To pull out of purchase or not?

[delilahbelle]

This is more a stream of consciousness, but if you have anything to say that can help, please do.

Me and DH recently had an offer accepted for 275k on a house - on at 289k, so below asking price but not by a huge percentage. It needs a lot of work - bathroom is 20 years old +, as are the windows, hence our low offer.

We did know a previous sale had fallen through after survey, and my lovely PIL gave us the cash for a full survey this time. The surveyor picked up the issues we had noted, and also said the fascias were rotten and needed replacing, and flashing round the bay window also needed replacing. He noted that not much maintenance had been carried out over the life of the property, and a few other minor issues.

We went back to the vendors and asked them to either fix the fascias, or take some money off the property. They have said a big fat NO to both.

We now don't know whether to go ahead or not... we have spent around 1.5k on surveys/searches already, but the extra work, not including all the cosmetic stuff we want to do, is really going to stretch us. I love the location but not the house particularly, although when finished it could be perfect. DH works away in the week, so wants me to be happy with the house, he is less fussed.

There is NOTHING else on rightmove we are even interested in looking at in our price range/location, but I don't want to buy this one if it's likely to be a money pit.

Just don't know what to do.

How long do you plan to stay?
How urgent is the work?

How desperate is your need to move, i.e. do you risk losing your buyer if you wait until another house comes up, or are you renting (in which case another 6 month's rent might 'pay' for the work needed on the house)

I doubt it all needs doing immediately, surveys will always throw up thinsg nearing the end of their lifetime. It should be cheaper to have windows and fascias done at the same time and during the quieter winter months, so shop around. Do you have scope to save up, for say the bathroom over next year or two.

This house/area is one we plan to live in for the next 10 years or so - it's where we are going to start a family (with a bit of luck)

Work - needs to be done before the winter ideally, cosmetic stuff can be put off.

We don't have a buyer - we are not selling, so are chain free.

I have gone back to the Estate agent and asked for the vendor to meet us in the middle - it's going to cost us around 3k we think to get everything sorted, so have asked for 1.5k to be knocked off the price.

DH has now said we should pull out entirely, as if it hasn't been maintained, who knows what else we might find wrong once we live there.

That is pretty much par for the course in an older house. I had to get some of mine replaced this year but we've been in the house a couple of years. I wouldn't drop the price for things like fascias and flashing either to be honest.

Like the other poster said, getting all the woodwork/exterior work done at once really reduces costs as it's the cost of scaffolding that really pushes up the price.

If there's no damp, the electrics are okay and the roof's in relatively good nick, it shouldn't be a money pit

The bathroom can wait for a year or so (it's hideous but functional) - it's getting the windows and fascias/guttering etc done all at once which will be the big expense.

But - it doesn't NEED to be done over the summer I guess. So once we are in, we could save up.

So - the extra 3k for fascias etc and fixing the flashing doesn't sound too bad now.

Houses are so stressfulful.

Thanks for your feedback everyone. I guess I need to make that point to DH - if we are getting scaffolding in for the windows, then getting everything else done at the same time will be cheaper than doing it separately (which is what we have been calculating our costs on)

All houses need things doing to them.

The only question is, do you think you can get a better house for your money?

Have you looked at nethouseprices.co.uk to see what other very similar properties have sold for in the past few months?

I think the problem is I don't LOVE the house - the area yes, but the house no. But with a new bathroom/conservatory/windows/redecoration it could be perfect.

There are bigger/nicer houses for less money that don't need the work doing, but not as near to family/friends.

Now I'm worried the vendor will hate me for trying to get money off, and really want to move there after all.

Stress.

wow this sounds exactly like the situation we were in about a month ago.
We were looking for our 'forever house'
100% our dream house, which was a big mess, needed renovating throughout but perfect in every other way, and we were happy to buy a do-er upper!
The full structural survey bought up a few issues and the mortgage wouldn't pay out until they were sorted.
owner wouldn't drop price or do the work, the only way around it was to buy the house in cash which obviously was impossible.
It broke my heart having to pull out of the sale - if we had the money, or there was any way around it I would have 100% gone for it because I just knew that was 'the one'
A few days later we found another house (literally the only other one I was even interested in going to view from all of rightmove) which is completely renovated throughout, don't have to do a thing to it once we move in.
it is smaller and in a nicer village, but i preferred the location of the other one. I am happy with this new one as a great 2nd choice. There is nothing wrong with it, but in my heart it is my 2nd choice.
This is all progressing and I know I will be more than happy there, it is better in so many ways, but it's not the one. it is however the 2nd best alternative.

I think house prices reflect the condition of the property - so if its on at £289k, that is on the basis that the vendors know that it requires new fascias / windows etc. If all of those things were in prstine condition, and the house was in "move in" condition, I'm guessing it would be on at over £300k. So from that basis, and that you've had an offer below the asking price accepted already, I don't think its a surprise that the vendors are not willing to go any lower.

From my personal point of view (and I'm sure there are people here that will disagree with me) if its going to be where you start a family then location is key. To have friends and family locally when you have a new baby is worth its weight in gold (particularly as you say your husband works away). I would put up with virtually anything if it meant my mum / sister / best friend were on the doorstep (can you tell mine are not?!!). In your position, I wouldn't be walking away for the sake of £3k worth of works, that in any event don't need to be done asap. If it has the potential to be in the right location and the perfect house, I'd stick with it.

Tricky one, if it is a case of neglected maintenance, and the house is priced as if it ought to be in good nick, you ought to question why you should pick up other people's maintenance bills. If it is priced to reflect the work required, then that is fair.

As an aside, if £1,500 is really going to stretch you on a house costing over a quarter of a million, can you really afford it?

I live in a house that is only 12 years old but it hasn't had anything done to it in terms of replacing things but the previous owners clearly had someone in every year to maintain the decor and the sealant around the sinks etc.

Even so the kitchen is the original (see pic on my profile) as is the bathroom, equally cosmetically hideous, all the bathroom/en-suite/cloakroom sinks are scalloped and have gold taps!

The facias and sofits need doing, the garden was 9ft high shrubs everywhere and not a flower in sight.

Wherever you buy there will always be work to be done. I have lived in brand new houses and you still want to decorate them.

I think if it ticks all the boxes and you believe that it will be gorgeous once you have had work done to it then buy it. It is only awful when it is a horrible house and no matter what you do it remains a horrible house.

I wouldn't be put off by the need to replace fascias, they're like tyres on cars - they'll go sometime.

Are you sure that you want the house, and that this wasn't just the final straw?

(Sorry to be blunt. I may well be projecting here....)

I agree with Springforward - its not like you've found out about subsidence or dry rot. Every single house on the planet needs something doing to it, even brand new ones, to suit new owners.

Hard one here - I think that you have doubts. I was in your shoes this time last year. We spent approx £2K in surveys and legal fees which threw up a pot of worms which we didn't expect. We walked away cos we had too many doubts about it... and found a much better house a few months later.

I think you've had lots of good advice on the building fabric but noone has mentioned schools. We bought our family home without kids and didn't consider that when buying. Big mistake as we now have kids and It's a worry. It is very expensive to move so try to buy near schools you are happy with. I thought ours would be "ok" but when it comes to the crunch I'm not sure they are and we've brought forward our plans to move closer to family. Don't make the same mistake as us.

I don't agree that the asking price necessarily reflects the condition or even a vague estimate of the value of the house. Round here it seems to reflect what the owners would have dreamed to get at the height of the housing boom, rather than anything else.

That said, £3k isn't an enormous amount of money in relation to the house. Can you really afford to buy the house (and do it up) if you're so stretched that this might make or break the deal?

We're looking at houses and a lot of them need work to some degree. It is definitely the case that the asking price reflects that fact - a similar house to one we looked at which was in almost perfect condition was about £150k more than the tatty one we were interested in.

That said when we were selling ours someone made a really low offer on it because they "needed to do work on it". The work they mentioned was putting on an extension - we told them to take their offer and stuff it! Putting an extension on a recently refurbished house in good nick was not something we were prepared to drop the price for!

We pretty much had the same situation: no other houses we liked AT ALL - this house needed damp proofing done (according to mortgage company's survey). The quote we got said it would cost £2000 to fix, the vendors' quote came back at £350... to fix damp... Hmmm. After much deliberation, and speaking to the mortgage advisor, we said that we were very much considering pulling out (which we were) as we were having some doubts generally. We were very worried we'd paid too much for the house anyway, and this was something else we'd have to pay for. They came straight back to us and said they would give the full £2k off the sale price, rather than lose the sale. I felt a bit mean, especially in hindsight as we absolutely love our house, but it meant we paid a price we were much more comfortable with. It might be worth having the conversation, especially if they need to sell their house and you don't.

Well, things have changed a bit since yesterday.

I have arranged to get a couple of companies in via the estate agents to get more accurate quotes, as the survey was typically vague, and the 3k estimate based on my online research rather than actual facts. Me and DH have said if it needs less than 2k worth of work we will stick with it, but more than that we will walk away. It's the area rather than the house IYGWIM.

Money wise, I think even though we can easily afford the mortgage repayments, an extra few thousand for repairs we hadn't thought we needed is still going to be a pain.

Schools etc no worries - this house is a 15min walk from an outstanding secondary school, and there are a lot of lovely primary schools locally too. It really is a great location... BUT

I have found another house on Rightmove , opposite side of town, pretty much the same size, but in much better condition, and a nicer layout inside. I like this estate too, it's a little bit more than walking distance from the town centre, but on the bus route. Further from the secondary school - but given I don't have DC yet, we have a few years to worry about school location. I am going to see it tomorrow - and if it's as good as it looks online we are going to go back for a second viewing ASAP. Price wise it's on at the price we had accepted for the previous house, so we could go to asking price as well.

So it all depends on how the much the repairs end up costing - but at least I have a back-up now.