I've been lurking here for a really long time, sorry for jumping in with a question.
We are FTBers and viewed a house local to us which is on at £125,000.
The house has:
*3 beds (two are small but this can be transformed by switching a bathroom and bedroom around when we'd come to a point of redoing the bathroom)
*Upstairs bathroom (many in the area have downstairs bathrooms)
*3 reception rooms (it is usual in the area to have 1 reception room and for the back room to have been converted into a kitchen/diner)
*Extension which contains kitchen, w.c. and utility room.
- Converted garage in the garden.
- Nice area within reach of train station, 2 good primary schools and within a walkable distance to DH's workplace.
*Usable cellar space
*Potentially usable loft space
*High ceilings
*Light, bright rooms
It is an end terrace which had substantial extension/addition before the area became a conservation area (and development in the area became difficult to obtain permission for) and as such is the only 3 bed, in the specific area we want to buy, under £150,000.
All other houses on the street are two beds and ones which have sold in the past 10 years have been refurbished to a high standard. These types of houses have sold recently for around £105,000 - £115,000
Reading all that you think "£125,000 is great, offer the asking price" however:
*The home is owned by an artist who has done some rather strange DIY which whilst not damaging to the bones of the house would be a pain to change and correct. There are random lumps of wood drilled into the wall, painted murals, pine ceilings, slithers of thin tiles on the floor inbetween the carpets of rooms and around light sockets.
*Most rooms have those odd polystyrene ceiling tiles which I assume are dangerous?
- At the end of the extension the utility room opens out on to the garden and when I went out of the door I ran my hand down the wall and noticed it was soaking. The wall didn't feel sodden or permanently wet, it did however feel like the rain was leaking in from above and once outside we noticed the very old roof on the extension portion of the house is in need of either a great deal of work or complete replacement and obviously the rear wall would need to be fixed.
*The garden has warped decking which would need to be ripped out quickly as it was very slippery.
*The garage space which has been converted into an office has a very strong smell of damp, so this will need looking into - I suspect this might have something to do with the shockingly bad and soaking wet decking.
*We would need to replace kitchen and bathroom within 12-18 months.
*It has been on the market since last May and the sellers have not started looking for a house.
*We can move FAST, have a mortgage in principle and a good deposit, does that put us in a good position?
My heart says "BUY IT, GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT", it's the only house for miles within our comfortable price bracket which has more than 2 bedrooms. Finding something like this is near on impossible but does this mean we should overlook the amount of work we need to do it?
My FIL suggests going in first of all at £112,500 which is 10% off the asking price with a view to spending no more than £120,000. But because it is so different and properties like this don't crop up often do you think we should be wary of taking 10% off the asking or is it true a first offer should be insulting?
I love it and DH thinks it has "good bones and amazing potential", I could see us living there for 10-15 years.
HALP!