Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - One In: Alfa 156 Sportwagon

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I'd go for property #1 any day of the week. Waiting for property #2 owner to maybe one day deign to accept your offer doesn't sound much fun

[EyesWeldedShut]

3 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

I'd go for property #1 any day of the week. Waiting for property #2 owner to maybe one day deign to accept your offer doesn't sound much fun

^^^ that, lowball offer on #1 and also fling in a reasonable one on #2 - see what reaction you get from both sellers and move on from there? 
 

[Broadsword]

Sounds like #2 will be impossible to deal with and the owners just want to tempt you with a mind to messing with your head. I've seen it all before. Bird in the hand situation take #1 if it were me.

[Schaefft]

1 minute ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

^^^ that, lowball offer on #1 and also fling in a reasonable one on #2 - see what reaction you get from both sellers and move on from there? 
 

 

Just now, Broadsword said:

Sounds like #2 will be impossible to deal with and the owners just want to tempt you with a mind to messing with your head. I've seen it all before. Bird in the hand situation take #1 if it were me.

Having talked to either agent of them it will most likely be:

#1 will think we are taking the piss as we previously were happy to pay X more and will readvertise

#2 will wait and see if they find someone who offers more as apparently they must advertise their house for too little (only been for sale for a week, so you can't blame them)

That space for thousands of cars isn't a joke. Its a place that basically offers endless opportunities (income through animals, rent, airbnb etc.) vs. a really nice house with clear limitations. For someone with less than 5 cars the choice would be much simpler!

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

35 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

Which puts us in an odd position now: Make the same offer (or slightly lower) with a very high chance to actually buy property #1 above,

Do this then? #2 sounds 'meh' from your description.

[mk2_craig]

45 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

What would you do?

I think you’d be in an extremely strong position with house no. 1 but of course, the base rate hasn’t come down, you wouldn’t possibly be able to proceed at the same offer you previously had accepted. 

[Schaefft]

12 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Do this then? #2 sounds 'meh' from your description.

Number 2 is a pretty house with some quite stunning views and an enourmous amount of outdoor space, in a location that is not significantly worse than #1. Both of us actually like it a little more because of that.

5 minutes ago, mk2_craig said:

I think you’d be in an extremely strong position with house no. 1 but of course, the base rate hasn’t come down, you wouldn’t possibly be able to proceed at the same offer you previously had accepted. 

The mortgage rate has indeed increased but it wouldnt make a huge difference as this will be a 2 year fixed anyway. That would be my reason to ask for significantly more off the original offer though.

[mk2_craig]

I expect they will be anxious to proceed without further delay, do you know what their circumstances are? Is it in a chain where they have to achieve a certain amount in order to stretch to somewhere further up the ladder, if they can’t chip a similar amount off the place they’re buying? 

I hate property transactions man, people can turn into right twats about it all. Proper game of call my bluff. 

[RoadworkUK]

Property #1 robustly strokes all my "strange angles, split levels and unconventional window arrangement" fetishes, plus it looks good with an Audi A8 outside.

[Tickman]

Don't forget that they happily chose to sell to someone else before, no reason for them to not do it again.

I'd offer on both, choose what you would like to pay for number one and offer what you would be willing to secure number two.

We took the first offer on a house because the buyer loved it and gave a strong offer from the start.

[320touring]

On the houses:

1. Bid house #1 in the balls. If they can see it as purely business, so can you. And the purchasing circumstances have changed.

2. Bid for #2 as well. Sell some cars to cover the deposit and marvel at the volume of scrap you can store😂

[yes oui si]

From the little info you've given, #2 sounds more appealing. Space is so good to have... 

[loserone]

Absolutely go for both.

[Schaefft]

1 hour ago, mk2_craig said:

I expect they will be anxious to proceed without further delay, do you know what their circumstances are? Is it in a chain where they have to achieve a certain amount in order to stretch to somewhere further up the ladder, if they can’t chip a similar amount off the place they’re buying? 

House #1 has basically been on the market for a year now and the seller (retired) wants to emigrate, however probably with sufficient funds. The real issue is that in reality whatever he thinks he's gaining from squeezing the most money out of someone will not materialize 100% as such. Every month that passes doesn't only mean time lost, he will be paying hundreds in tax and maintenance, plus whatever fees/commission the agent will get from that additional profit. He must be pretty pissed at the estate agent at this point.

So yeah, it is a good position to be in as buyer right now. There doesn't seem to be anyone else currently interested.

However, property #2 is no less desirable for us (quite the opposite), but will be a pain in the butt to secure.

[loserone]

2 sounds great, but go for 1 as well in case you can't secure it 

[mk2_craig]

I love the idea of a house with plenty land, but I couldn't trust myself not to do a Blackborough House and fill the grounds with more old junk than I could possibly do anything with. Plus, keeping on top of vegetation can be massively time consuming! 

But, do what feels right for you. The fact that the original house has come up again when you thought you'd lost out proves that opportunities do come up repeatedly. 

[Schaefft]

Still waiting to hear back from estate agent of house number 2, until then house number 1 isn't off the radar yet.

With the 540i being my only practical car at the moment it was once again put into use to haul junk to the skip, not the typical place you'll find what would be quite the collectible car soon. I'm not sure how much petrol I burnt during the whole event but the scrap battery and metal earned me 16 quid lol.

Also had some time to investigate the wiring for the rear air suspension height sensor today. It would be easy to just chuck another 25 quid control module in the car, I  wanted to check that it really wasn't the wiring first though. So out with the cargo floor, the entire loom was easily pulled through the floor fortunately.

Well what do we have here...

A worn through wire, that would certainly trigger a fault code.

Some desperate soldering (didn't work out) and replacing a length of wire later we have a repaired wiring loom.

And indeed, I finally have no more Inactive Air Suspension warning on the dash. I didn't even have to calibrate the sensor it seems! I'll have to check the ride height again but this looks pretty good to me.

I did notice that the traction control light was still illuminated though, I was hoping it was related to the inactive rear suspension. Scanning the codes I remembered that I was never able to connect to the ABS control module. Cycling the key didn't seem to show any ABS light (it actually does when you take the key out and switch the ignition back on), with ABS modules known to get fried on the E39 I didn't really need much further confirmation but I took the cluster out anyway.

Well, turns out people can't really take important bulbs out anymore, these are LEDs after a smaller technical update end of '98 I think. However, what do we have on the right there?

Airbag light, another BMW classic. Guess that's another thing I'll have to look into then. Fortunately neither the airbag light nor the ABS module are particularly big issues to deal with, you can pretty much expect them to be screwed on cars like this. It would be good if the seller had at least warned me about them though, if I remember correctly I was able to get the price down because of that ABS issue at least.

Well, at least we got one thing sorted today, 2 more to add to the list.

[Schaefft]

Not all that much going on this week. I've finally had a chance to clean the inside of the Alfa yesterday, I dont think it had any attention inside since I got it. Naturally I haven't taken any photos of the end result so have a photo of it out and about. Needs an MOT next week, fingers crossed everything is still in order after all the work I've done on it a year ago. The passenger door central locking fixed itself so the locks aren't going crazy whenever you try to open it anymore, I'll take that as a sign!

The Infiniti's MOT actually expired today. I don't expect it to cause much trouble to be fair, at 55k km its not far from still being a brand new car if you ignore that its a hard to believe 30 years old now. With that test also happening next week it was time to remove what felt like 30 years of grime on the inside, its not horrible but hasn't probably received any attention beyond a quick hoover in years:

As usual things don't looks as bad on camera as they are but boy did a proper vacuum, steam cleaner and carpet extractor make a difference:

That's more like it. Unfortunately the car came with no floormats. I might get lucky and eventually find a set (maybe from a President), for now these bargain basement mats that I think came with the Senator will need to do, they fit surprisingly well.

I used the last remaining sunlight to finally bin these classy Halfords V8 badges, one on each wing, one on the bootlid:

Better. You can't see it in the photos but I'll eventually have to go over these areas with the polisher, the dirt is fairly well ingrained where they used to be.

The chrome door edge guards will probably need to go as well, not sure about the tint just yet. Coilovers definitely need raising however!

Also some rare Cadillac driving action with @scaryoldcortina behind the wheel!

[Spottedlaurel]

Seeing your BMW Touring reminded me, daughter's BF has bought himself an S-reg 523i Touring (manual 'box) for drifting. It's rusty and a previous owner has already started messing about with the suspension, so it's not much of a waste. The interior looks decent, beige leather from memory - anything you need? I'll try and get some photos.

[sdkrc]

On 16/05/2024 at 20:02, Schaefft said:

 

Well, looks like that buyer just dropped out. 

I proffer no opinions on which house to pick but I do enjoy the greedy seller shafting himself. 

How many cars do you have at this point in time?

[Schaefft]

14 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Seeing your BMW Touring reminded me, daughter's BF has bought himself an S-reg 523i Touring (manual 'box) for drifting. It's rusty and a previous owner has already started messing about with the suspension, so it's not much of a waste. The interior looks decent, beige leather from memory - anything you need? I'll try and get some photos.

Yes, I can even send you a list!

[Schaefft]

12 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

I proffer no opinions on which house to pick but I do enjoy the greedy seller shafting himself. 

How many cars do you have at this point in time?

I'm not sure who's more to blame, the estate agent who couldn't even bother to give me a number we had to bid against or the seller not taking the only serious offer he had for an entire year.

It doesn't matter anymore though, we put an offer in on property number 2, finally got a response from the sellers that they'd be happy to accept £x which we were very happy to offer. It's not 100% finalized yet but it hopefully is on Tuesday. In the end we paid 65k less for a house that feels just as special while offering almost unlimited space for activities*.

 

 

*Shitboxes

 

Oh and we are easily in the double digits.

[Spottedlaurel]

12 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

Yes, I can even send you a list!

PM me!

[Schaefft]

With the weather being a little on and off I had a look at the non-functioning radio yesterday. It doesn't make any indication of even turning on so with the fuses all looking good I was hoping to find a blown fuse in the back of the headunit possibly. So out with the center console trim which came apart surprisingly easily:

I'm not sure what I expected but the wiring naturally is a total nightmare:

Since I barely have a clue about what I'm actually looking at I checked whether there would be battery voltage at the wires the diagram tells me to expect power on, which it had. The earth was properly connected to the dash frame as well so my only guess is that the cheap Chinese radio has had it and will need replacing. With a bit of luck an original US market radio might do actually work with the audio system in this. I slapped it all back together and will leave it there for now.

The car did finally receive its first wash during my ownership though!

Better. As usual you notice a lot of things that aren't so great about the bodywork and paint, the little dent in the corner of the bumper is something I wasn't aware of until yesterday despite it being there since I bought the car. The good news is that almost everything will come out with a polish, this is definitely a good one!

I did notice what looked like black paint splatter across the back.

Fortunately it all came off with tar remover. The bumper probably had paint before but compared to most cars I own this one won't need a respray.

So yeah, the car doesn't really need all that much to be in a presentable shape again, still can't believe for how cheap I got it.

[Schaefft]

However, whats much more exciting: We finally got the final confirmation that our house offer has been accepted today! This means that if surveys etc. all go smoothly we will soon not only finally have a house with the space to spread out in but also 6 acres of land to play on! This will be quite the change from the 2 bed semi-detached I've grown used to in the last few years😂

[yes oui si]

Jiminy Cricket... 😮

As an aside, what year is your 540i? I have an "S40..." plate on retention from one of my old 540is that I stumble across every few months whilst looking for something else. 

[Sheefag]

5 hours ago, Schaefft said:

 With a bit of luck an original US market radio might do actually work with the audio system in this. I slapped it all back together and will leave it there for now.

Just so as you are aware, you may run into an annoying FM radio issue with a US market radio.

European FM tuner steps are 0.5MHz whereas US FM tuner steps are 0.2MHz. US FM radio frequencies end with a decimal extension of .1, .3, .5, .7, or .9.

It's less of an issue I've found on the modern stuff but there's more chance of being caught out by a more period correct unit.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/fm-frequencies-end-odd-decimal

[2flags]

Great news on the house. I bet the other house owner is kicking himself for been so greedy! Serve him right! Apparently, prices are slowly dropping, not quickly but not going up. He may have to wait quite a while to get another buyer. 

[Schaefft]

10 hours ago, yes oui si said:

Jiminy Cricket... 😮

As an aside, what year is your 540i? I have an "S40..." plate on retention from one of my old 540is that I stumble across every few months whilst looking for something else. 

1999 on a T-reg, I've never been all that much into private plates to be fair. It will need a fresh set of plates though.

8 hours ago, Sheefag said:

Just so as you are aware, you may run into an annoying FM radio issue with a US market radio.

European FM tuner steps are 0.5MHz whereas US FM tuner steps are 0.2MHz. US FM radio frequencies end with a decimal extension of .1, .3, .5, .7, or .9.

It's less of an issue I've found on the modern stuff but there's more chance of being caught out by a more period correct unit.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/fm-frequencies-end-odd-decimal

Yeah, it's never really been an issue in my US imports cars of similar age so I could very much live with it. The problem might be similar to my Celsior though, the Japanese market head unit will be different enough that nothing else will be plug&play.

1 hour ago, 2flags said:

Great news on the house. I bet the other house owner is kicking himself for been so greedy! Serve him right! Apparently, prices are slowly dropping, not quickly but not going up. He may have to wait quite a while to get another buyer. 

Yeah, I would be pissed if I had someone lined up basically offering the asking price (since May last year) only to lose that buyer again because of an unrealistic offer that turned out to be complete non-sense. Serves them right and happened to work out well for us.

Next steps will be getting the transaction all sorted and then see what can and cannot get planning permission on this land. Temporarily there will probably need to be a graveled area behind the house where most of the cars can be stored on what won't be a wet meadow, longer term it's all supposed to be under a roof though (carport, greenhouse, whatever), and beyond that inside a proper structure. Planning permission will really be the biggest deciding factor here.

[666jjp]

22 hours ago, Schaefft said:

However, whats much more exciting: We finally got the final confirmation that our house offer has been accepted today! This means that if surveys etc. all go smoothly we will soon not only finally have a house with the space to spread out in but also 6 acres of land to play on! This will be quite the change from the 2 bed semi-detached I've grown used to in the last few years😂

Wouldn't fancy having to put a fence around that.