First time buyer: overcautious or red flags

[KatieE103]

My partner and I are first time buyers and have been looking for our first home for just over a year.

We have finally found a house that ticks all the boxes, have viewed twice, taken parents etc. and appears to be the ‘perfect house’. However on delving further into its previous sold prices, and asking prices, it all seems a bit odd.

The property was built in 2006 and sold a year later for £260k, it was then sold in 2014 for £235k. This seems a little worrying.

On top of this, the house has been on sale at least 3 times this year in April, July and now December, and they have dropped their asking price by over 50k between July-December. Their current asking price is going to see them make 50k profit on the house. They seem in no rush to sell, or move, and won’t start looking for a property until they have sold themselves.

Unfortunately it is a large individually designed detached house on a street of semi-detached 2/3 bed houses so there is little to compare it to in the area to judge what it should really be costing. We have asked about flood risks (very low risk) area has low crime rate and it is in a small quiet village so we are at a bit of a loss.

Are these red flags, or am I just being over-cautious?

What price are you offering and rough where in the country is it?

I personally wouldn’t necessarily worry. New build houses are notoriously a poor investment and depreciate with a dip after their initial shininess wear off (and the 10 year guarantee is over). Re recent presence on the market, if your area is anything like ours things have been pretty sluggish over the last 18 months. If the sellers have a significant mortgage and aren’t desperate to sell there will be an amount below which they can’t sell if they want to avoid negative equity. Proceed with caution but I wouldn’t write the place off on that basis, personally.

Sorry - on rereading your post, ignore mine about mortgage size. Probably more that they were hoping to jump to something much bigger and only now are reluctantly accepting their next step up the ladder won’t be quite as big as they’d like!

We are Lincolnshire so you usually get a lot for your money and prices typically don’t fluctuate very much. We have offered 280k but are now starting to worry that we may be overpaying due to the above. It is on for offers over 300k

Dont you remember the worldwide economic crisis in 2008? Lots of properties lost value, so that dip eoikdnt bother me. However, the sellers do not seem very committed, though a big price drop might mean they are finished with testing the market and are getting more serious. Are you saying it's now on the market for £285k?
Ultimately the house is worth what you are willing to pay for it. And it might be worth more to you than yo someone else. You can only second guess property prices for so long - at some point after your other viewings you should get an idea if it's priced correctly. Seems with a 50k drop it might be.

New build houses go down in value immediately after their first sale. In addition, many areas took a long time to recover from the 2008 crash, and the last year has been very tough for the housing market.

I wouldn't take the things you've mentioned as red flags unless there is something else as well.

Prices peaked in 2007 and took a while to come back in some areas, so I wouldn't be too worried about that first sale tbh.

Has your offer been accepted?

I was aware of the economic crisis but didn’t realise (naively) that it had such a long term impact I suppose- I was only 11 at the time so much of it passed me by so I appreciate the responses.

We haven’t yet heard back regarding the offer so just panicking about not knowing either way.

Can you post a link to the property here? Someone might be able to spot something you might have missed or they may actually know the area and can advise further.

What's it worth to you op? Do you think your monthly mortgage is worth it? Property buying always requires a little leap of faith in my opinion as no-one knows what the market will do. Just remember you can always get a survey and can pull out if needed. Buying is a daunting task but just take it one step at a time. Good luck

If they accept your offer then you're already 20k in saving since you went in low? You say its on for offers over 300?

You're overthinking this. You've been looking a year and this is the house you settled on. You're a nervy first time buyer. Hth!

You are overthinking it. If they accept the offer get a proper survey done (not the basic mortgage valuation), and the surveyor will let you know if the value is reasonable, or if you are paying over the odds.
There are no red flags from what you have said so far.

Is it freehold, and not one of these 'fleecehold' properties?