Help! I have to get this house!

[Rhubarbgarden]

I am tying myself in knots and looking for advice on a strategy to get an offer accepted. House came on the market last week, we knew pretty much straight away it was The One just from looking at the details. Viewed it on Saturday, during the open house. Fell in love. DH wants it as much as I do. Put in an offer this morning of asking price. I'm not messing around - this is the house I want my kids to grow up in and DH and I to grow old in. The agent has just rung back now - offer rejected. They are having two more open houses this week and if there is a lot of serious interest it will go to sealed bids after that, unless someone makes a really good offer in the meantime.

What is our best approach? Up our offer slightly? Offer our maximum now, and give them a short window to accept in the hope of nipping a bidding war in the bud now? Or will that just give other interested parties chance to outbid us? Do we play it cool and wait till after the weekend in the hope no-one else comes along with 'a really good offer'? If it goes to sealed bids, how much do we offer?

Aargh, I have to have this house! It blows all the others out of the water. There were a lot of people at the open house. I know there will be a lot of interest. It's a doer-upper in a terrible state with a Heligan garden, bags of history and character, and is in a peach of a location where not much comes up.

What's a Heligan garden?

I guess if you really want it you pay the max you're prepared to pay for it. Bidding war sounds like a mug's game to me though so I'd go off it on principle.

What's a Heligan garden?

I guess if you really want it you pay the max you're prepared to pay for it. Bidding war sounds like a mug's game to me though so I'd go off it on principle.

We're not in the same league of purchase price as you (based on other threads) but we're in the middle of buying The One. We made an under offer which was rejected which we upped a wee bit (but to our absolute max) but still under and it was rejected due to large amount of interest. However, in fact no one else made an offer and within a fortnight (10 days of which we were away on holiday and unaware of events) had our second offer accepted. Sit tight - it could come good.

Let's see a link :)

Link...?

For once I'm not putting up a link in case someone sees it and outbids us! This is how twitchy I am about this house this time! Sorry...

Heligan as in lost gardens of. Large and overgrown. In a good way!

I'm thinking we sit tight too Hanahsaunt - but it just might kill me! Thanks for the encouragement.

[hard stare]

Link

Hah! Ok, if you delete it for me after an hour or so?

Agree! Terribly bad form to talk of houses and not post a link....

A couple of thoughts.

How affordable is the house for you? Are you reluctant to go higher because it would stretch you financially, or would it still be affordable, at say 10% over the asking price, but you (naturally) don't want to pay more for it than you have to. I think that answer would affect what I would do, given it is THE ONE.

I think you really need to impress on the estate agent that you are serious buyers, very interested, so they (with an eye towards their own commission) come back to give you a second bit of the cherry if there are other offers. Do you think you are in that position now? If not, it's possible a small increase in your offer (knowing it will be rejected due to the open house events), will make the estate agent take you seriously, and advise the seller not to do anything until they have spoken to you again.

Tres exciting though!!

I can't afford to move anyway so you can show me.

beautiful. I hope that you get it. Fingers crossed.

It's lovely, but not a lot of house for the money!

Its AMAZING - I love houses like that, it's ripe for redevelopment and could be beautiful! Fingers crossed you get it

That's my dream house - it's absolutely amazing. Very ious

Looks lovely, fingers crossed for you.

Blimey, it seems massively over priced. Are you sure it's right to go above the asking price? Will it leave you the money to do it up? Have you had a survey done, how much work will you have to do with regards to wiring, heating, plumbing etc. I'm thinking a full job.

Personally I would work on wooing the vendors than upping your offer. Who are they, and why are they selling? If they're selling a much loved former family home could you give them a spiel about how you'd return it to it's former glory, how your children will grow up there and spend Christmases there. How much you will respect the houses history blah blah blah/

No help, I realise. Can you live it in while you do the work? We are now 2 years in to a similar sized doer upper. We've been able to live around the chaos, but it has been "interesting".

That is really annoying. Can't believe it's bidding wars in this bad market. And sealed bids. That's difficult. Just looked at it. It's not huge for that amount of money. But very nice.

It's a beautiful house, but don't get giddy and get carried away. Remember it is bricks and mortar at this stage and you have to consider stamp duty, agent's fees, removal fees, survey fees... not to mention what it will cost to bring it up to date and have the roof looked at.

But if you have considered all that and still think you can afford it, then go for it, really impress the agent - what can you offer them that other buyers can't? Have you sold already and are in a good position to move quickly? And remember what Phil Spencer says ("there's always a deal to be done").

Good luck, I'm crossing my fingers for you!

WOW.

I wouldn't worry about others trying to snap it up...not many could afford that (but i hope to one day!).

I'd personally say to the agent what your top whack is but say you would like the vendors to take it off the market should they accept it. Try, as hard as this might be, to remain sensible - how much is this going to cost to do up and what could it be worth when done? Look of worse case scenario that you (and or DH) lose jobs and you're forced to sell. Not what you want to think about with your forever house, but still.

The temptation with housebuying (as my DH liked to say to me) was that I'd get all eBay about it - I'd have to have it at any cost, regardless of the actual value.

Problem is that the vendors are likely to be rubbing their hands in glee right now - and the agent is probably doing the same.

Another tack could be to ask the agent what it'd take to stop these two open houses - find out what the vendor wants. It looks like a deceased estate, so probably being broken up amongst a family.

Lastly, what's your position? Referring to above point, they might want a clean sale and quick cash vs getting embroiled in a lengthly chain.

Yes, assume it's a dead parental home. You could bid whatever you wanted to get it knowing the survey will come back with loads of expensive work and then renegotiate on that. Risky though? Lovely house but no idea whether or not that's a reasonable price

Blimey - nice, but how much have you got put aside to do it up? At least 100k??