h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just put an offer on a house, 5.5k below asking but if you gotta start somewhere.
Shall update as it goes!

It's not mine is it?

F62071?thread=3842702

Nah, I'd run a mile from a place like that

Just got a polite rebuff and now reoffered at 3k below. Agent reckons it is a go-er but we shall see. I'm guessing its the optimum value for them getting their fee

As I'm wondering whether to accept my offer, do you mind if I ask 3000 below what?
(I'll understand if you're reluctant to go into detail).
5000 below mine is just over 4% below what I'm asking and around 7% off my equity for example.
(So you can work me all out if you want )

I offered at around 3% below

Property is a 3bed semi 1950s ish with big kitchen and long garden, no garage. But it really is swings and roundabouts. This one is an ex rental and they ain;t that fussed about selling it. Whereas friends bought theirs for 6k under the asking price of 169,950. Just depends really. The one I sold went for only 2.5k under the original asking price and only 500quid below the price I'd dropped it to.

Well I showed a really nice couple around personally yesterday and they were very interested but had other places to look at and would like a second viewing probably.
Amazingly (to me at least) they like my stepdaughter's garish pink bedroom too. I was against this colour when it was done becasue of the possible effect on the sale but they've proved me wrong!

So I know it's going down well with some viewers at least. There were two more viewings today. I think I'll hang on to see if there are any more offers forthcoming from them. If not I'll accept I think. Depends if they want to hang around that long of course.

I want to get as much as possible for the house but given this places chequered history I'll not be sorry to see the back of it.
Lovely house but it's been a bit of a financial disaster equitywise. I'll be very relieved when and if it's sold, I didn't think I ever could not so long ago.

offer accepted! Not that they told me, not until I was talking to their FA and said I'd possible come in for a meeting once the offer was accepted and she said 'it says here it has been' and then ran off to find out! Not told me though had they?

Ho hum, into the stress bit now!

Good luck.

Currently waiting with baited breath to find out if my prosepective buyers have headed for the hills yet...

Not being funny but there will always be some work required on an older house. And you've identified it and fixed, plus got a guaruntee on it so I think unless they have a choice between yours and another exactly the same without it they'd be daft to.

But then, if there's one thing moving teaches you it's that there's a lot of strange people out there!

fingers crossed for you!

All true. I'm just regretting not having it all upfront from the begining now (although to be fair I did tell the sales girl from our Estate Agents on her first visit - clearly she didn't tell anyone else in her office) as even to me it looks a little dodgy - getting an offer, getting it bumped and then going, 'oh by the way, this house was subsiding until six months ago'.

Aside from putting nails through gas pipes, the missus have managed to do up both of our last two houses quite nicely and we're seriously considering going for a delapidated house in a good area next time and making it ours. Obviously it would be structurally sound this time. Methinks I might pay for my own survey on the next occasion.

the missus and I that is

Sounds like a plan. One thing I realised only recently when looking at houses is that I don't *want* a place that doesn;t need any work. I want to be able to do stuff to it! Well, until I win the lottery and by my castle in which case I want it fully stocked with 15th century masterpieces and suits of armour

what survey did you get done last time? I went for the mid tier one last time.

In common with around 75% - as I'm led to believe - of house buyers I just used the building society's valuation survey - not really realising that they just have a casual look around.

Big oops. We know for a fact (having chatted to our neighbour) that the previous owners knew about the cracks in our front wall (although they weren't caused by susbsidence) and we reckon they knew about the rest too. I suspect a proper surveyor would have spotted some stuff.

I briefly considered tracking them down and challenging them through some court proceedings on exactly what they didn't disclose when selling it to me but our structural engineers pooh poohed this idea thoroughly - just not worth it as there are loads of loopholes apparently

Incidentally, when I finally *did* get a proper survey (having spotted the cracks) the guy told me that he wouldn't actually recommend a full structural survey for a house buyer as they only really have negative things to say about houses and you'd probably never buy anywhere with what they came up with.
So mid range survey is probably the thing to go for.

I agree by the way, I like doing my DIY

I think I'd even want to work on my lottery won castle. I reckon I'd have more time on my hands for some _really_ serious projects too

Sounds about right.
I had a full structural done on my last house although it was a local firm (and the family are a big name in local business/politics) and they did a good job but I don;t think I really got much I wouldn;t have with a normal one.
For example, it being a 1880s house it had moved somewhat (our town is built on silt!) and there were cracks under the windows. But they hadn;t moved in ages. And a large crack on the back that had been fixed and not moved again. I strongly suspect, due to one of the neighbours saying so, that it may have had similar underpinnings but there's no record of them and no surveyor picked it up as an issue so I didn;t worry!

The buyers however fell for everything. They had a full structural. Then they had the drains surveyed. Then they payed for an independant to check the where the conversion had been done (yeah, in about 1940 I think!) every little darn thing. And all because the surveyors couch things in very clouded language and put 'but you should check for yourself' after them.

Heh, well it's their wallet they're emptying with all that.
That actually sounds *more* extensive than our second survey where they actually dug into the foundations and drains to find out what was wrong with us! That survey cost us a thousand quid + VAT Very much worth it though.

Even with all that you can never be completely guaranteed.


Well things are looking up for me. I've had an improved offer today from the first people but now have a third offer from a second party only 750 pounds below my asking price...and he's been told about the structural work.
I tried to accept but the estate agent wants to see if we getting a bidding war!

You think silt's bad, my house is built largely on soot and ash I believe

And we're sold!**

A bidding war happened and we got the asking price




**Yeah yeah, subject to contract...I know

excellent!
Let's hope it all goes through ok. And at least it is all up front so they can;t come back and demand a reduciton due to structural defects.

Indeed - now for, as someone somewhere said...


the stress bit