Is this an insulting offer?

[macneil]

Have fallen for a house in the north of England in a university city. It's on the market for £275,000. Last year the buyer paid £230,000. They have sanded the floorboards and decorated it beautifully, but done no structural work. The estate agent says house prices haven't gone up all that much in the last year. The thing is, we just can't afford it, especially as going over £250,000 means stamp duty of at least £7,000, over £8,000 at £275,000. They haven't had any other offers. But if we make an offer at £249,999, will they hate us so much they wouldn't take a bigger offer? The absolute most we can afford (and basically this would mean eating nothing but rice for the rest of our lives) is £260,000. Would it be smarter to say 'We've spoken to the bank and this is absolutely our top offer, we understand if you can't take it' first of all. Or do we take a risk and try the £249,999? Does anyone have any idea how the house market is going at the moment?

[macneil]

Those Holgate houses are lovely. I'm going to send my dad, but I think the problem is that we're not looking for a proper family home because we may only stay there as long as 2 years, so can't really cope with a proper project, and will also need to let it out for months at a time, so need something that would appeal to tourists - that's the other main reason, apart from being unadventurous, that we were going for a very close place. But Holgate appears to be AS close in as Bootham, definitely. Unfortunately, we can't go back up for a while now, so I'm at the mercy of my dad's eye for a house.

[thehairybabysmum]

you pay it to the solicitor (who then forwards it to the tax people i guess), not sure you could add it to the mortgage or not though. For houses between 125 and 250k it's 1% of the asking price.

[heifer]

we have always paid it ourselves - but I guess if you don't have the cash you could add it to your mortgage (assuming you are not having a 100% already)

[LucyJones]

oh brilliant, thanks So do you add that to the mortgage or do you have to pay it in one go?

[heifer]

this website works out stamp duty for you - tis great

[LucyJones]

ooh can I ask you guys a quick question?
How much is stamp duty?
Our maximum price we are looking for at the moment is 250k and I'm a bit of a novice at all this as neverdone it before

[thehairybabysmum]

Theres a good running club...Knavesmire Harriers for your DH...v. friendly.

Also the racecourse fab for running, in fact york great for running as its flat!! (not that im lazy!)

[Dinosaur]

They're in a small town called Howden, in East Yorks.

[thehairybabysmum]

www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-7940883.rsp?pa_n=2&tr_t=buy dead opposite to a lovely park...not the character of a vic terrace but i guess more for your cash because of this.

samee with this one www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-16621502.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy...v. cheap as has been up for sale for ages but i guess at that price you could pay someone to sort kitchen and decorating. Tis a v. nice street even though house itself not he prettiest.

better looking house here on same st www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-16718408.rsp?pa_n=4&tr_t=buy overlooks allotments and bowling green so v. quiet.

For nice vic terrraces in Holgate ask agents about Murray St and Lindley St, Beech Avenue, St Pauls Terrace and Railway Terrace (1st three prob nicest).

Also re B'thoorpe rd...you dont want to be too near the park due to flood potential...up the hill a bit fine though.

The same applies to Bootham...if you are on the river side of bootham then you can make flood noises to the agent to help your case as to why not to go too high with your offer. There are flood defences protecting here so actually unlikely to flood but no harm in mentioning it i reckon.

[thehairybabysmum]

right going to try and link you some houses in nice streets around me...

www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-7547616.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy this is one of niceset streets in York but not quite as near to c.c.

[hoxtonchick]

how funny dino! yes, my parents are still there too, in fact they now live just off bootham.... give me a clue where yours are.

[thehairybabysmum]

Obviously im biased as i live there already but i think you should look at Holgate as you will get (slightly) more house for your money than bootham or B'thorpe rd whilst still being v. close to city.

The downside to being close to the city is that you will generally be looking at a terraced house with only a yard or small garden (if you lucky)...personally id rather live close to city centre...same as you i guess.

Also the groves area is v. close to c.c and is vic terraces but is more studenty...some streets much better than others Emerald St nice i think.

Have you seen the website ourproperty.co.uk tells you exactly what houses went for and when.

[Fimbo]

Could you rent for a while? We rented for 6 months when we first moved from Scotland to Norwich, it helped us to settle in and from word of mouth eventually found out the good areas and bad. That is how we found the village that we now live in, it wasn't even on the list of supposedly good areas to live in that Dh's employers provided!

But I guess, even in 6 months prices are continually rising....

[Dinosaur]

I didn't know your folks were in York, hoxty! Mine are not that far away - about 20 miles away (when they're in England, that is).

[hoxtonchick]

how about the groves? or somewhere up haxby road. cheaper than bootham & still v. central. what you really need is to get my mum on the case . oh, & i think the evening press property section is on a thursday.

[macneil]

Oh, and fortunately because we're used to a one bed flat on the third floor in London, we don't have very grand hopes for gardens and space, we just need an attic conversion so dh can work at home without seeing any of us.

[macneil]

Yes, we saw one yesterday smack bang next to the park. Dh utterly delighted with this because he likes to run and it's next to where he'll be working too. However, the house was AS expensive as the one I like and had crazy floor which was half stripped pine and half cheap plastic tiles which were set at exactly the same level as the pine and weren't dig-uppable, just put-overable. Also terrible kitchen. He seems to think this is all easy work, but I know him and he won't be doing the work. I moved into a really grim flat 12 years ago and remember how much work easy work actually is. But on the other hand, Phil and Kirstie would tell me not to be seduced by paint.

I think we have to see more of the city, it's true, because you know what it's like when you don't know somewhere and you get scared just because you turn down two streets from the only street you've ever seen, where you can place things, and then when you've been there a while you're like THIS was what I thought was far out? Was I BLIND?

[thehairybabysmum]

Depends what you class as central...area i live is 15-20 mins walk from centre...defo in range of M&S as i practically live in the food bit (especilaly as pg at the mo!)

Bootham is v. pricey...have you looked at Bishopthorpe Rd area...v. close to c.c. and a bit cheaper than Bootham, though prob not by much. Also has a nice row of local shops, deli etc and nice park nearby...in fact i would say nicer than Bootham.

What type/size of house you after??

York is lovely to live in so whichever house you end up with im sure you will be v. happy here.

[macneil]

Bootham, and the estate agent is Ashtons, who were the only people who showed us the sort of size and price we wanted. Loads of other estate agents seem only to have around the £300k for central York, and because I'm used to central London, I'm being a bit dickishly scared of moving out of sight of a M&S. I think this is obviously going to change once we've been looking for a bit longer than 2 weeks!

[thehairybabysmum]

Whereabouts in York is it?? I live in Holgate in York (theres a couple of houses on my street for sale more in your price rage!)...i htink property prices have gone up in the last year but not by that much....230 to 275 seems an awful lot in 1 year just for decorating. I would have actually said that to the agent too.

FWIW i think you have done the right thing offering the 250k and as others have said the tax bracket thing will really affect them getting offers over the 250k so you never know their agent may well be back in touch if they get no more interest.

Which agents is it?

[PippiLangstrump]

let us know how it goes

[titchy]

I'd leave it a few days, let them stew a bit. If it's their only offer and they are pressured time-wise being pregnant, then they may well start regretting turning down your offer. Need nerves of steel though! If you haven't heard anything by Friday then say you're prepared to offer £2-3k in addition for fixtures and fittings but that's it.

As for the house over the road doesn't hurt to offer on that one as well. Don't worry about having to pull out if dream house vendors accept your offer later - 40% of offers never proceed. If you end up with damp house make sure your solicitor takes out an indeminity policy so if the damp continues to be a problem your are covered for the cost of sorting it out.

[DarrellRivers]

I think the vendors are crazy, no-one will offer more thatn 250 becuase of the stamp duty and i bet they are sweating about you not having offered higher.
You made the right offer.

[PippiLangstrump]

macneil DH and I were selling a flat in london. estate agent said will try 270000 and see what happens (london market crazy though so lots of flat overpriced - mine went after two days 20k over)


anyway because it's above stamp duty, like yours we only got offers at 249950, which we accepted happily (as it was a lot more than we thought anyway).

so you've done well. do not be a wimp, you can alway put the price up later.

PS we were wimps when we bought the house, I bet we could have put the price down at least 10k but I was scared it would go we offered asking price straight away. idiots!

[macneil]

Oops, forgot to say we offered £249,999. Anyway, all quite thrilling to make an offer on an actual house, whatever happened.