If a house is on at £124k....

[Becaroooo]

...and needs a couple of new windows, a new kitchen and (poss) bathroom what would you offer?

Obviously its already under the SD threshold, but I wouldnt want to offer more than £110k.

Too cheeky??

(its no upward chain, so they are probably willing to wait it out)

If the kitchen needs replacing I would assume the sellers have taken that into account in the price.

That said, make an offer. They can only say no, but at least you enter into negociations.

You may find that as they have put the house on the market at the exact same price they paid for it, they have to achieve close to that to make it worth selling. By that I mean that they may have a mortgage for 110k for example & want something back for themselves on top of that. Total speculation of course but I know it's what we had to do - even though we would have had a much quicker sale by reducing the price, we literally couldn't & also clear the mortgage. That might explain why if you feel it is on the market for 14k more than it's worth.

Can't really comment on what you should offer though as don't know the area or whether the 124k price would already have taken into account the work required. When we sold my grandmother's house (20 years ago), we put it on the market for 100k even though the identical style of house had just sold for 140k, 3 doors down. This was to take into account the extensive modernisation needed (was very much an old lady's house, original kitchen & bathroom, no GCH, mangle where the washing machine should be etc.). I do remember my parents getting insulted by people offering stupid amounts such as 60k, 70k "because of what needs doing" - in fact when one prospective buyer kept offering an extra £500 each time his offer was refused - despite being told he was 20k adrift of what would be considered, my mum refused to sell to him altogether no matter what his next offer was. So, yes, do your research & don't be too cheeky - but then again don't pay more than it's worth.

I'd avoid anything that had been bought in the last 5/6 years to be honest. But then we had enough choice to do that. We saw some nice places but from the viewings and information on the net it was fairly obvious that the vendor was more than likely in negative equity and not in a position to sell at a price the house was obviously now worth.

You're not that far from me and we're below 2005 prices round here. I think you'll be luck to persuade the vendor that their house is worth 15k less than what the paid now.

Houses on a road I rented in are selling for 2002 prices (were new build in 2002 though so will suffer more than most)

How silly Tyler.

We sold a house we'd only bought five years ago but we'd paid cash.

You cannot possibly know the financial situation of your vendors.

Ah yes, tyler80 - negative equity, that was the phrase I was searching for, couldn't find & ended up taking a paragraph to describe .

No, you can't possibly know exactly, but if you ask some questions you can often get a pretty good idea a lot of the time. I'm not sure many people sell houses they bought for cash to go into rented in the same area.

The more than likely in negative equity is specific to the area I live. House prices have fallen a lot, like I say some are 2002 levels and the area is very poor in general.

Omg, am astounded that some places are down to 2002 levels!

Instead of asking probing questions to assess a vendor's equity situation, why not just make an offer and see what they say?

View the house, offer or don't.
They'll accept it or they won't and then you can move on from that point.

House buying is stressful enough without making the actual offer process into such an enormous deal.

But 2005 wasn't the height of the market was it? Houses went up a lot after 2005. Mid 2007 was actually the peak of the market, so if the house is priced at 2005 prices I'd say it was probably on at a pretty good price

kitsmummy You may have a point re: price.

Its on as "no chain" so am assuming that they have no mortage to pay off??

jilly I am a bit new to all this (as you can tell I am sure) and due to 2 house purchases falling through in the summer I am a pretty anxious about making the right decision for me and my family. I always get good/honest/though provoking advice/comments from MN so thats why I am asking.

Thanks for your sarcasm input.

A house at 2005 prices is not an 'utter bargain', even if that wasn't peak (2007 was).

By that time they had still reached insane levels.

You are definitely not getting a 'good deal' or a 'decent price' as some posters commented buying at the same price they bought it for then IF they didn't themselves get a house below what the market was dictating.

House have not been reasonably priced since 1998.

Go in as low as you dare - they can only say no.

Becaroooo, as someone said, prices peaked in 2007 not 2005. However, sold prices (see the land registry site) in Derbyshire are at late 2004 levels at the mo - i.e. lower than when the vendors bought it. As for an offer, around 8% off is average, although seeing some of the over-generous offers discussed on here, there must be quite a few getting great deals to bring the average down to that ;-) Always worth knowing when it was bought and what they paid (as you do) as often (but not always), vendors do expect to get at least their money back (that's what years of 'house prices only ever go up' brainwashing does!) - most of these won't be selling either. And finally, when you make an offer, give nothing away to the EA and be prepared to walk away - chances are they need to sell more than you need to buy. Hope that helps, good luck and let us know how you get on.

Thank al I certainly will!

It could be that they are prepared to or want to move into rented and hence no chain, rather than not having a mortgage to pay off.

I'm in the East Midlands and house on the market, and I expect to get a few thousand lower than I paid for it in 2005 - maybe 5% or a bit more. I agree with the people who said that it's impossible to know and start with an offer that you feel comfortable with taking into account your research. Good luck!

Quite a few houses we saw that were no chain were because someone was moving in with a partner who already owned a house, so that's another possibility.

We sold a no chain house because we had other houses.

Thanks all.

Am viewing tomorrow.

Will keep you posted!

Do you know what, if it's priced at the 2005 sale price then I'm sure they'll be expecting to drop the price a bit, there aren't too many vendors that expect to get asking price, in which case I expect it would take it to 2004 prices, so my guess is they're marketing at about the right price.

kit That hasnt been our experience tbh... for most of the houses we have viewed, the vendors expect to get asking price.

(2 of those have since been taken off the market though)

It's perhaps coming down to how much they need to sell then.

My SIL has just sold her house (in supposedly popular area where prices are holding well) for £30k less than original asking (and valuation). They weren't happy with price but were told it was a limited time offer and had no other interest so had to accept (having already bought another house).

In other words persevere. You need to find the right house with vendors that actually want to sell.

Yes. Exactly. They are proving elusive buggers though!

So....

House is too small.

Oh, well.

Will keep on looking! (btw reason it was no chain was because they have bought another house already and are doing it up)

Thanks for all your advice/tips!