Review a house for a first time buyer please

[EddieVerkade]

We're first time buyers and are seriously interested in this house. We live overseas and don't have any properly grown-up friends or family here who can point out what we're missing so I'm relying on you lovely vipers to point out exactly what's wrong with it. I want to see it and put in an offer asap, so am hoping someone can give me some hints.

Things I can see: tired kitchen, old cooker (which would probably be taken anyway), no dishwasher.

Having viewed other houses on the same estate, I don't think storage is as much of a problem as it looks, but something to check. The freeholding company are good, so the fabric should be ok.

Anything else leap out please? Be as rude as you like! (not that that normally needs saying on MN )

www.funda.nl/koop/utrecht/appartement-86853746-eduard-verkadelaan-153/

I love it! Utrecht is lovely :)

I think it looks nice. Def go and see it in person though and have a good look round with a critical eye. I like that it is all quite neutral so you will be able to put your stamp on it in your own time.

Harder to comment on foreign property I think as standards & expectations are different? It looks lovely though.

Just wanted to say lucky you, living in Utrecht! DS2 is just finishing a semester there (we’re driving over this weekend in fact to pack up all his stuff & clean his apartment), we love it & will definitely visit again even now he’s leaving

Looks structurally sound from the pictures, OP! A little small for my liking but looks like a steal for Amsterdam, is it?

No floor buckling, wall cracks, damp, windows failing etc.

However make sure you get all the survey, we nearly sank our savings into our first home only to discover that the foundations had slipped and the back of the house was essentially falling down.

Aside from that it looks to be a good investment - be wary with the kitchen though! Could mean having to have the whole living area redecorated at the same time, those tiles could take bits of wall depending how they are stuck on. It will need replastering etc.

Could you hire a local builder you trust to have a look with you?

Looks good to me, and only you can assess whether it’s value for money in the local market.
Storage could be an issue, but you have a garage for rarely used things ( Christmas decks. etc.) Internally clever storage solutions would be the key and there are plenty of them on Pinterest.
I like the outside space.

Thanks everyone!

We actually already live in the neighbourhood (hence name change). A management company owns the buildings and they're really good about upkeep. That's why it's cheap, and you have to pay 1700 per year for the ground. That means almost no one in the target range can get a mortgage because of the extra outgoing.

I suspect they've got rid of some of the internal storage cupboards to make the bathroom larger, so their fancy new bathroom might have to be ripped out as well for practicality. The washer and drier should be in the bathroom, suggesting they've shoved them in the metre/storage cupboard. But other than that, the smaller the better! Less cleaning and an incentive not to collect rubbish

All, you really need to get advice from a solicitor and sb with a technical expertise. For example, re the service charges or legality of alterations in the interior. In addition to your concerns about bathroom walls being moved, he living area seems to have odd windows - lik there used to be a wall there.
The bathroom looks new but the kitchen looks dated and sockets ancient so it'd be worth checking out electrics, windows etc. People looking at photos in another country will be of little help.

Reader beware, I am not only in another country, I've lived in detached houses for the last 30 years...

Apart from the tiny dimensions, I notice practical difficulties. The front door opens straight into the living room - where do you put your wet shoes and coat? The bedrooms are literally BED rooms - no place for a TV, a chair, a bookshelf.

And the proximity of the neighbours - the little patio area is seriously overlooked. You would have to be very tolerant of noise/second-smoke/cooking smells, etc.

No bath?!

I'm enjoying the varying opinions Much appreciated! Having never done this before, and not having anyone to consult, even strangers on the internet are useful. There are so many things one just knows about the housing market in ones home country. It's so much harder doing it abroad, along with the suspicion that everyone's going to take the foreigners for a ride!

I love living in an flat - hoovering stairs is my worst nightmare. But it would indeed drive many people up the wall! It's a naice neighbourhood with retired people and young families, so noise isn't generally a problem. Utrecht seems to have a much higher population density than anywhere I've lived in the UK and I think people are more considerate of each other because it's so common to be stacked up.

In case anyone cares, the flats are better designed than they look. I've found one that has sold with a floor plan. The front door goes from a yard into the hall, then the back door out of the living room and into the garden. And yes, I think the windows were designed like that. Go figure. In the one in the op, I think they've put the washers in the cupboard labelled kast so they can have a nice big bathroom (but still no bath, even with all that space!)

Thanks JoJo for pointing out the plugs

Front door opens into hallway, doesn’t it? Opposite laundry cupboard?

(In any case many 2 up 2 down UK terraced houses actually do open straight into living room - with large doormat, coat hooks above, & shoe rack, it’s not a problem

oops, apparently I was reading the layout backwards; the main picture is of the back of the house.

The "front" door is past the storage/bicycle shed, and then visitors walk past the bedrooms and bathroom to get to the living room.

The pictures from the sold flat give a much better idea of the layout and space - looks even nicer in those!

I think having the double bed & huge wardrobe in the smaller bedroom in the one you're looking at make it look smaller than it is - would you need to do that? As a nursery/single room/study it would be fine.

I own a house in The Netherlands and the first ting I can say is that the washing machine is usually up on the top floor in the attic and the stairs are horrendously steep. We bought last year and in our town (slightly less desirable than Utrecht) if a house makes it onto funda then it’s not so desirable. Most houses sell via the estate agents before it gets onto funda. Try liking the estate agents Facebook pages and go to the estate agents and prove to them that you can afford it and tell them which streets/areas you would like to buy in. Then maybe you’ll get invited to view a house before it gets onto funda.

We also had to have an official translator at the lawyers with us and you don’t normally have a surveyor do a survey before you buy like you do in England.

The estate agents always put new properties onto their Facebook pages a couple of days before they put them on funda so definitely worth liking their Facebook pages. Also be prepared to offer quickly after viewing if you want a property otherwise someone else will snap it up. You then sign a pre contract and then on the day of moving the final contract at the lawyers. So there is no chains like in England. If you sign the pre contract there are hefty penalties to pay if you back out of the sale or can’t get your mortgage

Property in our town is going up about 6% a year at the moment and we got a 10 year fixed mortgage for 1.6% interest.

That's really helpful, thanks @Ruhrpott. I think the property is overpriced, especially since it doesn't include the erfpacht. On the estate agent's website, it looks like the price has been reduced. However, prices do seem to being going up fast round here. From your experience, how much under the asking price would you expect to offer before being considered cheeky? (Assuming no one ever offers the asking price? And not that cheeky is a concept the Dutch really recognise!)

Ours was
On for 269000 we offered 255000 first and finally settled in 262000

You can employ an estate agent to do the negotiating for you but they charge a percentage of the price under asking that they achieve

I think a lot around here are now going to sealed bids on popular properties. Our neighbours sold a couple of weeks ago and sold within 5 days of it being on facebook.

Obviously a few very overpriced or need a lot of work properties or not in a popular area hang around for ages

I own a house in The Netherlands and the first ting I can say is that the washing machine is usually up on the top floor in the attic and the stairs are horrendously steep

I stayed in an Airbnb in Utrecht in the summer. The stairs were so steep I had to come down backwards but downstairs was much bigger than upstairs & the laundry equipment was in the downstairs bathroom.
Only 1 socket though. Apparently if you tried to use both at once they would catch fire

Thanks again for all your help. We exchanged contracts yesterday, so as long as the mortgage goes through ok, it's ours!

We've already started IKEA window shopping