desk, office chair, armchair, lawn mower and garden furniture. Plus most of the curtains and light-shades. They were grateful to have it and we were glad they took it off our hands.
Perhaps we should have charged them 5 grand for it!

It depends on the quality of the furniture.

It could easily have cost them 20k or more depending on the quality but they will soon find out when they have to sell on marketplace or get an offer from a house clearance company that you do not get a lot for bulky second hand furniture.

Ps OP, if you give us the link to the rightmove listing, we would be in a better position to price up the furniture for you........

They’re trying it on, £20k for that 🤣 £5k maximum.

Op you can absolutely furnish your whole house for less, obviously it’s more effort but I’d make them move everything now on principle. Cheeky sods.