Would you view and offer on an overpriced neighbour’s house?

[Dowegothere]

Our neighbour has put their house on the market and we love it! It has bags of potential. It ticks most of our boxes. 3 good size bedrooms, detached, garage, off road parking and room out the back to extend if we wanted to. We really like the location but we do need some more space.

It is very dated but has good bones. We would have to open up downstairs as it’s currently 8 tiny rooms. It’s very bizarre! Upstairs is perfect in terms of layout so it would be simply us redecorating to modernise and make it suit our taste. The olive green toilet has to go! 😂 The main work would be the downstairs layout and new kitchen for us.

It has been on the market for 5 months but it is so overpriced, I know it’s very unlikely to sell. They have said they’ve had no offers and only 3 viewings which were all in the first week when it hit the market. We couldn’t pay full asking and do the work to the house as we would be in negative equity. Most of the houses on our road are semis bar two detached, this one and another on the other end of the road. The other semi sold last year for £610k and this one is up for £800k. Arguably, the other house that sold last year has a better plot. It didn’t need as much work downstairs but I’m sure the current owners would argue that’s preference. We weren’t in a position to move last year or we would have bought that house.

The market doesn’t seem to have progressed to the point this house is now worth an extra 200k. Properties don’t seem to be selling so if anything, it’s worth less. They of course can market the house for whatever they like but all of this to ask, simply, would you even bother viewing/ offering? If they weren’t our neighbours, I would explain to the EA and make the offer. What I don’t want to do, is forever sour relations!

Good idea. Or if you want even more distance, get a friend to make those enquiries and tell them they think it's worth 650k first.

It's unfortunate that they've been bullshitted about the value, but in the circumstances you might need to get a bit creative about how they're informed of what it might actually get in this market. Of course they may still prefer to stay put, but there's not a lot you can do if that's the case.

How can people be so stuck in dreamland like that, with all the apps and online stuff now to keep track of prices and trends?

I really want to view my neighbours house. We don't want to move for 5 years but given how stubborn he's being about the price I daresay it will still be on the market then.

It's at least £100k overpriced but he says anything under his asking price would be 'giving it away'.

Using a friend to prime them is naughty. Maybe they could start a thread here, they would probably get the picture after a while?

No doubt there would be lots of buyers if they dropped by £150k!

Probably not, they are 200k above houses that sold last YEAR! By now they are looking at a 300k drop just to get interest IMO.

We are in this weird place where many of the houses on the market are not selling but nothing new is coming up either. We are not desperate to move so we are lucky in that regard. We can wait it out! Equally, you may be right, maybe people who are desperate to move, will pay over the odds for it.

Ask the estate agent if the seller would be interested in offers and, if they are, what offers might be acceptable.

They won’t answer that. I have tried. They offered me another house when I spoke to them.

Speak to the agent

ask why they valued it at £800 when a neighbouring property sold for less?

start by arranging a viewing

You must bear in mind that you cannot really offer unless you are under offer yourself

it would otherwise be a statement of interest

How serious are they about moving?

They are definitely moving. They are moving to France. The move doesn’t rest on the sale so I suspect they’ll wait things out.

How does the other house they tried to sell you compare to this one?

I would count that as them subtly trying to tell you about the offers they would accept without telling you what they would accept.

My PILs are trying to buy a house in that price range as there is negligible difference in price between those that have been done up and those that haven't been touched in 25years. There was one originally listed at £800k, dropped to offers over £700k. Done up to a high standard it's only worth £780-820k but needs £100k on structural work to repair the years of neglect and then best part of another £100k on doing essential modernising such as kitchen and bathrooms. The max it's worth more like £650-675k but in a stagnant market you might be looking at upwards of £625k. It's been on the market a year and the family have already relocated 3h away and one parent has been doing a partial commute to this place for the last 3 years. They told the agents that should they make an offer it would be in the low £600s and would want a viewing with a builder so they could get their best idea of the structural work required. They were politely told no chance

Must be costing in council tax and upkeep?

For whatever reason, they don’t want to sell that house.

Yes, they sound completely out of touch TBH.

Are you really in a position to move quickly, is yours already under offer?

This happened to us when we were buying our last property. The EA was very honest and said in his heart of heart he didn't think the owner (on older widow) was likely to move until she had found a very specific onward purchase. He knew we were looking for a quick purchase as we were living with family as a stop gap so suggested we could view but should.bear that in mind. She did sell eventually but it was 18 months later so he wasn't wrong!

It’s about £50k cheaper but in a different area. Only about 2-3 miles away but I like where we live. It’s also quite modern looking which isn’t my preference.

Would be an easy move though, next door?

That is ridiculous! Why bother going on the market? It’s why we haven’t put ours on the market as I don’t want to mess anyone around. It’s slim pickings here!

The thing is @Dowegothere you need to be the second or third party saying that their current 'sale' price is completely unrealistic.

It's called price framing, it's psychological. Currently their price framing is circa £750k+. The first party that offers way below their price framing position will no doubt be insulting to them, they will be pissed off and may refuse to do any sort of negotiation.
The second or third party reiterating the realistic offer is when they either entrench in their price framing or start looking at reality. Many people will shift, particularly if you are a motivated buyer and it's preferable for them to monetise their asset. That's essentially what happened to us.

@DowegothereBecause the right property might just come up! People can be dead against going into rented whilst they wait so they just test the water. If a house does look very attractive and has people wanting it, someone not sold isn’t proceedable and, here, would probably be disregarded as a serious buyer. If you need to move quickly and you aren’t even on the market, the best houses go.

Yeah, I'd imagine that means they are not open to offers or that the agents have given up a bit with trying to sell this house/dealing with your neighbours. Probably says a lot as to why they haven't been getting viewings.

It might be a way to drop it into conversation with your neighbours, are you still on the market? We are looking and spoke with X estate agent about properties and they only told us about the one over by such and place. We are looking for something in this area though