Buy now or wait?

[Tootootoot]

Our house is under offer and we're moving into stable rental accommodation. We had decided to wait things out during this period of market turbulence but went on two viewings just to see. Now we've fallen in love with a house. It isn't perfect but thinking with our hearts it feels like "home" to both of us in terms of the house itself and the neighbourhood.

It's a terraced house in South London and it's on for £600k. Please tell me your opinion- should we:

a). Offer full asking price and hopefully secure it. We could afford it but it means I won't be retiring early as planned.

b). Make a cheeky offer just in case - say £550k (unlikely this will be accepted as it's just come on the market).

c). Think with our heads and wait it out. Many more houses will come on the market this time next year, we'll find one we like just as much, and prices will be lower.

Of course, this could all be moot as our own sale could fall through, but assuming it d9esnt, what would you do?

care to give a clue about which area of SE London?

interesting - i know there is much talk about falls, but London is odd. If someone sits waiting for this or something like this to drop in price, how much will they have spent on rent in say a year?
in times past you could get cheap rents in London but not any more.

@pendleflyer Sure- Se23/SE26/SE20/SE19 way. Not much on the market (if well priced it is selling fast), but the buyers who are out there are serious.

9 houses in our street and neighbouring streets went up for sale this year. All but one sold quickly- and that was clearly overpriced and went quickly when the price was rectified. Friend sold a flat first weekend at full price. We sold a 3 bed semi in 2 weekends.

Buoyant may not be the word- but def fast moving and you can sell fast.

many thanks for reply - may pm you if that;s ok

Sure!

“Fast moving and buoyant”. Those words have outed this particular estate agent.

Pretty close to what they would be paying in interest…

Haha! No way. I have had enough of estate agents for one lifetime (but that's another story).

And that's probably exactly what I needed to hear. I think the fact that not many houses are coming on now is giving the illusion of scarcity when actually when things normalise there will be other, even better houses available. Apart from all the stairs in this one and the narrow kitchen, the fact it's on a main road would not be fair to the cat, either. So I think we need to wait. I love the idea of putting an ensuite upstairs though.

Thank you very much @Mummaluma for the area information. And I definitely agree certain areas of London are fast moving and buoyant. We had several viewings cancelled because the houses went under offer very quickly. One of them had 26 viewings and had only gone on a few days previously and we didn't even get a look in - that was in Tooting.