Selling house, 20 year old boiler?

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

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If you were in the process of buying a house which had a 20 year old (albeit working) boiler, would you consider that it required replacement and try to negotiate the price down on that basis? If so, how much would you expect to knock off?

We're considering a newer more efficient boiler and wondering if the financials add up. Our current one is ~15 years old, and we will most likely be moving in 4-5 years, probably not long enough to recoup the costs in fuel savings, but if potential buyers are going to try to knock a few k off to replace it then that obviously has some bearing on it
 
It’s up to you whether you accept an offer. If the boiler works, you’re selling the house with a functioning hot water and heating system and you’d be hard pressed to justifiably knock down the prices. Of course people will try anything to save a few quid. I sold my old flat with a 20 year old perfectly functioning boiler and it was never mentioned. Get the boiler serviced and ensure you have a gas safe certificate and you’ll be fine. I would only replace the boiler if it broke in your circumstances as you rightly say you’re unlikely to recoup the cost of installing a new one while you’re living in the property.
 
Nah, whatever you put in won't be what the new people want. You'll put in the cheapest to sell the house, but the new owners will want something they might want to live with for twenty years. When you sell the house, it is what it is, and the price will reflect that along with everything else. Otherwise you'd get people trying to knock the price down because it's not got enough bathrooms or bedrooms, in which case you've got to ask why they are low-balling you when they should be looking for something completely different.

As long as the boiler works and heats the house/water, and you're happy to live with it for a few more years, let the new owners either decide to buy it, replace it, ask for a discount, etc, and it's up to you to say yes or no, or include it in the price, etc.
 
Fair enough, thanks for the replies - have to confess it wasn't something we considered as FTB when buying this place, other than checking it worked and had been serviced recently. Will keep getting it's annual service and look at replacing if it dies a death :)
 
We had the same thinking when we bought our first house. Boiler was 22 or 23 years old, still going strong 5 years later. It'd take many years to recoup the savings in efficiency. Better off changing energy supplier regularly.
 
Nope, the age of the boiler would not have much affect on my decision to buy a house. The quality of the installation and general plumbing would though, but that also varies on the general condition of the house.
 
If it works perfectly and you aren't having issues with it then I would leave it. You won't make the savings back and saying "the boiler is old" when you are buying a place doesn't change anything. If it works and has a safety cert then its fine. Its up to them to decide if they want to replace it or if it affects their offer for the house. Sticking a new one in won't make you any money, put it that way.
 
The age of the boiler should have course have a bearing on the overall value of the house, as it is part of the purchase, just like an old car is less valuable than a new one.

But its tiny in the context of the house price overall so clearly gets ignored most of the time. Not unreasonable in my opinion for a buyer to try and knock a few hundred off if they spot it and are concerned. Also up to you if you want to accept that rationale or not.
 
danlightbulb said:
The age of the boiler should have course have a bearing on the overall value of the house, as it is part of the purchase, just like an old car is less valuable than a new one.

But its tiny in the context of the house price overall so clearly gets ignored most of the time. Not unreasonable in my opinion for a buyer to try and knock a few hundred off if they spot it and are concerned. Also up to you if you want to accept that rationale or not.
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Would you walk away from buying a £5K car over a tyre that needs replacing. If you want it you might try to haggle but ultimately its very unlikely to put you off unless you don't really like the car in the first place.
 
fez said:
Would you walk away from buying a £5K car over a tyre that needs replacing. If you want it you might try to haggle but ultimately its very unlikely to put you off unless you don't really like the car in the first place.
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Agreed. No harm in trying though. If id already offered under the asking price this would just form part of that implicitly.
 
Yes, got money off our last 2 houses due to the boiler being old and "needing" replacing. Only 1 of them really needed a replacement as it was an old convection heating thing!
 
Our house had a boiler that had no records of a previous service. We asked our solicitor to request it was serviced but they said there was no obligation for the current owners to service it and could delay the purchase. When we moved in we had it serviced and it was ****ed. Ended up buying a new one.
 
The one thing that you learn from A) buying a house B) this forum is that there is almost never a simple answer. We had trouble selling out flat so if we had to knock a few grand off to get a sale we would. On the other hand, when we bought the place the market was mental and if you didn't get in there quickly you wouldn't get a place. There are so many factors that effect what people are willing to haggle on and who has the power when it comes to buying and selling.

Our sellers for example are taking fitted wooden blinds that quite literally only fit those windows. There are 3 blinds, each one is a very different width to fit the bay window it sits in. Would they sell or give them to us? Of course not.
 
Ours had a really old boiler 80s most likely they said it didn't work and it was obvious all the radiators needed replacing. So in my head o knocked 5k off
Electrics also looked very poor so another 5k off.
The roof needed a few repairs and the windows were all poor.
In the end I think we put an offer in 25k under.
I'm fairly ruthless with stuff like this so said that's as much as we are offering but bear in mind we have no chain.
The owner accepted within 12 hours.
 
If someone low-balled me because a perfectly working boiler was a few years old I'd tell them to jog on, as many have said it really is up to you and if it's working I definitely wouldn't be looking replace it.
 
robj20 said:
Ours had a really old boiler 80s most likely they said it didn't work and it was obvious all the radiators needed replacing. So in my head o knocked 5k off
Electrics also looked very poor so another 5k off.
The roof needed a few repairs and the windows were all poor.
In the end I think we put an offer in 25k under.
I'm fairly ruthless with stuff like this so said that's as much as we are offering but bear in mind we have no chain.
The owner accepted within 12 hours.
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No disrespect intended but the only reason you got it for £25K less than asking wasn't your ruthless haggling it was that the owner was happy to accept that price. They either knowingly overpriced it or they unknowingly overpriced it and hadn't sold and finally accepted that they weren't getting what they wanted for it. We had been looking at places up to about £550K when were bought and there were plenty of houses that we viewed and said "that ain't worth even £50k less than they are asking" and unsurprisingly we watched as various houses dropped and dropped. Saw one go from £600 to £525 over 6 months. Still was probably overpriced at that.

What amazes me is that a lot of estate agents are happy to put your property on at whatever value you ask them to even if its massively overpriced and will never sell at that price.
 
Boilers, when considered as part of a house are a consumable. Like say a lightbulb, or a radiator in your car.

Of course having newer consumables recently fitted can help get a good price for something, but your asking price should reflect that, or not as the case maybe. If you'd just fitted a new boiler, you'd be using that as a selling point and asking for a price that reflected it.

So that's exactly what I'd be saying to them. "the asking price already reflects the age of the boiler".
 
However the boiler is a big factor in the real world - we are in the process of moving at the moment and it is one of the first things people look at in any detail out of the things they look into in detail.

You can tell people to jog on if they low ball on the basis of an older boiler but if there are other similar properties on the market with newer boilers you might struggle more for a sale.
 
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