| House-buying advice, please 20:59 - May 16 with 6178 views | Zx1988 |
One for those more experienced than me in such things...
The wife and I are in the process of purchasing our first house. We found a house that is pretty much what we want a couple of months back, and speedily had an offer accepted at less than the asking price. No chain, motivated vendors, happy days. We're just waiting on a few bits and pieces before we're in a position to exchange contracts.
The survey threw up a couple of minor issues, and the vendors have been a bit hard-nosed in allowing us to obtain quotes for the works, saying "you negotiated a discount from the off, so there'll be no more movement on price". They've been similarly non-cooperative in assisting our solicitor with requests for additional information, indemnity policies and the like.
There are a couple of other bits and pieces we would look to do after moving in - new front/back doors, and adding a garage/large shed, but we factored those into our offer price.
All good until yesterday, when an identical house came to the market 20m down the road, at the same price, but semi-detached (house one is terraced), on a slightly larger/better plot, and already has a garage. We're viewing the property at the weekend, and our gut feeling is that as long as the interior decor lives up to the quality of the marketing photos, we need to give serious consideration to jumping ship.
The question for the experienced heads, is how much of a d*ck move it would be to pull out of the sale of property one should be decide to put an offer in (and get it accepted) on property two. My overriding feeling is that we've got to put ourselves first, and bear in mind that our current vendors wouldn't think twice about ditching us if their circumstances changed, or they received a better offer, but at the same time both of us really don't want to be complete and utter d*cks.
Thoughts?
(To cover off other salient points - we've discussed the potential switch with our solicitor and mortgage broker, and the switch is eminently doable, and we can very easily afford the minor additional expenditure if we do decide to jump ship. It's very much an ethical question rather than one of practicalities.) [Post edited 16 May 2023 21:02]
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| House-buying advice, please on 10:44 - May 17 with 1126 views | TalkingBlues |
| House-buying advice, please on 09:25 - May 17 by itfcjoe |
You have to do what is right for yourself -when we sold our last house we had an agreed price with someone and a week or so later we got offered another £7.5k so took that and let first people down - wasn't easy but ultimately it is a hell of a lot of money for us.
If the market was a bit more regulated then wouldn't have broken contract etc, but it's dog eat dog and no one gives a toss about letting you down as we have found out to our cost previously and since |
Our budget was much higher than the offer we made you, if you'd just come back to us and explained the situation, we would have upped our offer by 20k to get the deal over the line, oh well. |  |
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| House-buying advice, please on 11:16 - May 17 with 1077 views | leitrimblue |
Check it's teeth thoroughly |  | | |
| House-buying advice, please on 11:37 - May 17 with 1050 views | Parky |
As others have said, do what is best for you and your family. You don’t owe the vendors nothing until you’ve exchanged contracts.
When buying our first house, the survey threw up some issues on the roof, we managed to negotiate with the vendors that they would pay for the repair work within a year of exchanging. (We had already had an offer accepted below the asking price, similarly to you).
Personally think they’re just trying to hold their bluff, sounds like they know about the issues and were hoping that somebody didn’t do a survey.
Again, if the 2nd house is a better option for you and your family, go for it. If not, I’d certainly be trying to negotiate with the 1st one. | | | |
| House-buying advice, please on 12:10 - May 17 with 1023 views | GeoffSentence |
| House-buying advice, please on 21:12 - May 16 by giant_stow |
(I've only bought two places and sold one, so not experienced, but) I would say it would be daft not to buy the better place, whichever that turns out to be.
It would be harsh on them to pull out, but it would be harsh on you if you stayed with house a.
Ethically, that seems like a draw to me, except they could resell the house still, whereas you'd be detrimentally affected for sure if you bought the lesser house. |
Yep, they can sell their house to someone else, the OP will be in whichever house they buy, for a long time.
No-brainer.
Do what is best for yourself in this case. |  |
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| House-buying advice, please on 12:51 - May 17 with 991 views | MedwayTractor |
| House-buying advice, please on 22:41 - May 16 by Zx1988 |
Exactly - I'd usually work on about £5k for detachment, and £10k for a garage, and that's before we even get onto the slightly better position on the estate (backing onto woodland) and the slightly larger plot.
We know already that it's no onward chain as well - it's a tenanted property with the landlord selling up and the tenants having been given their two months' notice. I fully accept that it might not go to plan, but assuming they play ball the owner will be looking at a void property in two months' time with no income. Hopefully that would play into our hands in terms of being FTBs who have already completed a good chunk of the process if they're potentially going to prize ability to complete quickly over and above ability to pay £5k more.
It's at a tricky price point in terms of the market at the moment - properties in this price band in particular seem to be rather tricky to shift as they seem to be the sorts of properties that would usually be the target of those looking to upsize rather than FTBs, so there's definitely a question of what sort of demand will be there.
We're renting at the moment, but off a family member, so there's the extra flexibility there. At the moment, assuming all things are equal, it's just a case of checking the quality is on a par with House 1. |
An ex-rental house is unlikely to be in as good condition as an owner-occupier house. You might need to check condition to assess how much work you will need to do to bring it up to scratch. This might go some of the way to explain the price differential.
Your personal circumstances appear to be quite an advantage for the vendor, no chain, ready to go, etc, so you could consider making an offer on the basis that the property is withdrawn from the market immediately, no more viewings and so on. |  |
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