That House Dilema

Thought I'd start a blog on my house dilema which started the other day, as the owners of the house we like came round this morning to view ours in the hope of a swop plus a cash handout.

Just had a phone call from the agents, telling me they loved our house!! So now we start talking figures. Bearing in mind their house was originally up for £449,000 and ours was originally up for £300,000 when we withdrew it off the market as we had decided to extend rather than sell. Well, in our opinion, considering their house needs a lot of work, be it mostly cosmetic and furnishings although they accepted our offer a while back of £436,000 we now think it's only worth £400, having since looked around at other properties in that price range. Therefore, OUR figure we have in mind is around £100,000 to do the swap, but the Agent has said they want to start off at £160,000, being £270,000 for ours and £430,000 for theirs. That's not gonna happen I said, considering blah, blah, blah about theirs and blah, blah, blah about ours and the figure we had in mind is only £90,000!!! Bearing in mind we have stamp duty and fees to pay of £20,000 this is all we could really afford at the end of the day to stay in the same situation as we're in now with our current mortgage, coz at our time of life, we really don't want a hefty great mortgage hanging over our heads, we want a more comfortable life and we don't want Mum to put in much of her cash either from her apartment sale in Majorca, she needs it invested to give her a good income. Don't forget also, these people have had their house on the market for over a year now and are desperate to move to a smaller more affordable home, it's far too big for them, and I think it's draining their resources.

So, the situation now is, the agent is ringing me back tomorrow morning after we've all had a meeting tonight to discuss how much we're prepared to go to, otherwise the deal is off! This is just like one of those relationships that went wrong, just as you get over it, back he comes to stir you all up again! Lol! I loved that house when we first saw it, then I went off it when we couldn't have it, now I want it again, but not at that price!!!

I might add, they are a lovely couple, they stayed here for an hour, as did we when we viewed theirs, but we stayed 4 hours!!! Somehow, I think this house is meant for us, and if we were 20 years younger, we'd go for it with no hesitation, but there's mum to consider now, should anything go Pete Tong, like Dave's business going up the spout or him getting ill or something, whereas here, it wouldn't really matter quite so much, we're not stretching ourselves like we are by moving there. Any thoughts please?

Don't be swayed by them being nice people, decide before you meet them what your upper limit is and don't go over it.

Be clear about who the agent is acting for...really they should only be acting for you to ensure that they do the best for you. If acting for the other side as well they may have a bit of a conflict depending on the fee arrangements with the other party. If you don't know whether they are acting for both, you should find out. Ideally you should swap agents if this is the case, but this would cost you money. At the end of the day, would follow the good advice from Trouble.

Thanks trouble, Dave will definitely be sticking to his guns, whereas I might be tempted to up the offer, so I'll bear that in mind!

Thanks Hali, unfortunately the agent is acting for both of us, he has their house to sell and ours, even though we pulled ours off the market 3 weeks ago, he still knew we wanted theirs, so I suppose we will have to pay his fee, and so will they, he wins all round doesn't he!

Well if you meet them half way for the difference you are almost back to your original offer of £138,000 anyway which you decided was too much, If I was Dave I'd leave you at home.

Eh?? Lol!!!! Don't give him ideas!!!!

You'd be quids in if he left you at home

Tough call. Think I agree with trouble, set a limit, don't go over it. If it's meant to be it will happen with that!!! Good luck!!

Definitely set your limit and stick to it. If it's meant to be it will be Good Luck!

Thanks Ailsa. We had our meeting tonight and we've decided £100K, not a penny more, otherwise we're happy to carry on extending our bungalow. Balls in their court next!