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As others have said, work out what you can afford (taking into account a good estimate of work needed) and offer that.
Don't worry about getting an amazing deal, if you're going to live there for a few years then over/underpaying by a few grand is pretty irrelevant compared to a bit of extra rent or just owning your own place. Pay what you're happy with.
But if you can't afford to get the work done after buying you can't afford it. I spent a fair chunk of time convincing my estate agent that my budget was my budget and if they wanted to make the sale then that was all the money that was there.
Don't stretch yourself, you'll regret it. But don't give up due to a few grand if it is realistic. Work out what you can afford, maybe knock a small contingency off, and tell the agent they need to make the deal at that or you're done.
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aggi
Estate agent phoned today. The guy dealing with it is off at the moment so his colleague rang to see what's what. I thought the main guy was a bit unreasonable so was looking forward to speaking to someone else there but if anything they were worse. Pretty blunt and rude. They asked if I'd got quotes for the roof yet and reiterated that the sellers weren't going to pay the full amount but would negotiate a compromise.
I said that yes, I had contacted a couple of roofers but I haven't heard back from them yet, they haven't been too responsive and in any case, I'm more concerned about the rear wall and that I think the fact that the window and door below the crack are the only ones that haven't been double glazed shows that there is a structural issue that needs to be addressed before they can be swapped. They said "well you can't say that, that's just your opinion"...
I said "yes of course it's just my opinion, but that's why we want to get someone in to look at it and quote for repair"
They said again the seller isn't going to pay for all this
I said "we're not asking the seller to pay for the repairs, we're saying that the house is worth less with this work needed"
They said "well I don't know about that, that's just your opinion"
Felt like banging my head against a wall.
They then basically told us to hurry up with the threat of "when you put your offer in on the house, there were several other parties interested in seeing the house and many of them are still looking so if things don't progress soon, we will have no choice but to open it back up to the market"
Safe to say, I think we're walking away from this one.
What's also pretty annoying is this particular agent basically has a monopoly on the local area so no doubt we will have to deal with them on the next place we try to buy and I can't imagine they will treat us too favourably