Disillusioned vendors - I'm thinking of making an offer 2/3rds of the listed price

[Michael55]

House fully restored only worth £110.000

Pray tell, where can one find a nice period property for 110k? I'm guessing the north / wales?

There's so much useful information here! Thanks everyone! I've been trying to get some quotes without giving the address away - fairly small place, people seem to know each other - and also, the last time I called for quotes from surveyors before putting an offer down, one surveyor/property manager made an offer on the property that very day which pee'd me off, so I'm a little anxious about doing it now!

Kearn:

I’d also say from a cursory skim of all the issues you’ve mentioned, their duration and the approach to ‘fixing’ taken to date, that £50k isn’t going to touch the sides.

This is exactly what I'm afraid of finding after completion, and from emails from the vendor via the estate agency, they seem to think it's in great condition and are continually repeating the 6k fee they've spent in fixing a skylight as if it's a lot of money and I should be impressed by it! The property has been vacant for six months of the year since the early eighties, and then tenanted, then vacant again for 18+ months, with huge water stains in the ceiling paper appearing under the chimney stacks in the last ten with them making no mention of repairs done when asked!

 

[philpjuk1000]

Nothing to lose, if it upsets him, it has cost you nothing. On viewing our current house I met the neibour at the bottom of the gardens. He did not get on with the vendor after some problem over the shared drive and said he had some useful information that could be of help. He told me the boiler was "buggered" and the vendor was "strapped for cash" and had a huge bridging loan. We offered £150k below the asking price and agreed on £140k below if we "pulled our finger out." We could not have afforded anywhere near the asking price and his retaliation was to remove the curtain rails.

 

[Lacan07]

True, a bid lower than the asking price might well 'pee the vendor off' but so what? You're trying to buy a house, not make new friends.
If you've offered as much as as you think it's worth to you or as much as you can afford and they still won't sell then there's no real alternative than to walk away and look elsewhere.

I'm not saying don't put a bid in at all, as you say Michaels got nothing to lose. But I'm just pointing out were not talking 10 - 20K under the asking price here, he's trying to estimate and subtract the full cost of renovations which is understandable but unlikely to go down well with a vendor stubbornly wedded to his asking price in the first place.