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?

20k sounds a lot. It would have to be very fancy furniture and to your tastes to even consider it. Ikea isn't very fancy. I reckon if they said 5k maybe worth it?

We rented out a 2-bed flat, fully furnished. It was 80 miles from our home. When it came time to sell, after approx 7 years, I was delighted the new owner was happy to pay £500 for the furniture.

It saved us a hell of a lot of bother, time and expense.

£20k is a bit steep.

Surely it depends if your budget is IKEA, John Lewis or Heals?

People just get grabby. It’s really weird. When we bought this place there was an expensive bit of kit required for it. The owners said as you’re paying asking we will throw it in free of charge, we said fine. As we were about to exchange they suddenly said we want a grand for it. Even though they would not be able to sell it for that else where and they would not ever need it.

The agent who they had put the offer through to us, told them it was totally unreasonable to go back on their word like that. So they reverted and threw it in, but they had a mad grabby moment and chanced it.

sellers are living in cloud cuckoo land

as for doing you a favour to consider selling you their furniture.... ifs they need to really get a reality check

Let them take the furniture with them, put it in storage and try to sell it - they'll be lucky if they can get £2k for that little lot and a whole lot of drama selling it to boot

I used to regularly go to house furniture auctions, people will not pay much for second hand furniture, you can get some bargains OP and to your taste if you have the time

This is a particularly difficult time to shift second hand furniture as there have not been auctions etc due to Covid. They may have to pay for stuff to be cleared, rather than get cash for it. Even without Covid, your vendors' prices are absolutely bonkers!

I'd go back to the agent with a 'I'm sorry to hear that' and change the subject sort of reply. Enjoy your selecting stuff for your new home!

When I rented in Europe it was standard practice to take light fittings there were special plastic boxes left behind for you to put your lights in. We bought a 3 bed semi from a couple moving to a bungalow they ripped the stair carpert off, leaving little bits in each tack, they couldn't re use or sell it!!. Recently moved into a council house, they left the carpets and nets only, even accidently threw away the key to the stair lift and the wifi heating thermostat.

My estimate was similar to @Greylamp100 - and it's not even stuff you've chosen yourself!

I once politely declined buying anything from the vendors when we were purchasing a house - they were not happy; they'd lived there less than a year and had obviously spent quite a lot on their horrible curtains etc. I think, just to spite us they removed everything including toilet roll holders that I'm pretty sure the builders had put in.

Anyway £20k is a ridiculous amount - good luck to them selling it separately.

A "favour" - what a joke! It's hardly a favour if you have to pay £20k!

They've been greedy and they're either smarting with embarrassment that they've overstepped the mark, or they are delusional in thinking the price should reflect what they paid for it. What they're not appreciating is that unless all the stuff is exactly what you would have chosen/ bought new, the price needs to reflect that 1) it isn't new and 2) it isn't your first choice!

My PIL were like that. They had loads of antique furniture in storage when they downsized and insisted they'd get a fortune for it. That never happened. There is barely any interest in old furniture, however nice it is.

I have just recalled a grabby moment from the mid eighties when the family whose house I purchased offered to leave the curtains and light fittings for £1500. I.politely declined and received a call from an army ea telling me I had a good deal on the house and why jeopardise it for 1500. I respectfully pointed out her firm was getting commission from 3 properties in a chain of 5 and if she was concerned, she may wish to consider contributing 1500 to my vendors from her firm's multiple commissions. Never hear another word and they left their ghastly knicker blinds and light fittings.

@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.

Define 'nice'

www.ikea.com/us/en/p/idanaes-upholstered-bed-frame-gunnared-dark-gray-00458956/

Plus mattress up tp £550.

New, clean and comfortable. And there are much cheaper options there.

People always think their stuff is worth more than it is! I know you are nervous about getting all the stuff but you have enough for now and you can then see what you want later. We have all had to buy bit by bit.

I've left a washing machine and a wardrobe free of charge.

As you are not buying the furniture they need to make sure it is gone before you move in.

"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."

The agent works for the vendors, and they are all 'at it'. Of course you could buy all those items for £20k. And they are not 'doing you a favour', they are saving themselves the effort of disposing of their unwanted furniture. They may be overpricing their belongings based on what they paid for it however-long-ago and sentiment, but they are still overpricing it.

YANBU to say £20,000 is too much but, equally, they not necessarily being unreasonable to ask for £20k.

You asked the question about furniture - ’I asked if they’d be interested in maybe selling some furniture’ - they gave you a price for what they were willing to leave. They might be taking the piss but it’s equally possible that the furniture is worth that second hand or that they wrongly believe it’s worth that second hand. It’s also possible that they’re looking at it from a ‘what we’d have to spend to replace it’ point of view. Selling you the stuff so you don’t have the inconvenience of waiting weeks for beds and sofas to be delivered leaves them without. They were presumably going to be using at least one of the beds, the sofa and chairs, the washing machine, the wardrobes, the tv etc.

* To be honest, while their furniture is nice enough, we didn’t even want it that much.*

Do not waste another nano second thinking about this then.

@Charley50 They took every fitted carpet. We walked around in slippers for a week until I could get a budget place to carpet the whole house.

What annoyed me was that we already lived in the village so I knew the sellers to say hello to and we paid a very fair price for our house, just off asking price. So whilst I knew carpet wasn't included £1k for old carpet in the lounge, hallway and stairs was outrageous.

When we downsized my mother's house (admittedly there was a degree of urgency) we had to pay somebody to take away a lot of the stuff. We wanted to save her the hassle of having to deal with an assortment of people turning up to collect things via Freecycle so approached charities.

Charities wouldn't take dining tables "families eat on their laps these days" or electrical stuff or reupholstered chairs (no fire certificate).

Don't worry too much about having a substantially empty house. As long as you have the basics you can take your time to decide what will work best.

We bought a hardly used £3500 living room suite for £125. Bulky items are hard to as most people don't have the means to transport them without hiring a van.

It’s possible that it’s worth the money but it’s extremely unlikely. With a few exceptions, you get very little for second hand furniture these days. Even if it was “good” to start with.

A quick look at Gumtree or the local auction would have told them this.
Maybe £2-300 for sofas, most of the rest not more than £50-100 each.

I guess op already has enough furniture to start with and can add to it gradually with items of her own choosing.

£20k 😂 is it all gold plated?

We moved recently and as our furniture was looking a bit tired we bought new rather than moving it, mostly from John Lewis or DFS this is what we spent:

New king size bed £1,000
Single bed & mattress £400
TV £1,000
Sofa £1,500
Dining table and chairs £600

I’m certain you could get everything you’ve listed for under £20k brand new.

Reply with a laughing emoji

I moved from a tiny 3 bed to a 5 bed that’s was 3 x the size. We had nothing to put in it abs both kids needed new beds. We furnished it similar to your list for 3k in total mostly new stuff.

And we left our sheds, dishwasher, oven, kitchen shelves and window blinds included in the fixtures and fittings in our old house.

As you know yourself that is a crazy price for somebody’s second hand furniture not necessarily to your taste. Perhaps ok for a show home (if that’s what is on offer for a brand new home with new furniture) but no way in these circumstances.

I could buy better new from a variety of places to my taste.

It’s just a flat but polite no and requires no further discussion.

I mean it depends entirely on context. If it’s a 4 bed done out in expensive furniture then this lot could be worth 70k. Or it could all be 8k from IKEA. Or anywhere in between.

I do think though that people massively overvalue what they can get for things when they’ve been used.