Missing: Negotiation Skills

Did I mention that we found the house of our dreams whilst on our travels?

It's in just the right location - walkable to the town centre and Tatton Park, but quietly tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac.

It has 5 bedrooms, a beautifully laid out downstairs which has been designed and decorated so perfectly that we wouldn't have to do a thing to it, and best of all it has a separate study for me to work (and blog) in peace.

It's a little slice of surburban bliss - a far cry from our current 2 bed basement flat in London (not that I don't love this place too, in its own special way).

Falling in love with the house, however, was the easy part. Now we have to try and get our mitts on it while still leaving ourselves with enough money for a few of life's little luxuries, like electricity and bread.

The estate agent said they were looking for 'close to the asking price'.

1. We offered about 10% less.
2. They rejected our offer.
3. We decided to walk away, as our offer was already over what we had budgeted for.
4. We found out that they had received 2 other offers well in excess of ours, but that if we could increase ours by £10k they would accept it, since we are in the enviable position of not being in a chain (we are going to rent out our London flat rather than selling it).
5. Today we are going to ask them to split the difference by offering another £5k.

I don't think we've really ruled out offering the whole extra £10k.

Let this be a lesson to you children - emotional attachment and money make a very bad combination.

Update: We've ended up offering another £7.5k. They're thinking about it *sigh*