I've just fallen in love. Help me bag this house please.

[marthabear]

I'm so excited and nervous. We have just viewed the most fantastic house and have fallen in love with it. After a year of house hunting nothing has come close. It has only been up for sale for a couple of days but the owner is keen to move very quickly and has an open house tomorrow which we have been told is generating a lot of interest. We sold our house last week so we are in a good position. The house has a guide price which is almost at the top of our budget but it is a more than fair price for the lovely family home that it is. We are in the East Midlands so things aren't moving at the pace of London, but someone will snap this house up within a couple of days i'm sure. I need it to be us. What is the best way to play it? Go back to see the owner personally in the morning and offer the asking price? Or wait until after the open day ( which it would be too late for her to cancel anyway) and put in an offer on Monday, asking the EA to keep us in the loop if any other offers are made? I have no idea about how to play it but I do know that I love this house.

Blimey...my dh would swoon with envy at that shed!

In the current market, acceptance of an offer appears to be rather flimsy.

Our offer of full asking price was 'accepted' by vendors. After 5-6 weeks they upped the price by 50,000. That's right, 50k. And they asked if we still wanted it (some nerve!). We walked out of it. The house is still on the market after 2 months.

We've found elsewhere (bidding war & substantially exceeding asking price - but for the perfect house), but honestly am half-prepared for another jinx somewhere along the way.

This is a bad time to buy a house! Wish we'd done it last year.

Misfor- I see what you mean about that house. But we have no need for the massive man shed and could really do with having the potential for 4 bedrooms. Could have used one of the reception rooms in the other house if we were desperate. I'll keep searching :-)

martha, if it's any consolation, my parents lost 3 houses for different reasons. The one they eventually got is so so so much nicer and perfect for them. They were really upset at the time, but are now incredibly grateful!

Sealed bids going on round here too. It's ridickerlus.

We all are attracted to different things and with houses sometimes there aren't logical reasons that we are drawn to some and not others. I'm not advocating the other house but from what you said about wanting more bedrooms...that roof pitch looks pretty good and the house is of an age that I would expect it to be an easy conversion, theres loads of space in the bedrooms/ bathrooms for a full staircase to access it.. From the floor plan it looks like dining room completely closes off from the hall and dining area thats off the kitchen so could be a bedroom until a 4th formal bedroom could be built.

The original house linked to was dressed in a particularly relaxed family/ shabby chic way. It was presenting a bit of a lifestyle with the books stacked up and stove in fireplace etc. The other same road house has similar wooden floors in one of the bedroom shots that could be potentially under all those attractive carpets. It has a big hearth in the lounge that for £2k (or significantly less if you shopped around) you could have the stove of you choice fitted. Admittedly I'd also change the bathroom and probably paint the kitchen doors and get new worktops over time. But its massive and detached for similar money and on paper looks like it has far more potential from a development point of view.

Oh and the man shed you could pop in the post to me. I'd create a play barn for the DC at the end of the garden, if only that building weren't several times the size of my garden :-)

It's such a disappointment, I do feel for you OP.

Have you looked at all the agents?
LINK

I like the second one the 3 bed semi in Kimberley Street. You'd probably need to lay a lawn in the back garden but would have money left over to do something interesting with the garage (already patio doors into one wall) and potentially a loft conversion if you need extra bedroom space.

All that said I don't know your area and which bits are desirable, and if that particular house is still freely available or not. It's just to say that there will be other options.
They say that 'what's for you won't pass you by' I hope that's true.

Best of Luck