What's a sensible offer

[BeauticianNotMagician81]

We have seen a house we love it has massive potential. It's in a pretty affluent area, however the market in the area is slowing and lots of vendors are reducing prices and offers lower are being accepted.

The house itself needs updating. It didn't smell great and the carpets are clearly very old. Very old fashioned wall and floor tiles in the kitchen. In desperate need of fresh paint everywhere and the garden is small. It also needs a new ensuite and bathroom.

It's on at £360,000. The house next door has just sold for £360,000 but has had everything done. Brand new Fitted kitchen, kitchen wall knocked through to dining room, half of the double garage converted to a study & playroom, large landscaped garden and it is in good decorative order throughout.

What would be a reasonable offer?

You need to look
Wider at the sale of the whole street and let that guide you. In theory you can then go as low as a similiar property on the street - you can always go up but not back down.

The last house that sold was in 2014 a 5 bed for £380,000. The house next door that's just sold for £360,000 sold for £212,000 in 2003. It's a close so not many houses.

On the next road which is of the same style houses one sold Nov 2017 for £320,000 with a large south facing garden. Lighter and brighter inside but still needed work.

I should say the one we are looking at is a 4 bed detached. We ideally need a 5 bed but can't afford on in that area so need something we can extend.

Offer what you feel it's worth. £330k as an opener wouldn't be unreasonable but I don't have any issue starting with a cheeky low offer as I can always walk away.

£316,800

Tell them you've done extensive research and this reflects a fair price for the area, work and current market.

They can say no.

Shutupsidney how did you come up with that figure.

I was thinking of offering £325,000 then upping it by £5000 up to £340,000 max. It will take time to do all the work as our budget is small but we will only get back into our preferred area with a do upper house. I just wanted to check my starting offer wasn't too cheeky.

Can you price up how much it would cost to modernise it in line with next door and then put a reduced offer with an explanation?

You're also saying houses are going for less because the market is slowing - are you able to see how much houses have gone on for then compare that to how much they sold?

We're in a completely different market with housing stock being short, demand high (because of the schools) and houses regularly going for over the home report value. I started to note how much they asked vs how much they went for to know roughly how much we had to offer when we eventually came to buy.

It was a good guide for us anyway so could be a handy tool for you.

Figures which aren't rounded up to the nearest £5k look more like ones you've calculated based on the rationale given for your offer. We did it when we were negotiating on the purchase of our house. It worked and saved us several thousand pounds. You do have to be careful when saying someone's house needs updating because it can be largely a matter of taste unless things are obviously worn and needing attention and sellers don't always take it well.

It is 88% of the asking price! It also has a 6, so sounds like 60, it finishes on a high figure 800. It looks like you have REALLY thought about it as it's so exact.

We've just bought and sold at 88% of asking so don't think it's too low, especially in a falling market.