Going to view a house today that I want badly !

[skidamarinkadinka]

Gorgeous 1930s detached house, needs alot of modernising, huge garden, big drive and garage. It's on a main road into town but all the houses on this road are the same and just so lovely to look at.
We are not on the market yet but plan to get the same estate agents to list us asap. We need to move, we've outgrew this house in the last two years.
They want £450k. It was reduced in October.
Feedback has been the main road putting people off and also the work that will need doing.
How can we up our chances ?
We can probably go upto £430k but that would be the maximum.

Now that you’re sold STC, I’d be putting pressure on the vendors and agents to move negotiations on, because they need to show a commitment to moving and I’m not convinced that’s what they want to do. I think the family is urging them to, but they are reluctant.

I’d keep looking, even though there isn’t anything you’ve seen yet.

You are in a stronger position now so hopefully that will help. If they still aren’t prepared to budge then don’t think they are serious in selling.

🤗

Has the EA updated the vendors of the house you want? Hopefully they'll consider your offer now.

Just a little update - after an awful 24 hours of silence we received a call last night off our vendor. We agreed to buy at 430k. I am very happy about this, just worrying about the whole process now of surveys/mortgage lender doing their valuations/our buyer still wanting this house etc.
Why is moving such a horrible process?!

Congratulations! The process is horrid I agree but so worth it when it’s your dream home.

🎉 congratulations!! 🥂🍾

Do tell us more who did you want to speak to? & was his wife/ kids pushing him or was he being quite reasonable by himself??? Details details...🤣

it is such an awful process, though I'm not sure it's any better anywhere else in the world really, but it should be!

🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼 for everything going well💕

Never actually done it before so it’s all new territory for us ! And I’m a massive worrier/overthinker so I need to try and learn to relax

Everyone their side had agreed on 430k, once we had our offer Monday I asked the EA to inform our vendors and see if they were willing to accept 420k, it was a no but they would accept 430k, we counter offered 425k which we was told they would think about and let us know. Then we had nothing for a whole day until we got a phonecall last night, at this point I had become quite worried as that’s the house I’ve wanted from day 1 so dh said we would pay the 430k.

When you know you know! I knew this house was our forever home. Our previous house we’d lived in for almost 20 years and was never the forever home, although we had done stuff to it to make the best of it.

If it’s meant to be it will be fine.

I’m glad you got the house in the end !
Kind of the same here, this house was gifted and has really really helped us, but it was never going to be big enough for a growing family, but we’ve done alot to it and brought it upto date, I couldn’t live in a house for years not happy with how it was as it would just make me on edge all the time !

My advise is to live in your new house for about a year before you start doing stuff to it so you know what works. First house we did everything before we moved in and made a few mistakes. Second one nothing till we’d lived in it for a year to see what we wanted.

Thanks for the tip. Can you explain what you mean by what needs doing etc ? Do you mean boiler/electrics wise ?

When we moved in mid 90s we knew it needed a new kitchen, for example. It was 1950/60s formica.

I think.if we had done it straight away we would have replaced with the same footprint and disposed of the old.

We did the kitchen in the end 3 years after moving in and decided ....

....the original kitchen was such good quality and fabulously retro we would.move it to the back of the long double garage (where it still is going strong!)

..... we cut off on piece and made it into a separate office/store room

.... this "squaring up" allowed for more wall cabinets/appliances

The first thing we actually did was the central heating as it was clear in the first winter it needed a huge overhaul. So we prioritised that before other stuff.

That sort of thing!

Not DIY which doesn't cost much and isn't a waste of money if you were to decide to make a more fundamental change.

We've been here over 30 years now so reap the benefit of having taking some.time to work out what we really wanted and needed.

Congrats, OP! Try not to worry too much. If the valuation is lower, it may just result in a price reduction as the vendor does need to see that they are getting top whack for the house as it is.

There were lots of different ways of looking at it, but hopefully the Survey is in the bank will come back that they agree it's worth that much and we'll sort the mortgage out for you.

The other thing is 10 K is 10 K, but on the price of a house and a mortgage over 25 years it's nothing really as long as you can get the mortgage.

Basically what @Feelingstrange2 said. It’s better to wait and get a feel of how you want to live in it. For example in our new house we had a utility room off the kitchen. Living here for a year meant we knew the door was in the wrong place for the utility room. Small thing but has made a heap of difference.

Old house wrong type of window as I went for what looked nice opposed to practicality.

Ahh great advice all, thanks.
I know we’d like to do a loft conversion if space and planning allows, so that would be the first job. I can live with a small kitchen for a year or two, did it here. Same with bathrooms, they’re perfectly functional.
I am massively in love with the original features of the house just as much as I was at day1 !!!

Given the fact that other (far more competent) posters were able to easily find the house you have bought, before you'd even bought it... and I was unable to (clearly technically incompetent). Would you mind linking to the house now, I'd love to see it and The original features.

I'm just being nosy though, so if you don't want to, don't worry🙂

I’m so sorry I don’t feel comfortable linking, I wouldn’t ever have done it in the first place but other people managed to find it which I was very annoyed at myself for !! Maybe once we’re in lol

No problem 😊. Keep us posted with how the whole process is going.👍🏻🤞🏼

OP, congrats on your house. It’s such a stressful process but it looks like you have managed to sell quickly and get your dream home. We are going through the same process right now and very happy to say we have agreed to buy the house we want. Now it’s just a waiting game for the solicitor work and praying nobody gives up or dies before exchange. 😀 Good luck with the rest of the process!

By the way, it’s not difficult to find the house with the location info you have given. I found it easily (a great family home by the way!) and others will be able to as well. If you have concerns, ask mumsnet to remove that one post about the proximity to a certain town and that should be able to do it.

Oh congratulations to yourself 🍾
Isn’t it a worrying time ? Never done any of this before, so all new and out of my control, which my anxiety does not like !! Can I ask what kind of house it is you’ve gone for, old/new?

And thanks for that, I have done as suggested 😊

I will do ! Thanks for all the advice and support 😁

We have gone for a period house although it has been updated quite nicely. Not fully to my taste but we can change some things when we move in. We were looking for a house that didn’t need a lot of work. We are in the outer boroughs of London so the market and prices are very different to where you are. There are not many new builds here and most are period homes which is the preferred type of house here. Ours is larger than yours but only because the loft has been done (without the loft it would have been the same size). But being in London, our garden is smaller although still a great size and the driveway only fits two cars. It’s also a semi and not detached. Considering it’s London, we are quite pleased with the space and garden we are getting and there is room for extending more if we want to. Prices are massively different though, you can’t really compare 😬

I was surprised to see so many new builds in your area. Not many of the ones I saw for sale are actually period homes. Are new builds the norm there? I think you are quite right to prefer a period home, there is just something them that screams home.