Help me buy a house! Need a tactical plan

[BewitchedBefuzzledBewildered]

We have been hunting in a very specific area of London and so far have been beaten to the chase twice by developers in buying a property to live in. We need to be in this particular area to be close to certain schools.

The two properties we lost out to developers were 'fixer-uppers', but we have now spotted a property which ticks all the boxes and needs practically nothing doing to it at all.

We are going to be the first viewers on Saturday at the Open Day. The asking price is a bit (by 5-10k) above the top of our budget. How do we secure the property? We are not experienced property buyers, and don't want to make rookie mistakes.

Do we offer our best and final bid straight off? What if there is competition? How do we manage the game?n we have sold our house, we're living in rented and have a mortgage agreed in principle.

Thx

Good luck Bewitched. It's crazy out there isn't it. We're still looking in chiswick bedford park, chiswick grove park, kew, richm

Oops...

Kew, richmond and east sheen and there is Nothing on the market. What is going on the market is going to sealed bids - even very average houses. Plus we've now budgeted up to £200k to pay over the asking price if we have to, just to put us in a strong position in a sealed bid scenario. Complete madness and very exasperating but our daughter starts school in kew in September and we need to move out of north london soonish. I hope you find success so

Soon x

(Sorry my phone is playing up)

Are houses going for £200k over asking Bambi? Wow! That is crazy.

Good luck finding somewhere.

Yes, 200k over asking price is not at all unusual on any decent properties in west londin thus current market. Thank you - we are going to need all the luck we can get x

My advice is to suck it up and buy what you can afford even if it's not perfect. If you like the area just get on the ladder there. We were looking in sw London 2 years ago and kept seeing places that we liked but weren't perfect and were holding out for our dream. Kept trying to make offers under the asking price and shaking our heads at the crazy prices, surely it can't last etc, etc. 2 years later those houses have gone up by about 25% to over £800. 4 bed terraces around here are now over £1m. Luckily we bought somewhere. Not our dream house by any means but at least we got something as if we'd continued to be in denial about prices we would be stuck as we're totally priced out now salary wise.

So my message is - suspend disbelief - prices are crazy and get what you can. If its a nice established area of smart London you will never lose!!

I think we might have a slighly different definition of 'decent' Bambi! :)
I fully expect to pay £50K plus over though.

Tell me, is the market in West London more/less or the same level of madness as North London in your experience?

Thanks yummymumtobe, that is really good advice. I think that's what we'll end up doing - going for something that ticks a lot, if not most boxes, and getting on the ladder in an area we love.

MeanMrsMustard - we're currently renting in north london so I can't speak from personal experience from the buyers' market up here, but from what I gather the competition is hot in any of the considered more desirable areas - eg west hampstead, highgate, queens park etc, golders green, finchley etc. all over london there is a big lack of stock which is driving prices up even more

... So I'd say the competition north vs west london is on a par

Well good news here, we went for a property in a neighbouring area which was a lot cheaper, therefore giving us a buffer to offer over asking price. Once again, a huge amount of interest, and then it went to sealed bids - and we got it. Phew.

Well done BBB.
I personally went for 2 bed instead of three rather than risking selling my house and going into rental.

That's fantastic news!

No divine intervention - I think! But 150k over asking might have done it.

.

We've just left our rental property after it was put on the market. 2 bed maisonette, needs new kitchen, full decoration, no scope to extend as roof space is too small. No garden. West London, area not great (drunks/drug addicts on nearest main road) but close to nice areas like Chiswick and Ealing.

Asking price? £525,000. And expected to go way over in sealed bids.

Crossrail has a LOT to answer for!

Wow these stories are terrifying. This should be a London buyers support thread..

The West London Buyers Support Thread :-)

London is totally crazy. I've been abroad for 13 years and the whole atmosphere of most of the places I used to live / work in has changed.
The government has surely got to do something about foreigners buying for investment. I understand they'll now have to pay CGT, but what about an additional stamp duty tax? I see no benefit for the gov't or British economy in Indo / Russ / Chinese investors flipping properties they never set foot in!