Venting space: Overpriced properties!

[mummabubs]

Feel like I'm posting so much on this board atm! 😂 Just needed a rant.

We had a viewing this morning on a property that we've been really looking forward to seeing. It's been on the market a few months now and they've had no offers yet. It's a semi-detached cottage in a lovely village where property rarely comes up, so we knew before viewing that it's the kind of property where you're buying a lifestyle as much as a property. We also knew there was work to be done in terms of updating etc. The downstairs was lovely, on the smaller side but nice cosy cottage-y feel and the location is great. However...

It's listed as a 4 bedroom house, with 2 doubles, one single and an attic room (the current owners got rid of a bedroom to put stairs in to go up to the attic room). All fine, as we have 1 child, another on the way and have family that visit so as long as we had a 3 bedder and any room in the house that a sofa bed can go in then all's good. Reality: The two doubles are fine. The "single" room literally cannot fit a bed in there as there's floorspace taken out by the stairs. I'm not even sure it would fit a cot! This wasn't a dealbreaker as we'd planned on utilising the attic room of needed. However, the stairs are the thinnest and steepest things I've ever seen (smaller than the length of my feet so had to go up sidewards), there's no heating up there and the roof is so low that you literally can't stand up anywhere in the room, even in the centre. The current owners paid £320,000 for it 4 years ago, they've made no aesthetic changes or improvements and the only structural thing they've done in that time is lose one of the bedrooms (which was a perfectly viable single room!) to put the dangerous stairs in to the unusable attic room. So it's realistically a 2 bedroom cottage. They've listed it at £465,000 (😱), so a 40% hike when if anything we feel they've devalued it in terms of bedrooms.

The things we've seen today are fixable over time and with some imagination (& money!) but we've left just feeling a bit deflated that there's many things about the house that excite us, but at that price point it's just ludicrous when we'd probably need to spend £50k+ to make it what we want and at that price we'd never make it back. So just feel irked at both the agent and vendors for putting such a ridiculous value on a house that has half the usable bedrooms that they've advertised. We don't mind a bit of a project and are willing to make an offer at the £390,000 mark but know deep down they're very likely to just reject it. The agent has said there is wiggle room on the price but we'd be offering more of a landslide reduction in their book! It's a house with a lot of potential but the excitement just goes when we match what we've seen with the price they've decided to ask for.

Sorry, rant done! It just annoys me- be truthful about what you're offering and make sure the price reflects that!!! Please make me feel better with stories of properties you've viewed which have made you laugh inside at the cheekiness of what's really on offer vs. the listing!

We're looking on the south coast, and in the last four months the prices have gone crazy. Houses that are essentially two bedroom with one box room are listed at half a million, a year ago they would have been£380k.

We're looking for 4 bedrooms, nothing comes up for less than £550k, and they go within days of being listed. I could weep.

Just sounds like you need to walk away. I wouldn't touch it. Sounds like a 2 bed house

I'm seeing something later this week that I am quite interested in but I somewhat question the listing of an 'office' which has no windows and also happens to have plumbing for a washing machine. ('Sorry, Zoom call, that's just my spin cycle starting...') I do think it's a overpriced and it's been on for a couple of months now so I suspect so does everyone else. The question, I guess, is whether the vendors are dead set on getting the asking price or open to offers.

We emailed a new house on the market today. Advertised as four bed, but on closer inspection the third bedroom is downstairs in what I would call the utility room (it even has a sink in it) and the fourth bedroom was a box room. That is not a four bed family home. £550k.

I'm hoping the stamp duty holiday doesn't get extended so prices go back to normal.

@Notavegan

Just sounds like you need to walk away. I wouldn't touch it. Sounds like a 2 bed house

I do hear you, although for the village it's in at £380-390k that would actually be a realistic price for a 2 bedroom property. It just feels like the vendors/agents have lost all sense of logic with how they've presented it!!

@fitzbilly oh my gosh that's absolutely another pet property peeve of mine - listing downstairs reception rooms as additional bedrooms!!

Op, it’s their house, they can sell it for what they wish, what they think it’s worth, what you think it’s worth is irrelevant, if it’s not for you then you say thanks but no thanks and look at the next one.

There will be planning issues if the stairs are as bad as you're saying. There are strict rules on the pitch and depth of stairs so these will not have passed building regs. With the lack of heating up there, I'm surprised this is being passed as habitable space. Don't just walk away - run!!

My general advice is to make friends with the estate agents who can tip you off on properties before they hit the market. They are more likely to do that if you're selling yours with them or in a chain free situation.

My parents live on the south coast too @fitzbilly and they've definitely noticed the impact the stamp duty holiday has had, it's madness isn't it. We live in South Wales and there has definitely been a rise in house prices, mostly due to people trying to leave the cities for more rural locations, but our deal on Land Transaction Tax (the equivalent of SDT) was only on the first £200k of a property, so buyers aren't saving anywhere near as much as in England and hasn't pushed prices up so much for that reason.

Haha that sounds like a dream office @persipan, what's your issue? 🤣😉

Op, it’s their house, they can sell it for what they wish, what they think it’s worth, what you think it’s worth is irrelevant, if it’s not for you then you say thanks but no thanks and look at the next one.

This is a bit backwards - they can ask for what they wish, but it will only sell for what someone else think it is worth. The owners value isn't important when it comes to actually making a sale!

I wouldn't bother saying thanks but no thanks though - just move on.

You need to tell the estate agent all of your points, realistic feedback is vital. And I'd make your offer if you are actually serious about buying the property at 390, you've nothing to lose.

@Bluntness100

Op, it’s their house, they can sell it for what they wish, what they think it’s worth, what you think it’s worth is irrelevant, if it’s not for you then you say thanks but no thanks and look at the next one.

Of course it is, and we will only offer what we think it's worth. That's not unreasonable at all. However I also don't think it's unreasonable to feel misled when half the advertised bedrooms either don't fit a bed in (surely rather basic for a definition of a bedroom!) or you can't safely access or stand up in! 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

@NewHouseNewMe We agree and suspect they wouldn't meet regulations. We'd actually want to remove them and have a pull down ladder as the previous owners did, return the attic space to storage and then you'd have three usable bedrooms!

Op I would walk away, the house would drive you mad after a while - the country cottage fantasy is nice, but in reality those types of houses feel very claustrophobic and there is little storage space. Where abouts is the house can I ask? (Obviously not asking the village name, just rough area)

[quote mummabubs]@NewHouseNewMe We agree and suspect they wouldn't meet regulations. We'd actually want to remove them and have a pull down ladder as the previous owners did, return the attic space to storage and then you'd have three usable bedrooms! [/quote]
That's exactly what I thought to suggest when I read your op.
It's worth discussing your thoughts with the estate agent and tell them what you would be willing to offer, they'll probably say no but you won't have lost anything by discussing it.

It might be they need x amount for their onward plans & are angling for that one buyer, who might have their own reasons to pony up for that particular house.

We went to see a house - the 4th bedroom was in the attic and had stairs that were the sort you would see on a boat - very narrow and i wouldnt wanted any of the kids to be up and down them in a hurry. the attic also had a electric fire that would see in a lounge and no other heating - again not safe enough even for my teenager.
it was advertised with a carefullly taken photo of the dining room - tv mounted on the wall etc, in fact it was essentially a wooden shack with gaps and all different types of wood etc!

I would be offering the price I think it was worth without the attic room, seeing as it can’t be counted as a bedroom if it wouldn’t meet building regs. The vendors may think that’s a low offer, but it’s not silly if you’ve laid out your reasons. Plus, it’s been on a few months with no offers. It does sound like an awkward property and I would be walking away if I couldn’t buy it at the right price. Even a rejected offer at this stage isn’t a waste of time. It’s useful feedback for the vendors and they might well come back to you after a few more weeks with no / low offers and everyone offering the same feedback about awkward rooms.

It's annoying but if somebody comes along willing to pay fine. But then there will be weeping and wailing about negative equity.

@wondawombat Possibly. They're both consultants in the NHS and are looking to move back to England to be closer to their children, and we know that house prices in England are also at an all-time high. We just literally cannot see even taking inflation and local price changes into account where they and the agent have plucked an extra £145000 worth of value in 4 years from 😂

That makes me feel a bit better @brieandchilli. I'd love to know what goes through people's heads when they make that sort of alteration!