a new slant on "how much would you pay"

[Jampot]

a building plot is for sale locally with the house that currently owns the plot for 450k. plot is small but permission for 3 bed detached. initially the agent said they wouldnt split (friday) but has telephoned today to say they will sell the plot but offers over one seventy. the house sold this year in may for 350k although one up the road sold for 296k in jan which i think is more in keeping with the kind of price they achieve. so, how much would you offer?

how much will it cost you to build the property on the land ?

What will the market value of that be (ballpark obv) ?

I would offer just below the figure you get when you subtract the build cost from the estimated market value of the finished house.

I think you need to work out what a 3 bed detached house would be worth, what it would cost to build and then work out the value of the land from there. If the owners are asking for 100K MORE than May this year they are having a laugh.

Unless you think the finished building will be worth substantially more than £500,000 then it is overpriced.

i wouldnt buy the house and plot just the plot. a 3 bed detached in a normal market would fetch about 285-300. however this one would have v small garden and of course reduce this value by 25%. i think it would cost about 100k to build.

So they want £170k for the plot, and build costs will be £100k but it will only be worth about £210-225k? That seems ludicrous.

100k to build seems a bit conservative. Are you planning on doing all the work yourself?

I would be very, very surprised if you could build it for 100K unless you're planning to do much of the work yourself.

Are you building the house for yourself or for profit? If it is for profit then the absolute maximum you should pay for the plot is £40-50k which, if the £100k building costs are accurate, allow you some cushion against further falls. If they are starting at £170k, I'm afraid it's unlikely you will get it for anything like a realistic price.

we would be building it to live in not to sell - obviouly though dont want to end up with a house thats cost more to build than its worth

we went to look at the plot on Sunday. Its a typical end of estate type of size so not big but not tiny either. He wants in excess of 170 for the plot or "offers based on 450" for the house and plot. The vendor reckons the house alone would fetch in excess of 300 and the new house (exact same floorplan) would fetch between 320-340. Naturally we think he's taking the pi**. He calculates it would cost about 80-100k to build the house. We're thinking of offering 120k cash soon - as we think they've spent too much money buying it thinking they're going to make a fortune. First though we need to get an better idea of costs of providing services to the plot, ie. water, gas, electricity etc.

Walk away. In six months time, he'll be begging someone to take it off his hands!

the agent telephoned yesterday to ask if we'd had any thoughts on the property. i told her we thought they wanted too much and explained the reasons we thought that - she agreed!