Firstly wondering if anyone has done this before and if you were happy with your decision?
Secondly, looking for opinions on my situation and whether you think we'd be silly to even consider it.
There's a house in the area where I live that has come up and down for sale 4 times in the last 18 months. It's not currently for sale but I had seen it on rightmove and we were going to view it (DH and I had been toying with the idea of a move but wanted to view some houses before making any decisions) but it soon got taken off the market again.
I spoke to someone who knows the guys who live there who informed me that she's unsure as to why they have been putting it on and off the market, but when it was last up, they had received closed bids and the top offer was 15k over the asking price. For whatever reason it never progressed very far and it came back off the market.
The first time it went up for sale, it was listed as 540k. Second and third times were 530k and the most recent time was 490k but they received the offer of 505k.
I was walking the dogs last week, walked past the house and saw one of the men who lives there. I started a conversation and jokingly (although not joking!) said if ever they want to sell, to let me know because me and DH would love to come and see if it'd be the right house for our family. He told me that he's planning on moving back to America and his friend, who he bought the house with will be staying locally. He didn't say why the other attempts at marketing it had fallen through but said they were probably going to be relisting it in the next few months.
Now, obviously this may or may not happen and they may just stay there forever.... BUT if they do, they will be able to save on estate agent fees by going with us. I'm leaning towards thinking that the reason it's been on the market so many times is because they are holding onto the first price they had for the house and because the price keeps dropping (due to the market) they're reluctant to sell because they'd feel like they were making a loss if they sold now.
If we were to get to the point where we were able to make them an offer, would it be silly to go in with a higher offer in order to secure it (it would be our forever home so we wouldn't be selling it for many years) or should we offer just slightly over what we feel it would be worth now (probably the same as it was when it was last listed) given that they would be saving themselves around 5.5k in estate agents fees, as well as not having to faff around with listing it and having dozens of people in to view it.
Any help or advice would be greatly received!