Is there anything we can do about this?! Please help!

[crispysausagerolls]

My husband and I found our dream home. It came on the market and was inundated with offers - several of which were speculative or had chains upon chains upon chains. We are cash buyers with no chain and put in a reasonable offer. The EA told us our offer was slightly too low, and to suggest another, higher, and we would surely win. We told him to come back with a number that would win as we didn’t want to start bidding against ourselves, and he said he would come back yesterday evening. He did not. Today I received a call, not even from the EA we were dealing with, to say the buyers accepted another offer.

Is this the end? I am heartbroken, but I am also outrageously angry. The estate agent owed us the chance to match the offer, surely? He specifically said he would find out what number we needed to offer and would tell us, and he did not! What if we were prepared to go higher?! Is it all over now the offer has been accepted? It’s also so shitty that the EA couldn’t even tell us himself, and got someone else to do it.

Please help, I am so sad!

Husband not helping by saying we could have done the mortgage thing and matched/exceeded the offer but he doesn’t want to

It is obviously none of my business, but if salary is sufficient to accumulate £1.4m to spend on a house (plus stamp duty and extensive renovations), but the time you're in your late 20's, a mortgage of a couple of hundred thousand isn't a huge consideration, surely?

mildura

He just doesn’t want to. He thinks we should buy a house within the set budget we have, which I don’t disagree with.

Interestingly if you put the local properties in price order the one you were looking at comes up at the 1.25m mark

alexalee

I know!!!

Glad I came back for a look!

whitesoxx

What do you think?

My favourite pic is the entrance hall

*alexalee

The upstairs landing is incredible - never see big landings like that!

Yes it's weird it comes up in that bracket, it's clearly well above the equivalen properties in that price range, I'd have expected that to be at approx 1.5 looking at the other properties.

However I had a house move due to work reasons and my company bought my house off me, and then organised the sale. Anything above what rhe company paid me, I'd get the difference.

The agent put it on very low, and I was very upset about it. And they simply said, don't worry, trust us.

And the house went for way way more than I'd ever have dreamed, it got into a bidding war. The lower price lured people in, who then out bid each other to buy it.

I suspect someone has offered quite highly on this and it was never going to sell at the lower bracket. And the high offer is why the high offer been accepted in thr manner it has by the seller with no further discussion. You'd be surprised at rhe amount of people who do that. They see a house, fall in love and they offer as much as they can to remove competition, and well above what it might be marketed for, especially if it's low like this one.

Op, you need to stop looking at it if it's gone, as it will mess you up for all other houses.,

bluntness

I know I do 😢😢😢

The thing is, looking at price per square footage on this road, comparing houses by their condition etc and the amount of work needing doing does still make 1.5 for this salty. It is a shame there wasn’t a more clear asking price too, for the reasons you said.

Crispy what a pretty, pretty house - I see why you fell for it hook, line & sinker!! I am sure you said earlier in the thread that you reckoned it wanted about £100k spending on it? What was that for? Based on the fact that a lady has been living in it for 50 years (do I have that right?) and the photos, it needs renovating from top to bottom. Just look at the rads, the bathroom, (and you'll want to add at least another one), knocking through the kitchen & replacing. You'd easily spend twice that without only doing the bare basics.

We bought our first married home in the Tonsleys of Wandsworth 18 years ago - a standard 3 bed mid terrace, in a similar state to this one, but probably a third of the size. We spent £115k doing that up (no extension, no loft conversion etc) and that was 18 years ago!!

1.5 mill and you would have had have neighbours overlooking your garden? Dear god what a world...

daisydoesnt

Oh wow - 115k is a lot, especially adjusted for inflation.

The 100k was just to do a basic facelift for us to live there. 20k for full rewiring as electrics are shot, new kitchen and bathroom (happy with a b and q Jobby), and a lick of paint and new floors everywhere.

To actually do it up properly; it’s 300k or so. There’s a conservatory that needs removing and redoing, an internal garage you’d want to utilise and garden fencing/walls etc that need to be replaced. It’s a really huge job. That’s why the price it’s gone for has surprised me - I understand the value of the house, and the value of loving something, but it starts to be a questionable decision when the amount of work to get it up to the standard of others on the road make it more expensive than just buying one of the others. Eg next door has come on the market for 2.3 and it’s in top spec, stunningly beautiful and 1000sq ft bigger. Will find the link

search.savills.com/property-detail/gbesrsehs150056

buckingfrolics

If you think that’s bad, you should see the pokey little place a friend of mine bought in Chelsea for 3.5!!!! Garden the size of a small table, 3 bedrooms. Tiny😳

Lovely house, I made a similar mistake with my first house and I have since learnt to go straight in with my maximum offer. I didn’t know how it all worked and thought it was like playing a game (not saying you were doing this at all).

As a seller I don’t get involved with buyers who play around with offers either, it’s wirked for us so far but I remember the pain of losing our first dream house and the estate agent who didn’t even have the courtesy to tell us.

Something else will come up, you are in an exellent position.

Thanks again for all the advice and support ❤️

There is the chance it's gone to someone who plans on converting it to flats.

OP I bet though when push comes to shove you wouldn't want to put a "B&Q jobby kitchen" into a house like that - you'll want it all done beautifully. Trust me, I've been there!

There is also something called the romance of the wreck - people love do-er uppers, and don't always make rational decisions. It is very very often cheaper to buy a modernised, "done" house than buy a wreck and do it up yourself and spend far more doing so than you ever intended

It is heart wrenching when you lose out on a house. I can see why your DH doesn't want to borrow money. When we view a place, we decide what our max limit is before we bid. You have to stop at some point.

All the other houses on the market seem so shit in comparison now

@daisydoesnt does rads=radiators? What do you thinks wrong with them from the pictures? (as someone who's just bought a house with almost identical ones...)

Apparently nearly 40% of houses fell through before completion last year

And the house went for way way more than I'd ever have dreamed, it got into a bidding war. The lower price lured people in, who then out bid each other to buy it.
That's a technique some agents use. "Price them low and watch them go - price them high and watch them die"

You didn't make a mistake by bidding lower Op. Sometimes even if you offer asking price, someone else has a bigger budget. Every time is s new experience. It is hard not to feel over invested emotionally. It will feel a little raw for a while. Hold onto your cash, keep saving your money and somewhere else will come up eventually.