House on market for £450K, worth viewing if can only afford £400K

[Liloosmum]

We've seen a couple of houses in the same road for £450K. I'm not sure how long they've been on the market for as we've only just started looking. Our house isn't on the market yet (my DH doesn't want to put it on until we've seen something we like).

The maximum we'd be able to afford is £400K (saving £20K aside from this for for stamp duty, EA fees to sell our house and solicitor fees). Is it worth us looking at either of these houses or would an offer of £400K be too cheeky?

The area we can move to is very small because of school catchment area otherwise we'd look elsewhere (1 DD already at school and want DD2 to go to the same school).

I think it is a bit cheeky when it is your top offer but you never know I guess.

You would stand a better chance of having an offer accepted if you are also under offer so I think your DH is wrong about not putting your house on the market now.

I'd get your place on the market as soon as possible because frankly even if you offered at close to asking price, without your place under offer most vendors won't be interested.

Someone linked to property-bee.com the other day to gauge time on market and I think there may be another way of knowing too. I'd also just ring the EAs and ask - they're often very upfront about what the vendor might be prepared to accept and basically it can really vary. I think you'd be lucky to get an offer accepted quite that low, but of course it depends massively on how keen the vendors are to sell.

Sorry, but I'd be very surprised if your offer was accepted given you are not on the market yet. You'd be in a much stronger position to negotiate if you were under offer.

The market is very slow, and even if you did find a buyer straight off the process would still be very lengthy.

As others have said, the key to getting your offer accepted is persuading the agent and seller that you are serious and in a position to move quickly. TBH, even if you offered the asking price, when you haven't even got yours on the market,they're unlikely to accept/stop marketing their property.

If you are able to move quickly then it's always worth making an offer. If there are 2 on the market in the same road, effectively competing against each other and one "needs" to move who knows what might happen.

home.co.uk tells you time on market and price history without you having to download PropertyBee. PropertyBee is v informative though, it tells you any other changes in the listing.

Why are you moving in the same road? Can you extend your current house instead? Or go into the loft or basement? £20k (eg stamp duty) would cover a lot of that work.

Worth looking on nethouseprices.com to see what they paid for it too.

You can't buy anything until you sell yours!

Estate agents are obliged to tell you how long somewhere has been on for.

Zoopla lists how longs something has been on for too

btw, how do you know how much money you can afford until you know what you're going to get for yours?

If your ceiling is going to be £400K then your opening offer should be £380 - 390K as the vendors would most likely refuse the first offer but as you haven't even got your property on the market yet it is unlikely to be viewed as a serious offer so the chances of securing it are pretty slim

Good point Tunip. We found that once we had been on the market for a period of time and then reduced our asking price we finally knew what properties were within our reach or not.

The vendors wont want to know til yours is on the market!

Any chance you could wait until your second child is in the school then you can move anywhere

And true, unless you know what someone will pay for yours you don't know what you can offer on another property.

Put yours on the market first.

I've just been poring over home.co.uk (what a great site for the nosy! ) & found locally a 4-bed detached 70s executive house (the kind with integral double garage, upstairs massive & downstairs relatively poky)

Anyway it went on at £425K last March, dropped to £375K in November, & dropped again to £325K this week. So asking prices are really chancy sometimes!

oh, & a big fairly new Barrett house - £420K in Aug 10, £400K in Nov 10 & £380K since Mar 11 & still sitting there

Why do Barrett houses have such low ceilings?

Because it's loads cheaper Ponders. They save a fortune by reducing ceiling height by a foot

I thought that might be it, Patti

Why on earth do people buy them?

I have absolutely no idea Ponders :o

I just saw this house, which we viewed about 6 months ago, has dropped its asking again. When we went to see it, it was on at 635k. Older couple desperate to move due to personal circs but struggling to sell, so wasn't surprised to see that soon after we went it dropped to 550k. Then a couple of months ago I saw it had dropped again to something like 475k. Had a browse again for that area to see... this new price. Unbelievable.

Blimey that is really cheap (although presumably they are hoping to start a bidding war). Are you tempted now?

We're almost at exchange now at a place not far from there. Have to say I'd be tempted though. My gripes were that it wasn't enough living space for my liking and that the village was nothing more than a long stretch of road, no real centre to it. Also, the house was quite idiosyncratic with a terrible garden. But really, 4 good bedrooms and a very solid feel to the house. And when we looked it was twice the price!

That glass bathroom in the attic bedroom is seriously bizarre! But it's very cheap for Tonbridge

Offer 395k, and then the agent can negotiate you up to 400k.

We have most likely all heard of properties sell for 50k below asking.