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!

I definitely don’t think the EA can be bothered to sell as they just phoned to check if I wanted to view the other house they sent over! Tried to direct the conversation back over to the house and they swiftly ended the conversation. This is so strange.

I'm guessing that the EA has their eye on it, with the intention of making a low-ball offer once they have convinced the sellers that nobody wants their house...
I know someone who had this happen on two separate houses they were interested in, the EA in both cases ended up buying the house after they'd put my friend off.
Maybe mention to your neighbours in a roundabout way that the EA wasn't that helpful when a "friend of yours" called to ask about their house?

@DowegothereIt’s a sign that the owners won’t shift on price and the agent knows they are flogging a dead duck! There’s no chance of a sale. Why, after all this time, is someone going to make a killing when they could have before if the owners were reasonable? They just don’t think it’s saleable.

I will leave it there and bring it up with them casually if I see them but it’s all so very odd!

Its likely they know its not going to sell at that price and that the owners are not ready to take offers and so are trying to sell their other stock.

Its often genuinely more difficult to assess a realistic price for a more individual house than one identical to its neighbours - its so variable based on locality. If this is a detached in a street of semis and with an unusual layout compared to most houses there will always be an element of suck it and see when pricing. Also whilst the multiroom layout doesn't suit you its not necessarily a "modernisation job" for pricing in the way that eg lack of heating system or double glazing might be.

They are not in a hurry but nor are you by the sound of it. Can you just wait and see what they are considering next year? I can remember looking at a lovely house priced about 30% more than it was worth. The owner had correctly identified that the house was identical in form and plot size to those in a nearby knot of popular roads. Unfortunately for him, his road was not in that knot and so the value was a lot less. Eventually the house sold at least a year later for a good price for his road but nothing like his original expectation. I remember feeling sorry for his wife who was keen to accept a more sensible offer and move closer to their daughter. Perhaps your neighbours are doing the same thing? Are there pricier roads/road sections they are looking at because there are so few detached on your road?

The cost of renovation and building work has gone up a lot in the last few years, so factor that in to the budget.

I have no idea how they came up with the valuation as it seems off the mark for the area generally. I did ask why it was so much more expensive than the other detached and they ignored my question.

Some people if they do not need to sell quickly will sit on a property to get nearer to the money they want.
They will be unlikely to accept an offer so low. 5 months is not long on the market at the moment. They might be waiting until the Spring.

How different is it from your house if they are mostly semi’s? You would need to be closer to their price point I think and then of course have the money to do all the things you want to do.

I am assuming you will be leaving your house and not planning to have one very large one by knocking through ?!

The house is detached and ours is a semi-detached so we are not connected (sorry for the confusion - I said semi in my OP). I wouldn’t give full asking, I would be surprised if the mortgage company would value at asking. It’s significantly more than the detached at the other end of the road. We are in no rush so we shall wait and see!

It's hard deciding where to make the jump to go on the market. My in-laws have been looking for the last 2 years but the market is slow and small just because they are looking in a small area and there are only a few house their that meet what they want and then only a few of those on the market. They relocating 250 miles to the area we live in. It's a big move and started looking for something perfecting ticking all of their boxes and for the "right" house. A lot of trepidation about the move. In the last 4-5 months I've noticed a shift in them and they are looking making a house right and having seen things that are making them ponder and how they would live in it. They have now put their house on the market. I think a year ago it would have had buyers drop out where as now they are more in a headspace to actually move. At first agents weren't that keen on booking viewings as they had to time it with visits so a week on Friday sort of things rather than tomorrow but I think a few of the agents have got to know them now and know that they are serious about moving and the market is slow so that waiting a week or two for the viewings is tolerable.

I meant given up with selling your neighbours house not that they have given up selling all houses.
If they are awkward or difficult to work with or the agent knows they won't move on price and it's over what it should be they aren't going to push this house to their new leads. They move new leads to a house they think is more likely to be bought, especially if they think they will be able to get you to list your house with them too

I wouldn’t mind them directing us to houses that fit the criteria but the one they sent wasn’t right for us at all. When I said it was smaller than our current house, they tried to tell me the “lounge” and “study” are actually two downstairs bedrooms! When did that become a marketing strategy?! They completely missed my point that I want 3 double sized bedrooms not one double bedroom and two box rooms, and 2 further “bedrooms” downstairs.

Either they are desperate to sell or they are trying to fob me off.

Of course you should. If you don't ask, you don't get. Explain all of your reasoning to the estate agent and ask if they know why the house is on the market for such a high price. Frame it as you're asking if you're missing anything.

It might have been the estate agent's suggestion so you could even just knock on their door and speak to them directly so they don't have to pay commission.

Also.. they might not actually be bothered about selling. Seems like they're overpricing it deliberately.