Stress with buying a house

[Once bitten twice shyParticipant 78]

After the split with my ex a couple of years ago and with our property being sold a year after that (last year) I walked away with a 40/60 split of the proceeds, as arguing it in court would put me in a worse financial position. So I took a hit and let her have more.

So with all of my debt cleared which feels fantastic and with an ok deposit for my own property, I’m now actively looking.

The market in the UK is ridiculous at the moment and with me applying on my own it limits my options greatly.

So fast forward to this week and I’ve found a place, ok area wise, decent size property that requires complete and I mean complete renovation – more on that later on my rant.

I view it, sweet talk the agent to dig info out of her about interest in the property from other potential buyers and was told there have been several cash offers and am told a figure of the highest amount offered so far that has been rejected.

To her credit she admitted she’d rather see the property go to someone like me who won’t just chuck it back out to rent to foreigners and doing very little in terms of renovation. Whereas I want somewhere to bloody live.

So I put in a higher offer than what’s been offered so far but it’s an offer still below the asking price. It’s a fair offer in my opinion though because these are my findings:

Chimneys are f~~~ed which has ruined two of the bedroom walls, decor stuck in the 1930’s, cracks in one of the supporting walls downstairs, kitchen and bathroom… Nasty. Boiler needs relocating, electrics from the 1900’s – not kidding. No gas, although there is a mains gas pipe into the property, god knows why it’s capped – potential money pit there alone. Garden so overgrown I can’t even describe it. The list is long.

I Wait and wait some more to then be told I won’t know until Monday next week what the solicitor wants to do (the house is being sold by solicitors as instructed by previous owners will as they’ve passed away)

It’s really p~~~ed me off, hard working single bloke with a kid wanting a house for the pair of us.

I understand that a family are greving the loss of a loved one but get f~~~ing real and accept a fair offer from a normal everyday bloke. The house ain’t worth the asking price and your only inheriting profit from something you never owned!

I’m tempted to withdraw my offer on principle alone.

Rant over.

[black_knightParticipant 2602]

Once bitten twice shy wrote:

I’m tempted to withdraw my offer on principle alone.

Do it!

[JustAnotherGuyParticipant]

Withdraw your offer. If the seller is going to dick around and play stupid games (she’s hoping for a better offer), give her stupid prizes. Bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Based on your brief summary, she’s lucky you’re offering what you are.

Cupcakes are Cold. MGTOW is Absolute Zero.
“Let us wait a little; when your enemy is executing a false movement, never interrupt him” –Napoleon Bonaparte, 1805

[WPLParticipant 2390]

I’d be concerned about cracks in the walls indicating a bigger problem with the foundation. If the seller won’t accept a reasonable offer, those would be reason enough for me to walk away unless you’re really set on getting this particular house.

[BubParticipant 1406]

I always put an expiration on an offer I make on properties. Something like close of business today. I don’t like to give sellers a lot of time to leverage my offer. Of course I’m always ready to walk away from any deal. Plenty of fish and all that….

Just rolling down the road

[Once bitten twice shyParticipant 78]

To address replies – I don’t know the gender of the seller, I’m not trying to make my post a “women” topic, more a topic of people needing a reality check on what they think things are worth, which applies across the sexes.

Cracks in the walls I don’t think are serious I’d need to get a survey done if my offer was accepted in which case I can withdraw my offer if it’s something serious.

I didn’t think to put an expiration date on my offer, very good idea wish I’d thought of it but I’ll know for next time.

My nihilistic side is hoping they’ll reject all offers now, in which case it’ll go to auction and I hope it goes for well under what they’re asking now, plus they’ll be hammered with auction fees. Idiots.

[Secret Agent MGTOWParticipant 22534]

Once bitten twice shy wrote:

After the split with my ex a couple of years ago and with our property being sold a year after that (last year) I walked away with a 40/60 split of the proceeds, as arguing it in court would put me in a worse financial position. So I took a hit and let her have more.

So with all of my debt cleared which feels fantastic and with an ok deposit for my own property, I’m now actively looking.

The market in the UK is ridiculous at the moment and with me applying on my own it limits my options greatly.

So fast forward to this week and I’ve found a place, ok area wise, decent size property that requires complete and I mean complete renovation – more on that later on my rant.

I view it, sweet talk the agent to dig info out of her about interest in the property from other potential buyers and was told there have been several cash offers and am told a figure of the highest amount offered so far that has been rejected.

To her credit she admitted she’d rather see the property go to someone like me who won’t just chuck it back out to rent to foreigners and doing very little in terms of renovation. Whereas I want somewhere to bloody live.

So I put in a higher offer than what’s been offered so far but it’s an offer still below the asking price. It’s a fair offer in my opinion though because these are my findings:

Chimneys are f~~~ed which has ruined two of the bedroom walls, decor stuck in the 1930’s, cracks in one of the supporting walls downstairs, kitchen and bathroom… Nasty. Boiler needs relocating, electrics from the 1900’s – not kidding. No gas, although there is a mains gas pipe into the property, god knows why it’s capped – potential money pit there alone. Garden so overgrown I can’t even describe it. The list is long.

I Wait and wait some more to then be told I won’t know until Monday next week what the solicitor wants to do (the house is being sold by solicitors as instructed by previous owners will as they’ve passed away)

It’s really p~~~ed me off, hard working single bloke with a kid wanting a house for the pair of us.

I understand that a family are greving the loss of a loved one but get f~~~ing real and accept a fair offer from a normal everyday bloke. The house ain’t worth the asking price and your only inheriting profit from something you never owned!

I’m tempted to withdraw my offer on principle alone.

Rant over.

It sounds like a real s~~~hole. I wouldn’t bid on it.

Women want everything, but want responsibility and accountability for nothing.

[Knarley BobParticipant 2219]

Sounds like a money pit to me. You’ll pour a lot of time, money and work into it just to break even, if even that.

No sense in getting into a leaking/sinking boat is there? I’ bail!! (Pun intended)

OATHKEEPERS, not on our watch. MOLON LABE

[Anonymous 13]

Try to find a more modern 70’s 80’s house with cavity walls and more upto date Gas and electrics.

1930’s semis are money pits. Solid walls and more expensive to heat, often damp issues and tired roofs.

I bought one. Spent every penny I ever made renovating it and a c~~~ STOLE it from me.

Now I live in a smaller more modern house.

Zero maintenance and cheap running costs.

NEVER will I be the slave to an older house again. You’re just the guardian with all the stress of maintaining it ready for the next person.

What purpose does it serve?

Except to suck your precious life and money away.

And that’s without some C~~~ stealing it in divorce.

NEVER F~~~ING AGAIN.

[Anonymous 13]

I just read it again.

This house will ruin you.

Walk away!

[Anonymous 1]

Sales procedures must be very different in UK vs. US.

Here (US), you’d pay a few hundred $ for your inspector to go over everything, document problems (including very very minor ones), highlight code violations…

…you (potential buyer) would give that report to the seller, and tell him to come down $X in the price so you can have things fixed, or have the seller fix the items before you give him the asking price…

…or, meet somewhere in between…fix this, come down on that, etc….

…a line in the purchase agreement FROM YOU would say something like “this is all contingent on favorable financing from a bank”…

…the BANK would send out THEIR inspector, to see what they think the property is worth (to determine if it is a good risk for them to give you the loan)…

…from your description, no bank is going to offer you a loan for this beast…

…an insurance company (mandatory insurance due to the loan) will want to know about the house…they aren’t going to be too motivated to insure a place with cracked wall, damaged fireplace, and old wiring. Tell them you have gas running to the property, and that you have not only fireplaces but damaged ones, and, well, I think they will tell you to take a hike.

SORRY. I don’t mind fixing lots of things myself, including wiring, plumbing, etc., but I’d run away quickly.

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

I’m a big advocate of buying instead of owning, but there are times when it just doesn’t make sense. Unless you’ve got an additional couple hundred thousand $$$ cash to make MAJOR repairs AND the property will be worth a lot more than what you put into it afterwards, it’s a really bad deal. Add the fact that the real estate bubble in the UK is absurd and you’re just asking to lose your shirt here.

Sounds to me like either a complete gut job or a bulldoze job. I stay far away from those personally. I try to buy the newest thing I can find for my rentals. My personal house was built in 1994 and it’s got more than enough things wrong with it. The oldest houses I buy are from the 90’s. I might make an exception if it’s been renovated, but you can cover up a LOT of REALLY BAD problems with renovations, so it’s best not to pay for someone else’s renovations and just do them yourself if you have to. Or do what I do and buy something from the 90’s or newer.

I know what you’re thinking. “How nice that you can afford a newer house here, but I’m not so lucky.” And you’d be right. If you can’t afford it then the answer is to rent, not take on someone else’s disgusting s~~~hole.

The ONLY time when I would consider a property like this is if I could get it for BELOW what ONLY the LAND is valued at. Looking up the property tax records is a good start. For example, the house I’m living in that was built in 1994 I bought for $362,500. It was appraised at $529,000 – $329,000 in land value, and $200,000 building value. So I basically got the house for $32,500 – and it’s a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 5,000 square foot McMansion in the middle of the city. THAT is a good deal. Why did I get it for such a good deal? Because I knew the problems it had and was able to negotiate directly with the owner without pesky real estate agents getting in my way.

If you can’t get an EXCELLENT deal, then you shouldn’t buy, especially in these times with real estate bubbles all around the world. I fear that if you buy this thing, it’s going to need 75% or more of it’s purchase price put into it in repairs just to get it livable. And once the real estate bubble pops, it probably won’t even be worth what you’re paying for it right now when everything’s been fixed and renovated. Think of it like getting married again…only this time you’re getting married to a house. And that house is going to steal 50% of your wealth when the market crashes.

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

WPL wrote:

I’d be concerned about cracks in the walls indicating a bigger problem with the foundation. If the seller won’t accept a reasonable offer, those would be reason enough for me to walk away unless you’re really set on getting this particular house.

THIS! Not all cracks are bad ones, but it’s IMPOSSIBLE for a regular inspector to know. You need to hire a structural engineer, and they don’t come cheap. I actually had what I thought were cracks in my 1994 home, but they turned out to be a really bad drywall taping job. I have vaulted 30 foot (10 meter) ceilings in my house and there was what looked like a big crack on one of the main structural beams. You bet your ass I had a structural engineer come look at it. It cost $1,500 but it was worth it. He looked at the foundation itself and took extremely precise measurements all around the house to make sure it had settled properly and wouldn’t cause any issues in the future. I have a structural engineer check out almost every house I buy now, and I’ve passed on a few due to his recommendation.

[Once bitten twice shyParticipant 78]

Wow thanks for the solid advice from all who have replied.

I’m definitely having second thoughts.

To answer forsakens question – in the UK the house buying process goes a bit like this:

Obtain a mortgage in principle to ascertain your borrowing potential.

View properties and make an offer on the one(s) you want.

If offer rejected, seller may negotiate, once negotiated and agreed, you then get solicitor onboard, get a surveyor (you can take a surveyor with you at the time your looking but this costs money upfront) go through the mortgage application, etc.

Surveyor will tell you what’s wrong. Buyer can then pull out their offer and use it as ammo to negotiate price down.

You are correct in that the bank loaning the money will make their own assesment on property value and could refuse to lend.

It’s a really convoluted process, loads of back and forth and check after check, etc. It takes months to actually exchange and lots of middlemen get rich along the way.

[Anonymous 3]

Once bitten twice shy wrote:

that requires complete and I mean complete renovation –

usually, “requires renovation” is the real estate market wording for “it looks like as if it was hit by an air strike”

[Anonymous 3]

Once bitten twice shy wrote:

cracks in one of the supporting walls

This is a red flag! I mean, I would’t want to buy anthing if the walls are nt in good shape. Everything else can be fixed, but fixing the broken walls… I don’t know if it’s possible. Talk to an engineer / bricklayer / someone who knows that, before the payment…

Once bitten twice shy wrote:

electrics from the 1900’s – not kidding

Needs completely new electric wires. The old ones are dangers of fire, when modern, high consumption devices are plugged in. And there is no protective ground wire. Stuff like washing machine or computer without proper grounding may shock you.

Once bitten twice shy wrote:

The house ain’t worth the asking price

Ask price is the biggest sum of money that the sellers are not ashamed of asking for. Because they guess the buyers always can just get a bigger mortgage from the bank…

[Won'tGetFooledAgainParticipant 3293]

Buying a house is the second most stressful thing I have ever done after getting divorced. My Ex-Wife got the house but luckily the new wallet she married bought my share off me so I had just enough to get myself a little 3 bed house with a garage which is all mine. Nothing beats the feeling of having you own house, no matter how small that nobody can take away from you because they fancy some new c~~~.

Obviously I have no idea of your budget or area but I would say it is becoming a buyers market at the moment in the UK. Unless this house is seriously cheap and you have the ability to fix everything I would be very wary from what you have said.

The UK house buying system adds stress as nobody ever seems to be in a rush to do anything and it always has that on the edge of collapsing feeling. It always screws the person at the bottom of the chain when this happens as they have spend the most of surveys and solicitors and can lose everything just because the seller changes their mind.

Good luck, is there anything else in your budget that you like or is the most house for your money?

For women, everything eventually boils down to Alpha Fucks, Beta Bucks.

[Once bitten twice shyParticipant 78]

Won'tGetFooledAgain wrote:

Buying a house is the second most stressful thing I have ever done after getting divorced. My Ex-Wife got the house but luckily the new wallet she married bought my share off me so I had just enough to get myself a little 3 bed house with a garage which is all mine. Nothing beats the feeling of having you own house, no matter how small that nobody can take away from you because they fancy some new c~~~.

Obviously I have no idea of your budget or area but I would say it is becoming a buyers market at the moment in the UK. Unless this house is seriously cheap and you have the ability to fix everything I would be very wary from what you have said.

The UK house buying system adds stress as nobody ever seems to be in a rush to do anything and it always has that on the edge of collapsing feeling. It always screws the person at the bottom of the chain when this happens as they have spend the most of surveys and solicitors and can lose everything just because the seller changes their mind.

Good luck, is there anything else in your budget that you like or is the most house for your money?

I didn’t think there were many other UK guys on here hence me leaving actual figures out as I wasn’t sure how it translates to other countries. For clarification to the US guys:

Average UK wage – approx £27,500

Average mortgage borrowing potential – approx 4.5x salary

Average UK 3 bed house price £228k

I earn more than the UK average wage.

However the average price sold for a 3 bed terrace in my area is £294k which negates my increased salary.

Ignore London as it’s another planet with house prices.

The system is so f~~~ed and skewed towards a nuclear family joint income borrowing for a house, which would equate to an average of £54k X 4.5

Women are so stupid that they wanted to be equal to men, work like men work, and yet their utter naivety has screwed both sexes to the ground as the people in power can artificially inflate prices to where we are now because it’s seen feasible that people can borrow more to afford it.

Yet most women still blame men and the patriarchy for how things are today, where if they had shut the f~~~ up and were traditional house wife’s who respected themselves, their husbands and children rather than focusing on themselves and their career we wouldn’t have this friction between the sexes, people massively worse off financially, etc. Women have enabled this to happen and they can’t see it! They were misold life under a banner of “men are suppressing you!!!” Jesus titty Christ women had it easy and yet now have to work a 35-40hr week so they can get a roof over their heads with their partners, then begrudge their partners for not bringing in enough so they can stay on their asses instead of being out to work. Hamstering 101 right there.

Anyway back to the property I’ve been on about. To be honest it’s ideal size wise and location wise for me and once renovated worth about £60k more than what I’ve offered but I roughly estimate £30k of work needed for materials and that’s with me doing a lot of the labour – which I’m not shy of doing.

I’m not looking at it from that angle though, making money from it is not my priority, getting somewhere is the priority.

With my budget I can easily afford a variety of 2 bed flats but I would rather have a house (I’ve had bad experiences in the past with flats and noisy neighbors)

In the meantime I’m still accumulating money for my deposit so eventually I’ll be able to afford more in total. I just wanted to get on with it now. I should learn to be more patient.

[Buller100Participant 2189]

The market is softening with Brexit there are also leveraged buy to let owners looking to get out , I would make a daft offer or keep looking.

Good luck

[743 roadmasterParticipant]

From the sounds of it the only way it would work is if you have the skill set to go through and do most if not all of it yourself. If not them it might be time to look more.

mgtow is its own worst enemy- https://www.campusreform.org/

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