How much to offer (sorry another one!)

[Stumbleine]

Have seen the (potential) house of our dreams. Ideal location but a total refurb job. It is new to the market and afaik we were the first viewers. The vendor is unwell and needs to move to be closer to family. We are first time buyers with a mortgage agreed. It is priced at 375 which is quite near the top end of our budget. This means that Saving to do the updating would take a bit of time (and hair pulling no doubt!). The market is reasonably buoyant due to being a desirable village location .

I suspect it will go quickly. The same house next door sold for 450 in 2011 after being , modernised, extended and having 2 bedrooms added.
Where would you start with this one?

Presume you have some idea of the costs for getting up to scratch? Wonder if you should start at 350 to 'test the water'. Assuming it is not accepted you have registered your interest and then speak to the EA and ask what figure they think would be accepted? just make sure you keep in good contact with the agent - if there is lots of interest you might have to end up saying what price would get it for us? You are in a good position but there might be others as well. Good luck - hope you get it.

Thanks bilbodog .

I no expert on these things, and have not moved recently but fwiw I think if it is your dream house and that it is fairly priced then why not try to secure it as soon as possible? Sounds like the vendor would either appreciate a quick sale and/or the knowledge that you would be flexible on completion dates etc
Everyone likes to get value for money, but ask yourself how would you feel if you missed out on the house of your dreams because of a few grand (and I say this as relative to the price of the house)? We missed out once and it took us another 3 years before another came along. We didn't mess about the next time:)

What Bilbodog says - you actually want the first offer to be rejected so you know you're not paying more than necessary. The EA will have to come back to you to reject your offer then you can start haggling in earnest. But do set a top budget limit - a total refurb is going to cost you quite a lot.

It's so hard to approach this whole house hunting business with a financially level head on when you fall in love with a house and have mentally moved in!

I feeling have a really good idea of the market locally, but am struggling to form an objective view of the value of this one due to the modernisation required.

To update - we offered 360 and apparently the second viewer had offered lower than this it was outright rejected. Our offer was mulled over last night and they came back today saying that they wanted to see out the couple of viewing that are booked between now and Saturday. As the house has been on the market less than a week they want to see if any better offers come in.

We can go higher but dh maintains we should wait until the weekend (as unless we go back with full asking now they wouldn't take it off the market anyway). I'll have no nails left at this rate