To loose potential forever home over £7000?

[Floatyunicorn]

Hi all

Me and partner bought our first home 2 years ago, ive never settled here and both know its not where we want to stay forever. Im not happy with the area, but it could be worse. The house itself is lovely, we have fully renovated over the 2 years, if i could pick my house up and move it i would. We pay an extremely affordable mortgage thanks to buying before all the houses went up in price, and live comfortably at the moment. I only work part time at mo until my youngest starts school in september when i will be looking for a full time job, but have no idea when that will be. I cant go full time in my current job.
We are to stay in this area as we have a child already in school and a child to begin the same school, my oldest absolutely loves school and his friends so i wouldnt dream of moving areas.

A few weeks ago a house came up for sale that is definitely our forever home type. It was cheaper than usual houses in those streets so we rang and asked more info, they offered to let us view it even though we didnt have a buyer. When we went in we realised why it was cheaper, it needs ALOT of work, every single room and ceiling plastering, there was a hole in bedroom ceiling indicating a leak, garden is massively in need of sorting, owner has attempted to cut some small tress but left the cuttings in a big pile in the garden, fence panels all broke,potential damp in bedroom, kitchen bathroom needs replacing. Luckily my partner is very handy and did most renovations in our house so worked out alot cheaper. Estate agent said there had been alot of viewings but no offers due to this.
The house then sold before we had chance to go any further but then 3 weeks later came back on the market, we rang n the estate agent said the chain fell through (no idea if this is true or something came up on survey, she made a point of saying it hadnt reached survey stage)
She told us the offer he had accepted. They came to value our house,They also had a buyer very eager to view our house which she did. We spoke to our mortgage advisor.

Mortgage advisor has told us what we can get, and informed us solicitors etc have upped their prices due to overload of work, so after working out solicitor fees, estate agent, stamp duty etc. It would make a mortgage of the price he accepted out of reach slightly. We have a small amount of savings but if we went for the price he wants, our savings would be wiped out, leaving us with nothing to actually decorate or buy materials, nothing at all.

We have spoke to estate agents and told them £7000 less and they say he has said definitely not, estate agent admitted it was hard to value the house due to its current state.
I dont actually know how we can stretch ourselves anymore, and partner has said no way should we when the seller hasnt even made an effort to improve the property in 30 years (he was renting it and lives a long way from here)

Any advice? Should i just let it go?

But I also think you need to reframe your question. Most people wouldn’t lose their dream home over £7k, but the issue is that you don’t have the renovation budget - you are looking at not taking up a money pit that will one day be a great house because you can’t afford to renovate it. Purchase price and usual area price would be useful. But I wouldn’t take on a wreck I couldn’t make comfortable.

if it needs that much work then definitely not, youd need at least 15-20k to do it up with the way prices are at the moment

If you're buying a house which needs gutting and renovation, then the actual amount you need to budget for the purchase is purchase price plus renovation costs.

You only have the purchase price.

Given the amount of work this house needs, you're not £7000 off affording it. You're tens of thousands off being able to afford it. Because that's what it's going to cost to make it into your dream home.

The only way you can make it work is if you're willing to live in it in it's current state for months - potentially years - whilst you do the work in bits as your budget allows. In a context where everything, including building materials, is getting more expensive, which will squeeze your budget even further.

Is that something you're all willing to do? If so, take lots of photos so you can see the progress at every stage. If not, walk away. Because renovating this house could define the next decade of your life.

You aren't loosing it over 7k though.

The renovations will cost a lot. Add that up.

You aren’t loosing it over seven grand though, it will cost you a lot more than that to do the renovations, and that’s with your husband doing all the work. It even needs a new ceiling. Seven grand is just the difference between what you can afford and asking price. Seven grand would no way cover all the renovations required.

Sit tight. The market seems to be changing slightly. Even just 3-4 weeks ago, properties were flying off the metaphorical (RightMove) shelves, but interest rate rises, cost of living etc seems to have slowed things down. Leave your offer on the table but keep looking at other things. He might come back to you in another 3-4 weeks begging you to buy it. Definitely don’t overstretch yourself.

I would just let it go I’m living in my forever home that needs absolutely everything to into it like there’s no words I have meaning to do it always and I can’t get hold of people to fit the bathroom fittings that I’ve had piled up in my utility room for getting on a year.

I know you mentioned that he has been can do a lot of it himself but presumably you’d want the electrics in the plumbing doing by a professional ?
I can’t get a roofer until August, So in the meantime two of my bedrooms are out of use and I’m deeply concerned about fitting a new kitchen in case the fucking lot comes down

Sorry predictive texting I have the money to do these things but I can’t get anybody to do them for me that should’ve said.

Why would their mortgage go up?

anyone with half a brain cell would fix a rate.

@Floatyunicorn I wouldn't offer more. No way. I'd just leave the offer in the table until We'd/Fri then walk away.

It sounds like a truly terrible money pit of a house.

Let it go.

The cost of building materials has gone up massively so even if you were to do as much as possible yourself it will still be a lot more expensive than it was doing like for like jobs in the previous property only a few years ago.

You will need qualified tradespeople for some of the jobs from the sounds of things and they will also be more expensive.

Right now I wouldn’t be getting myself into a place where money was tight, especially if I had renovation costs on top of high bills and mortgages.

@JuneJubilee people generally only fix the rate for 3-5 years. Mortgage rates could rise for a while, unlikely for them to come back below 1% for years it's one of the things they use to stem inflation.

What percentage of the price is £7k? Big difference between say a £140k house and a £700k house in terms of flex there I would say.

Tell the agent that given the amount of work k own about prior to survey you cannot and will not offer more.

But mostly I'd be taking off the rose tinted specs and pricing up the work actually needed and deciding on my next step from there.

@Floatyunicorn I feel a bit sorry for your partner having to start again having only just renovated your current house. On that basis alone he should have the final word. And unless it’s a dangerous area I think that you should just count your blessings and stay put at such an uncertain time ( escalating materials costs and interest rate rises etc). I can sort of relate though OP as it’s the kind of thing I’d get a bee in my own bonnet about! Don’t think it would be a good idea at all. Let it go, definitely.

What is so different about the areas of your current home and the house for sale? Given they are in the same school catchment? Is the different area really so much better to outweigh the costs, work and upheaval?

Also would be wary of a distant seller who seems unrealistic of the condition of the house. Also of somebody who rented a house out in that condition! I would expect them to be unreasonable all through the sale, and create further problems.

Bear in mind that nothing to do with renovations is cheap or even reasonably priced at the moment. Half of what you’ll want and need will likely take months and months to source. Builders are fully booked up. So just be careful about taking on a project unless you’re happy for it to potentially take a lot longer to finish and cost much more than you might be expecting.

If he doesn’t get any more offers he may come back to you, you never know. That’s how I got the house I’m sitting in now. Good luck, fingers crossed for you

If you think it could be your forever home then you need to decide how time, money and emotions you are willing to invest in the house. Can you live in the house whilst you are doing works?

Personally, it sounds like a big project and if well-managed, after years of renovations, you are likely to have a house that is worth significantly more than what you paid so you could easily sell up if you fall out of love with the house.

I have a family friend who saw a house which was in need of complete renovation (windows, roofs, rewiring, the whole shebang). The house had been on the market for £850k for almost a year - he put in an offer of £550k which the estate agent laughed off (though my friend said he was making a genuine offer and the agent was obliged to put it forward to the seller for consideration which he did). It was rejected but went unsold for months more and in the end he managed to get it for £600k. He has put in over £150k into the house over the last 5 years but now has a stunning house which his family adore and if he was to sell, he'd be making well over £200k.

Just to add OP, I though our house renovation would cost about 70k and I REALLY did my homework on potential costs. It’s cost about £130 so far and still isn’t finished……

• thought

It’s not just about the 7K, it’s about the pressure on your OH to do the sork to make it in a liveable condition. Unless you have at least 25K stashed to start the works, I would walk away. The house is in such a terrible condition that more serious issues are likely to be hidden behind the more cosmetic ones.

*work not sork!

This.

and the price of raw materials is going up so even if you get a quote now, in a few months time you can expect to pay more,

This. I bought house last year. Survey showed significant works needed and I negotiated a price discount.
I did not account for how hard it is to find a builder. It is one year later and work only just started. I’ve been let down by 4 builders who pulled out of job at last minute, and countless builders quoting etc. the price I am now going to pay has literally doubled in 12 months. I can’t really afford it as retired and eats massively into my savings, but I have no choice. Whole thing has been a bloody nightmare and stress factor for last 12 months
I would think very carefully about taking on a house that need builders or trades …you will be unlikely to control costs it timings.