Best and Final Offers - What to do!

[HollyMariaa]

Myself and my fiance are buying a house together - we currently live in his house which is SSTC - our exchange date is in 3 weeks and we're pretty much ready to go.

We have viewed a house in a very popular area in Cheshire. It's a 2 bed terraced so will be where we have our first and maybe even second child, we're planning on kids in 2 years (after the wedding). The house is up for £229,995 and it has gone to best and final offers.

We have sold our existing property and are moving in with family in 3 weeks, so should our bid be accepted we could move in at any time and be flexible to suit the vendor. Our solicitor is a family friend so can move at whatever pace we wish.

We have a mortgage in principle allowing us to buy a house worth over £300,000, and once the sale of our house is complete we will have a £70,000 deposit, so we will have no problem with the cost of the house. We said we would pay no more than 250k for a house so not to cripple ourselves.

My question is, what is our best offer? We can afford 250k but i could never justify spending that on a house that will only do us for around 7 years, our top budget was reserved for the forever home.

To throw a spanner in the works, we have seen a 3 bed semi for £260... is it worth going the extra mile and being skint in order to never need to move again?

Help! :)

Moving house is such an expensive thing, if you can stretch yourselves to buy the bigger house (assuming you love it), I'd go for it! Solicitor fees, stamp duty, etc, it all adds up.

You are very young to be talking about never moving again. So many things change - horrid new neighbours, school fails Ofsted, illness. I would think in terms of the right house for the next 5/10 years and consider your budget accordingly. I moved into my house for 5 years and am now selling it after 27 years! Plans change.

My immediate thought was "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."

Be cool. There are other houses out there apart from these two.
Offer what you think it's worth, big-up your plus points (house already sold) and leave it at that. Don't think "if only ..." but, equally, don't pay over the odds.

Thanks so much for your advice everyone! Wilful joker, I wish we were too young to not move again ;) but my partner is nearly 40 so the 30 year repayment option we have now is likely to decrease rapidly over the next 5-10 years.

I should probably also mention that we have an early repayment charge of 6k on our current mortgage, so if we don't sign for a new house within 16 weeks we lose that money x

Speaking as someone who got stuck in a house far too small for about 7 yrs longer than we wanted (due to the recession) I would not willingly buy somewhere I knew would be too small in 5 yrs.

If you deduct removal costs from the 3 bed semi then it's only a small amount over your max budget (deduce estate agent fees, solicitor, stamp duty you would have paid on the terrace, removal van cost, survey and so on).

Buy the semi. A 2 bed with 2 kids is a PITA - you will want a separate room for the 2nd baby, even if only short term. You will 99% guaranteed also want parking and a garden once you have a baby. Go for the semi.

With best and final, it's a case of paying what you consider to be the best fair/affordable price for the house in question.

To answer the other question, I'd go for the bigger house. If you were to pay, say, £240k for the little cottage to want to move to the 260k 3-bed in a few years, you'd be out of pocket. Think of all the moving costs, stamp duty and all the upheaval etc... an extra 20-30k in mortgage amounts will probably be less than 100 a month in repayments?

It also sounds like an expensive 2-bed if it's only a tiny bit cheaper than the semi. Is it all done up and cutsey so people want to pay over the odds?