would you pay the asking price?

[mumzy]

After 6 months of house hunting we have finally seen a house that is almost perfect (could be a little larger and slightly further away from the road but I can live with that). Houses in this area only come up when people retire to somewhere else or die so not many have come up for sale. The problem is nothing like this house has been sold on the road for the last 20 years so the vendors have had a valuation and we have no recent like for like sales to compare it with. The asking price is at the top end of our budget and we're thinking of offering this just to seal the deal. Are we mad to do this or do some houses justify their asking price?

You arent mad, IMO. If the asking price seems fair to you, then is probably is. If houses only come up in that road very infrequently, then if you miss this one you could be waiting a long time for another one. There are a few streets like that near where I live, and you never even know that the house was on the market, they change hands so quickly.

How would you feel if you offer below asking price and are pipped at the post by someone who's willing to pay full whack?

You are not mad to consider paying the full asking price if it's the house that is almost perfect and they hardly ever come up. Sometimes it's not worth haggling, especially if you'd be gutted if you missed out on it. Good luck!

A house is worth what you are willing to pay -so if you have the budget for it - then buy it.
They're just a guide anyway really

we've seen about 12 other houses and knew within 10 minutes of the viewing that I did'nt want to live in any of them but when I walked into this one it was like love at first sight and I felt I had come home. Thanks for all your helpful comments we'll be going for a second viewing

You are absolutely NOT mad to offer the asking price. Your situation sounds like ours - we were chain free & when this house came up on the market in one of the most desireable areas of town we snapped it up by offering the asking price. We had to as we knew somebody else would. Houses rarely come onto the market here so there was no point dilly dallying around & we had been looking for AGES!!
Good luck hun

BTW don't hang around & give other people the opportunity to view it & get into a bidding war. If you know the house is for you offer today & get it taken off the market & stipulate nobody can view it! This house never got to marker, we prevented it from - phew.

Let us know how the second viewing goes Mumzy

Have had a second viewing and still love the house and the garden. However there is quite a bit of road noise a bit too much and dh thinks it is a issue. Vendors say the noise is intermitent and largely depends on the strength and direction of the wind which carries the noise from a nearby busy A road Therefore thinking of offering less than the asking price as we think it the noise will put others of too.

Definitely offer the asking price, or very close to it, if you're in danger of losing it. You want to show you mean business. We looked for a year and a half, put offers in all over the place on houses our hearts weren't set on and not one of the sales came through. Then when I walked into the house we now live in, I knew why. it was just Ours in a way I couldn't explain. We put in the asking price straight away and I'm so glad we did as five other offers came in that week but ours was the best so we got it. You really don't want to lose your dream home for the sake of £5k which in 20 years time will feel like peanuts.

If the survey reveals problems then you can adjust the offer.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do Mumzy. FWIW, I've lived near busy roads before and after a while you do tend to tune the noise out. Hope your offer is accepted!

i'd pay asking price too

re: road noise - you could argue our house has road noise - in the morning and evening when people are off to work....but thats when we're in the kitchen on the back of the house at these times so never hear it!

I had a different experience of this. Desirable property. We loved it and wanted it. We pitched pretty near asking price but the bidding just kept going and going. We bailed out of the bidding war when it reached £30k over asking price. Who knows where it finished up.

Had we gone in with asking price the vendor wouldn't have accepted it, they certainly wouldn't have taken it off the market, and we'd just have accelerated the bidding war.

It was a horrible experience and I'm pretty sure we'll face it again. We still haven't managed to find somewhere.