How on this earth do you make an offer on a house?

[littlemama]

We have been to look at a beautiful but falling to bits house we would love to live in. Nothing much is selling in our (very rural) area, but, although the house has been up for sale for a year, they haven't dropped the price. We can't afford the asking price, and think they are 'aving a larf anyway. How rude would it be to offer them a tiny little offer? Like, maybe about 2/3 of what they have asked for?
How do you know what to offer?
Are there rules?
How can you tell what a house is worth anyway???

No such thing as rude in putting an offer in - it's simply a business transaction.

A house is only worth what someone (like you) will pay for it.

You decide what it's worth to you, then put your offer in with pride

Apparently if you're not embarrassed, the offer's too high. Go for it!

Have a look on nethouseprices.com to see what similar houses have gone for recently in the area (might not be many to go on from what you say). Alternatively see what similar ones were going for mid-2007 and chop off 30%. No doubt they will turn you down but it will give them something to think about. Don't go all apologetic when putting in your offer. Put it in writing and be businesslike, stress if you are in a good position to move quickly etc. Be prepared for the estate agent to act all outraged, though... they are full of it sometimes!

oooo, this is good advice, thanks.
hee hee hee, raven

Apparently houses are now going for around the same price as back in 2004 - 2005.

Also look on that website and see if you can find out what they paid for it when they bought it.

Also if you install Firefox as your browser and then get Property bee installed you can find out when it went on and at what price it was on for originally

We have recently had an offer accepted on a house however we had offers on three other houses turned down:

• the 1st one was on for £330K we onoly offered £280K as thats all we thought it was worth, however we know that they paid £250K for it in 2004 so there was no way they were going to go for it.

• the 2nd one was also on for £330 and we offered £297K they wanted £320K minimum and we didn;t want to go that fat

• 3rd was on for £325K and we offered £295K also tunred down

We finally got one for £282K and everything is now in the hands of thre solicitors and we're hoping to be in by summer - fingers crossed.

We offered a lot less on the house that we are now (fingers crossed) about to exchange on. the EA selling it did say that the vendor ( a relocation agency) would accept quite a low offer so that gave us the confidence to do it they actually accepted 25% less than what the house had been advertised as - like your house littlemama, it needs work and is rural so had been on the market quite a while!
I love rivens words, I wish I'd heard that one before !

oops, meant raven (d'oh!)