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Original poster

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

36 replies

Liloosmum · 25/01/2012 13:11

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).

OP posts:

TunipTheVegemal · 25/01/2012 16:54

might it be a repossession LondonLottie?

londonlottie · 25/01/2012 17:00

No, they were a retired couple, and one of them had a serious health condition. They wanted to move to be near their grandchildren. I felt very sorry for them, they were there when we looked around and you could see how desperate they were to sell. The house was just too eccentric though and I think what was quirky and interesting to them would put a lot of people off.

smogwod · 25/01/2012 17:18

Londonlottie - that's just the starting price for an auction, I'm sure it'll go for an awful lot more than that. Hope so anyway for their sake!

Liloosmum - I second what everyone else has said, get yours on the market first. Some estate agents round here won't even let you view a property unless you're under offer!

Ladymuck · 25/01/2012 18:12

Well you can check easily how long it has been on. If it has been on for a while then you might be able to view without putting yours on the market, but if you're not on the market and the house has only just gone on, a good estate agent is unlikely to go out of their way to get you to view it.

PattiMayor · 25/01/2012 18:23

Liloos - if you have a firm offer from a buyer with no chain (not impossible), you are in a much, much stronger bargaining position. Your DH is being a bit silly not wanting to put your place on the market until you find somewhere you like tbh.

Ladymuck · 25/01/2012 18:29

Have you at least had valuations and photos taken of yours? Ie are you ready to go onto the market or would it still take a week or two to declutter etc? The market is a bit funny at present - lots of interest, but the first time buyer stamp duty exemption comes to an end on 25th March, so everyone trying to get deals done by then.

Original poster

Liloosmum · 25/01/2012 19:18

We've had ours valued this week. We were expecting to be able to sell it for 200K minimum and the value we were given was 210K-220K. We are ready to put it on the market now apart from the photos.

We're not looking to move to a different house in our road, just in the same catchment area which is quite small. We have a very small garden and wouldn't be able to extend.

DD2 won't start school until September 2014 so we we'd have to wait at least 2 years to move out of catchment.

I've had a look both of the houses on home.co.uk (interesting website!) One has been on the market since August last year at £500K and have dropped the price twice since by £25K each time, once in September and then again the middle on November. The other has been on since October last year and started at £475 and have since dropped the price once at the beginning of January.

OP posts:

bookishandblondish · 25/01/2012 19:20

My boss did this with his house; told the estate agent this was the maximum he could afford, and if he went to view, this was the amount.

He got the house. Worth trying although the fact your house isn't on the market, unless you are planning on bridging loans, go and look but don't offer until you have a serious offer in place.

DENMAN03 · 26/01/2012 09:21

Its always worth a punt, however you need to be in a position to move before anyone would take you seriously. My last house I made a cheeky offer £95k under the asking price. I was in an excellent position, and knew the vendors had been trying to sell for a long time. I couldnt go any higher and told them that. I had nothing to lose by making the offer. It was accepted!

runtybunty · 26/01/2012 09:53

I echo the last two posts, I'm an ea and a buyer who is honest about their position before they even go to view the property is putting the ball firmly in the vendor's court. You're not wasting their time and you know that if you go to the property and fall in love with it that they are very likely to accept your offer having been forewarned and allowing the viewing.
You can only do this once you are under offer yourself though, it is pointless until then as you're not in a position to proceed.

pootlebug · 26/01/2012 10:53

Agreed with previous posts. We paid well under asking price for our house, but had been honest from the start about the maximum we could afford. We didn't go in even lower in order that we could be negotiated up - our first offer was our final offer as it was the top of our budget, and we were clear on this. It helped that we had already sold our previous place and weren't in a chain though - I don't think a buyer would take you seriously at all otherwise.

However, you need to stick to it. When I was selling, and a buyer came with a 'best and final offer' and then a higher 'best and final offer' and then another 'best and final offer', even though the 3rd time we'd probably have accepted the amount, we'd been so put off by their mucking around that we declined.

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