Buying a house - the trouble with offers...

[SnowBells]

If a house is on the market with a 'guide price' - how much are sellers willing to negotiate? We are looking at houses at the moment. There is one which we have yet to see, but it ticks some of the boxes. It is currently on the market for just over 400k, and has been on the market for nearly half a year.

It is not the most convenient location (idyllic - yes, but it's actually a little bit far from normal civilisation, i.e. it's a village rather than a town). Closest railway station is probably over 10 miles away, no proper public transport - so you definitely have to have a car. The closest proper town (not just big village) is about 25 minutes away by car. It seems to be in an OK state, but to really make it a nice property, it will require some modernising.

We are obviously going to look at it, but I just wanted to check - would owners accept offers in the 390k region? Basically, just a bit above 96% of the 'guide price'?

I am new to this home buying thing. I know people who have had 530k offers accepted on houses on the market in excess off 550k - so I think both my husband and I need to be a bit more brazen sometimes.

[LizzieMint]

Yes, be brazen, especially if it's been on the market a while. What's the worst that can happen? They can reject it and you can go back in with a higher offer. Personally I'd probably offer a bit less than your highest offer can be and see what happens.

[SnowBells]

OK. Wish us luck!!!

[SantasLittleMonkeyButler]

Anyone who has had their house on the market for 6 months is probably going to be open to sensible offers. The only exception to this being vendors who need to achieve a certain sale price in order to make it worth their while moving at all (or to repay their existing mortgage in some cases). The EA should be able to tell you whether they are open to offers or not, at the end of the day the EA wants a sale so are not likely to say "Oh no, they won't take a penny under asking price" if, actually, £380k might do.

[HelpfulChap]

There is deifinitely room for negotiation. Go in low to start & see what happens.

The rural mkt is much more sensible than London & other hot spots.

[FannyPriceless]

Guide price means yes, they expect offers. The likelihood of them accepting a low offer is dependent on their circumstances and the timing, mostly to do with their own onward purchase pressures.

E.g. The house has been sitting on the market for 6 months with nothing much happening, but just last week they found their dream home that they have fallen in love with, but the vendors need them to move quickly. They desperately don't want to lose this opportunity. They will grab at a crazy offer from first time buyers if it means they can get the house they want... etc! You never know.

Why not do a bit of sniffing with the estate agent? The more you know during the negotiation, the stronger your position. It is totally expected that you ask the agent, what is the vendors position? Have they found a property yet? Are they in a chain? (Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but you did say you were new to this.) The other thing you can do is use websites to see what similar properties in the area have sold for recently. You can use this information to negotiate down without offending anyone - it shows that you know what is worth what in the market.

Also, as you are chain free you are in a strong position. Chains are a nightmare, so emphasise your chain free position in any negotiation.

Good luck!

[SnowBells]

Thanks for all the information.

We have offered on a property last year, but annoyingly got ousted by others who were willing to pay more. It was a very different location though (about 20 miles apart) where houses under the 500k bracket are pretty much sold over a weekend. Seriously - a few weeks ago, a house went up on the market on Friday evening. Sold by Monday.

So we decided we'll go somewhere else (less trendy and posh) and save us the drama. We want a Forever Home - which makes it terribly difficult.