What would you offer?

[DoItRight]

3 bed semi detatched on reasonably nice road in a popular village. Recently put on the market for £270,000. Owned by an older man who has lived there since it was built 50 years ago but he has kept it in good (if not particularly modern) repair.
It has alot of potential (and a great garden) but needs around 15-20k spent on it to bring it up to date. Have looked on Zoopla and the most expensive house that has sold on that road went for £249000 a year ago. The blurb for that house implies that it was a 'beautiful' house which the one we're looking at definitely isn't.
We're in rented, so chain free. We have a mortgage application going through at the moment but should come through soon. Our absolute top budget is £250,000.
I think the house is overpriced, but it also fits most of our criteria so I now am going round in circles about whether we should even bother putting in an offer if we can't go above £250,000. Should we wait and see if it doesn't sell they might be open to a lower offer? Or make an offer now and risk being rejected out of hand?
Any suggestions gratefully received!

If the vendor is clued up, he'll realise nobody will offer more than £250 anyway because of the stamp duty threshhold.

He's probably priced it at £270 to indicate he understands this and will negotiate down to £250 but not below.

I.E. if he put it on at £250 people would offer £230 so he's just making it clear that those figures would not be acceptable - doesn't mean he'll actually get £250 - he's just saying that's what he really, really wants.

Depending on what you think it's worth/how sought after it is - you could start at £240ish and work up, if necessary, or go straight in at £250 and say that's your lot!

Agree with fourwalls. What do you think it is worth? It is a buyers market in most places and the stats indicate that prices are at 2004 levels (depending on your local market, of course) and on their way down further. Be careful as you don't want to get caught in negative equity in two years if you want to sell. If we weren't looking for a long-term house to raise the kids in there is no way I'd buy in this market / economy.

Well if I nice one was £249,999 and this one needs £20,000 worth of work then I would be looking to get it for maximum of £230,000.

Thanks for your answers- they are sort of what I've been thinking. But I just can't figure out the market round here. House prices are nowhere near 2004 levels- they're certainly going on the Market at higher than 2008 levels. But then they're not selling - lots if house still on Market months later. Sellers just don't seem to want to acknowledge that their houses aren't worth what they would have been.

With our house I'm tempted to make an offer of 240k and just say to keep us informed if there's any other offers if they reject it.

The Land Registry will tell you exactly what level sold prices are at for comparison.

I would also say no more than 230K - and there's no allowance for the hassle factor or contingencies there either. I would be hugely surprised if it was accepted though if its just gone on - IME time on the market is the best softener of vendor attitude. Also, I know quite a few EAs are going for an approach of "well we could try for £XXX and see how it goes", which puts pound signs in the vendor's eyes (thus winning the instruction) but crucially also covers the EA's arse for the time they start talking the price back down, but I expect they'll still be in the 'testing the market' stage at the moment.