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Maybe they felt the place was worth more in the end, but because they stopped the bidding war they feel like they've done you a favour in return for an easy sale which they now don't have. Bit naive if that's the case - what you've found goes beyond stuff that can be expected with old houses.
And presumably they aren't in a hurry to sell if they think they can put it back on the market.
Maybe that's a bluff. I'd call it.
Howard-
they felt the place was worth more in the end, but because they stopped the bidding war they feel like they've done you a favour
That would be my guess. Offering £5k drop seems like a risky move if you were genuinely open to more negotiation. Although it sets your parameters high, when the other side asked for over 6x that you'd think it would risk the other side walking away as much as it would a counter offer.
@T4NY4 - if you want it, I'd probably pick up the phone to the EA and say something like;
"look we're looking at at least £30k to fixed what's fucked and realistically we're going to be in for a min of £50k all in, probably more. We went in with a genuine discount number rather than giving a high as they seemed like the sort of folk who wouldn't go in for back-and-forth negotiation - that's why we said £32k not £50k. You're an intelligent attractive person with loads of knowledge and you know the next buyer is going to do the same thing as us, and so will the one after which means it's going to take 6m to sell. "
hugo7
In short - no.
There was a small amount of localised damp on 2nd floor in the hall, which we could see, and were made aware of by the EA, but didn't look bad.
We were also told it might need rewiring.
The place was immaculate and it was not obvious, nor was it discussed, that there might be significant other work needing doing. We were obviously budgeting for a bit of other stuff though, given the size and age of the house. But not this scale of stuff.
Interestingly,when the builder went round he said that the seller told him she was aware that the gable render might need doing, and had made plans to do it, but had opted to move.
We kind of took this as a sign that she knew how much that might cost and that the price would need to drop.
Also when we received the homebuyer report and it had flagged all these things, but before the quote came in, I spoke to the EA who said the seller was very keen to proceed with us and there would be scope for negotiation on price.
All this led us to believe a significantly lower offer might be acceptable, or at least a starting point for a decent negotiation. Seems not...