Recently had an offer accepted on a house in Bristol. We’d been looking for a while, finding that we tended to get oitbid on those houses that ticked the right boxes (and probably did for others too!).

House is v near St George’s Park / Church Road, on a nice quiet street. A fairly up and coming area I think.

Beautifully done-up, Victorian 2 bed terrace. Nothing really needs doing, and it’s lovely and light. But…there’s next to no garden and it’s only 2 bed (although if a loft conversion is possible, then great).

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55058472.html

5 bidders, all within a day. I started at 290k. On the day of best and final, we go up to a 305k as we loved it and thought competition would be tough. So a whopping 25k over asking. Definitly think we could have got for 295k-300k in hindsight.

And ever since, I’ve been filled with doubt. Any houses sold on adjacent streets have typically gone for 260-290k, with bigger gardens and some 3 beds with gardens! Admittedly none quite as nice inside, and latest sold prices have not been published. And I’ve read that even in Bristol, prices have stagnated over last year and could start to decline.

Anyone with experience of the area reckon we have way overpaid here?

And other than negotiating post-survey, is there anything we can do on price? I was wondering whether calling and simply saying “we love the house but don’t think it’s worth 305k after all. Will seller be prepared to knock 5k off?” I just reckon they’d run a mile! Especially as we’ve not even instructed solicitors yet.

Any sage advice?

Well, no advice to offer but it looks lovely…

It is lovely. No garden and only 2 bed would be an issue if you intend to have kids. Least it would for me. Are you going to have kids? And would you plan to live there forever?

£5k is not a lot to risk losing the house over if you like it that much. If I was the seller, I’d tell you to do one because you sound like you’d be trouble throughout the process. Stick with what you’ve offered or pull out.

I take it it wasn’t an auction then? Just a bit of a bidding war?

If so, you can say you’ve changed your mind. You can always go back and say you’ve changed your mind. They’ll just go to the next highest bidder.

If you are having a mortgage or survey done they check the price, state of property, any works needed or suggested and that might give you a) peace of mind or b) something to negotiate with.

As Elsa says “let it go” and wait until you get your survey 😉

James

Ahh, the fake bidding war purloined by the selling Agents routine eh..

Never mind, that ere Tory Shiaters have a plan for brexshite that didn’t look like you’ll loose your pants within the first year of ownership.

Just enjoy living and breathing and making a family innit.

Depends on your plans. A friend has just moved out of that area, similar house, as it wasn’t big enough for a growing family. It’s been nicely done but that does leave little scope for adding value as it’s already at the top end. It is a nice area, though. Easy to get to the city centre and on the way up. It’s already come up a bit but there is room for more. That would easily be another £100k+ in Bishopston or Southville. If it gets anything like there it would be a sound investment. I can’t see Bristol prices dropping anytime soon.

As the others said, wait until survey and then use that as leverage. You have until the day of exchange of contracts to pull out. Also if you pull out at some point near exchange they may well drop considerably anyway…

We sold a similar house in Bristol, a couple of postcodes away, four years ago. It went on the market, we had an open day for viewings and then we had nine offers. All over the asking price. The one we accepted was £20k over asking, so what you’ve experienced is pretty typical for Bristol. In fact I think we paid £25k over asking for our current house.

So don’t sweat, but if it’s going to play on your mind too much it’s ok to pull out. Is better to do that sooner rather than later.

You presumably offered what you thought it was worth.  Do you not think it’s worth that any more?  Retract your offer if so.

To be brutally honest, if you’re spending £300K on a house (which could probably buy half of the row of terraces I live on) then do you really care about 10% either way?  It’s the right house and worth it, or it isn’t.

It’s an auction with several other interested parties. The asking price is irrelevant and only really a starting point from the bidding to start. You offered the price needed to secure the sale, as long as you can afford it then it is what it is and I wouldn’t dwell on ti too much.

Seeing what other houses in the area sold for is not necessarily a like for like comparison, this house might be much nicer than the others, so I wouldn’t take too much notice of that. If you did you simply wouldn’t have won’t the bidding and would probably be kicking yourself for not bidding higher to win.

That’s the wonderful house selling process we have in this country though. If you were in Scotland with sealed bids you have no idea how much you might have ‘overbid’, but I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss.

The house I more or less grew up in, in Elgin – my folks moved back from Inverness and bought that one. Eventually my dad admitted that he’d paid really quite a lot over the asking price / valuation for it.

On the flip side (this was in 1972) my mum only moved out a couple of years ago, and it’s still in the family possession. So if you’re thinking long term, it’s really neither here nor there…

Advice given to us by Bristol estate agent was to bid as high as you feel happy with and make it an odd number not  rounded to 5k. Overall if you are going to be happy to here what is the cost of happiness. Don’t dick about on cost after the survey. Finding excuses to renegotiate is pretty tiresome and the seller is going to be pretty peeved about loosing one of the other bidders. This process lost our neighbours 10k

If your not trying to make money on it does it matter?

How much do you like looking at houses and dealing with agents, banks etc.? Not spending another few months of your life doing that is probably worth £5k

It looks like you don’t have to do anything to the house at the moment once you move in.

You feel remorse because it is a massive amount of money and reality is kicking in.

if the survey comes back all good and the bank agrees to loan you the cash you won’t be thinking about the money in 10 years time…

Advice?  Be thankful that house prices where you are looking are a relative pittance.

Didn’t say it would be useful advice :-).

IIRC the lender’s survey will come back with a figure representing what they think it is worth.  If it’s less than your offer then I believe you need to recalculate how much you can borrow against that amount and make up the difference yourself in cash.  Ie if they value it at £295k then you will need to find the extra £10k yourself.

I misread the OP and thought it said 50k, and what the blinking heck was he playing at paying that much over!

5k, unless prices are really stagnant you could loose that just looking for another few weeks/months.

As an aside to the OP, there are a few of us STW types in the area. It is a great area to live, as you say up & coming. Are you Brizzle based already? If you are new to the area (& the purchase goes through OK) then possibly see you in the Dark Horse for a cheeky one! Email in profile if you want any further info on the area or people to ride with.

PS – house looks lovely!

The money is irrelevant ..if it’s really where you want to live then just go for it ..what you are feeling is called “buyers remorse”  ..and most people feel it after making a large purchase ..you will get over it .

Enjoy the house & make it a home ..it looks fantastic ..

Everybody has paid more than anyone else was prepared to for their house thats how house buying works. In any other purchase (cars, bikes, milk) buyers are trying to push the price down and you’re used to getting a buzz, of sorts, from paying less than you might have done for something. But pretty much every home owner paid the most they possibly could, and more than anyone else, to buy their home.

That really hit home how messed up the property market is.

This is what 300k gets you in stirling.

http://www.s1homes.com/Houses-for-sale/2017111017194903.shtml

Be thankful that house prices where you are looking are a relative pittance.

I live nearby, you’re about right on price.

With several big new employers in tech/media coming into Bristol and St George/Redfield being the kind of area that appeals to youngish professional families, plus channel 4 looking like they’re inbound to Bristol, prices aren’t going to slow down where you’re buying.

You’ve done well here – it’s an aggressive sellers market.

When you’re in & settled, I’ll show you the riding in the area 👍

It looks like it’s been finished to very high standard as Dion Dublin might say. 😉

I’ll wager the houses that have cost £260k needed £30-40K+ spent on them to look anything like the one you have offered on.

Get the survey done, hopefully the valuation matches your offer. You can always negotiate/pull out ,but If I were the vendor I’d follow Darcy’s advice and go to the next highest bidder.

Good luck.

Don’t forget to factor in your time and rent in the time between now and when the next one you like comes along…..

We paid a smidge over asking for it to be taken off the market asap. We were first viewers.

It equated to less than 6 months rent .

I don’t regret it.

Stevemuzzy – isn’t it more indicative of an imbalanced job market than the housing market per se? Be a heck of a commute from that lovely house to a job in Bristol.

Steve’s house is also on an out of town housing estate so apples and oranges. What does £300k get you in the city centre?

Well firstly it looks like a lovely house, also it seems like there was lots of interest for it so if you look to sell soon you should get most/all/more of your money back. The main thing is whether you will be happy in this house?

As others say, if you live there for a good length of time (say +10yrs) you will probably look back fondly on “how little” you paid.

🙂 @ arvensis

….but it’s really not meant as a boast, I would be ‘considerably richer’ if house prices were more sensible where I choose/need to live/work.

To be brutally honest, if you’re spending £300K on a house (which could probably buy half of the row of terraces I live on) then do you really care about 10% either way?

This really highlights the difference in house prices around the country.  £300K wouldn’t get you anything, not even the smallest flat round here.  Again it’s not a boast, it would be better for (pretty much) everyone if house prices were more sensible.  What part of the country is this (no need to be too specific, not planning to come round for tea or anything)?

Looks like a nice house. My sister used to own a house very similar to that on Winchester Rd in Brislington – looks almost the same in fact in terms of layout, although hers was 3-bed. It looks like that one probably was, but they’ve got rid of the 3rd bedroom at the top of the stairs to make a large bathroom & got rid of the small original bathroom to make one of the other bedrooms larger (bedroom 2 from the looks of it).

They ended up moving to Saltford because they needed a larger family home (2 growing boys) and from what she said, I don’t think the schools in the area were getting particularly good ofsted reports.

They moved out at the end of 2013 and got just over £200k for their house, so that’s a fair old hike in 5 years…!

It has a log burner. Surely that’s worth 25k over asking to any STWer?!

£300K wouldn’t get you anything, not even the smallest flat round here.

So where’s that? It’ll get you a something in Oxford, the UK’s most expensive city. Even that London has quite a few flats in that budget.

Slightly different scenario but when my Mom & Dad moved a few years back the house they wanted the Survey came back with a lower value than they’d offered (,they offered the asking price). They spoke to the vendor and agents and pointed out the issue, they managed to negotiate a price closer to the survey valuation that both parties were happy with.

O/P that looks like it’s been done to a really high standard. Good luck with your purchase.

Slightly different scenario but when my Mom & Dad moved a few years back the house they wanted the Survey came back with a lower value than they’d offered

Good point. Happened to a friend of mine who was selling his flat a few years ago. Some bloke made a frankly stupid offer on the place. My mate was pleased as punch & happy to tell anyone who’d listen how much money he’d made in 18 months on his flat and what a wise investment choice it was…..until the bank refused to provide the buyer a mortgage based on the surveyor valuation. I think he ended up having to accept an offer of about £20k less, as basically the flat wasn’t worth what it was being sold for.

Realistically, how much extra a month is that 5k gonna cost you a month? Get over it dude.

My 2ps worth. If you’re having second thoughts about the suitability of the house, pull out, there will be another house along soon. If you’re sure you’re happy with the house and your concern is purely that you paid significantly over the odds… Dunno you’re on your own there!

Is there anything for sale right now that works for you? If not why not dodge the problem, pull out and buy that. If there isn’t something else, maybe that tells you something?

Best and final, is it a scam? On our house we went to best and final. I assumed it was an estate agents scam and blew my top and nearly pulled out of the sale. After I’d calmed down we asked one close friend and one acquaintance who were estate agents. Both insisted that Best and Final was sacrosanct and highly unlikely to be a try on from the Estate agent. (One of them said “I’m as dodgy as they come, but even I don’t mess around with best and final.”) Make of that what you will. I believed them and bid, but maybe estate agents are like magicians and keep their secrets.

I live about 3 streets away from you on Sherbourne street. We bought ours almost exactly a year ago for about £30k less, however it’s a project, one which we will spend about £15-£20k all in on, and that’s with me doing a lot of it myself. Also it’ll be another year until it’s finished. We’ve had it valued based on it being finished and it would be expected to sell for about £310k. Which suggest you shouldn’t be worrying in the slightest!

Bear in mind as well we have a butterfly roof so can’t extend up, so don’t have the option which you do have as well.

From those photo’s, it’s a very pretty house so enjoy it and don’t be disappointed. We live in an ‘up and coming’ area, I’ve had notes through the door from couples asking to buy direct, that’s how much it’s in demand around here. The house have a ceiling price, because they’re 2 bed terraces, but I think there is a way to go until then (I think about £350k when compared to southville etc). Bearing in mind our neighbor paid £220 for their house 3 years ago, they’ve likely made £80k on that on the house price.

More importantly, let me know if you’re riding! A few guys our way that head up to Leigh Woods for some off-piste after work rides.

As above, you’ll soon sink £5k – £10k into redecorating something that isn’t upto scratch…more if you need bathrooms/kitchens.

If you’ll move in and not do anything to it for 5 years you’ve got your money back!