Good news about the extra 2k Nessalina.
Definitely worth asking the EA if the vendors of that house would consider £285k. They can only say no.
Good luck for your offer Funnyface1.
A lot of new builds around our way too. We did actually look at a few as we were considering them. However I found the sizing of them really poor compared to older properties, and they were much more expensive. And in a lot of the estates the houses are really packed in with little space between the houses. Basically you are paying a huge premium to have something brand new and shiny, but the thing is the 'shininess' doesn't last long (especially if you have a toddler and a baby like us!) and then when you come to re-sell you are likely to find that there's a real glut of similar properties in the estate all trying to sell at the same time, so you have to price really competitively to make a sale, and risk selling at a loss. So we decided we would rather look at older houses.
Which, incidentally, brings me to the second viewing of the house we did yesterday. It's just recently price dropped, and is now bang on budget. It's a really good size, and perfectly located for us. The compromise is that although it's in perfectly liveable condition, it's quite tired looking and is probably going to need completely re-decorating over the next 5-10 years, and we would have to extend the current driveway to improve the parking. I also think the boiler looked fairly old, and it had a few cracks (I don't think they were anything major, but obviously would have the house properly surveyed to check). But (very dangerously) I thjnk we have fallen in love with it a bit, and we're quite excited about being able to re-do the house how we would want it over the next few years. But, we don't yet have a buyer. However the agent seemed to think the vendor may possibly be willing to wait if we made a full asking price offer (the house is vacant and chain free as the previous owner [the vendor's mother] passed away so no-one wanting to move anywhere, and there's no outstanding mortgage or anything on the house, so it's not going to cost the vendor a fortune to wait). So we've decided to risk it for a biscuit and put in an offer tomorrow at full asking price (subject to no major issues on the survey) if the vendor would be willing to wait for us to get a buyer. They can only say no right? Although we're going to be gutted if they do, as we've stupidly already decided where we are going to put the furniture and how we're going to redesign the bathroom