What would be an acceptable offer? Walthamstow

[TomHaverford]

I'm on the lookout for a house in Walthamstow and have seen one we like listed at 900,000 but it needs a lot of work. Its been listed since the beginning of July and no takers as yet.

I was just wondering how low to go with an offer. Bit of background is that it was brought in Nov 15 for 680,000. According to the estate agent this was by a vendor who buys and sells lots of properties and he originally brought it to develop but decided it needed too much work.

I was thinking of offering 780,000 which would be 100,000 for owning a house for 10 months. Does this seem too low?

You need to go back to the Estate Agents and ask if they've made a mistake with the asking price! How can they justify asking for £220,000 more after 10 months? Have they done a huge extension or something, or fixed an issue such as subsidence? If not then they are having a giraffe! Don't offer anything at all yet until you hear more about what has changed between November 2015 and now.

P.S. it is bought, not brought, btw.

Thanks Bibbity, I was typing very quickly on the hoof as the baby was crying.

He hasn't made a single improvement to it and it requires a lot of improvement. It is a rare sort of house with fantastic potential and the original price of 680£ was probably quite low for what it was. I think it must have been an estate sale or similar. It is not worth 900£ though so will offer less, I just wanted to know how much less!

Yes, well you can always try £780,000. It's probably quite hard to find a comparable if it is a rare sort of house.

Ok, just looked at it. £900,000 seems quite reasonable when compared to the standard Victorian terraces in Walthamstow at similar price!

I imagine the vendor would want to sell to a professional developer - who is less likely to pull out or try to renegotiate after a dodgy survey - so have probably been quite reasonable with their asking price. It looks like they got an absolute bargain (perhaps by more or less cheating the vendors?) when they bought 10 months ago.

They are asking for 30% above what they paid.

Foxtons reckons Walthamstow house prices have risen 13% in the past year.

So I wouldn't offer anything more than 13% up unless there were factors that mean they got a 'bargain' at the time.

Sorry didn't see your update when I posted

Thanks both. It is rare I think because it's detached but its not near Walthamstow Village or transport which makes that a desirable area.

Thanks Yello for the Foxtons. I will keep that in mind when making our offer. I do think they might want to sell it to a developer but I do doubt they will get planning permission for the area. Fingers crossed though!

Has the price been reduced since July? If not, the vendor might not be in too much of a hurry to sell so a low offer might not tempt him / her.

You can only be told no.