To think that the offer I just made on this house was not to be snorted at derisively

[LaurieFairyCake]

I am rapidly going off estate agents

House is on at 289, only one house in a row of about 300 houses has gone over the stamp duty threshold and it sold at 270 last year - it was a 4 bed detached, now it would be worth according to Zoopla 284.

I've offered 249999 on a 2 bed detached. On a busy road. That's been on 4 months. With 20 steep stairs up from the road to the front door thus putting off people with young children and the elderly (its a bungalow). And we have a very short chain as our buyer has cash.

Is that er..... snortable ?

sorry couldn't follow your point, so don't know if it was sortable or not.

It's a low offer but the estate agent shouldnt have snorted, its not beyond the realms of possibility that it will be accepted, DH and I have just bought a property for 80k below the asking price...

YANBU It's definitely not snortable. It may not be what they want. but it's a good offer for a 2 bed, if the 3 bed went for not much more.

sorry 4 bed went for not much more

No, you've got it and it's fine you don't agree.

The estate agent snorted. No house (apart from a 4 bed has gone over the stamp duty in that road and it's a 2 bed I've offered on)

I'm sure the very nice vendor won't snort, he may just say No as he's entitled to.

Is one of these houses yours? I don't understand why you're giving details of 2 houses. Plus as sovery said, a house is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Why is Zoopla tosh?

it has actual sold prices on it - in fact it has every house I've ever bought accurately described on there with the correct sold price

i understand what you are saying.

I think making an offer 40 k below asking price is clearly asking for rejection, but the snorting may be a tactic. It depends how serious you are.

We were serious about this house and saw several houses in the same price range so we knew how it compared with the market. Also, the EA knew we knew as he had been round with us. We then made an offer of 10k below asking price, outlining why we thought it was overpriced.

Offer was accepted.

I think making an offer so much lower than asking price with no context is probably sending a signal you're not interested tbh.

Neither of the houses are mine - I've put the 4 bed down as comparison - all the 2 beds in that road go for 220/230

Aha I get it now . Are you sure there's nothing amazingly exceptional about the property which makes it worth 289ish?

I gave all the context. I said the offer was at the stamp duty price, that none had gone over that, that we would be worried about re-sale because of the steps and a busy road and that I knew it had been on a while. And that our buyer was paying cash.

We are very serious and said it too. I imagine it's really difficult to sell a house in a road where none have gone over the 250 stamp duty level (apart from the huge 4 bed on a massive plot)

There's nothing exceptional about it, in fact it's very dated - of no interest to a builder either because of the massive hill its on (the steep steps to the front door) - all rules out redevelopment

IME Estate Agents do this kind of thing. We were looking for a house at £X max in a certain area and I happend to say that I also likes another neighbouring area - but before I could finish my sentence "but I know its unlikely anything will ever come up in our price bracket there" I was smashed to smitherines by the arsehole estate agent snorting and guffawing at my idiocy and telling me in ni uncertain terms I was being ridiculous and it would never happen in our price bracket.

This is years ago and I still steam about it.

The estate agents was being an arogant arse to you. In short he was rude. He is entiteld to think what ever he likes and the vendor too (and say no) but to guffaw and snort is arrogant and rude.

I'd deduct 10k for the snort, see how he likes that.

Is it because its a bungalow? As you say it won't really appeal to the usual bungalow buyers because of the steps up from the road. Perhaps they've had lots of offers at that price and the EA was snorting in a sort of "oh no not another one!" way?

Depends how long it has been on the market really doesn't it?

I've known bigger reductions being accepted. We offered low got rejected then when we didn't increase it the vendors got back in touch and said were we still interested at the price we offered, we bought the house thing is we weren't interested in it at a higher price and I had plenty of others I was interested in. The agent shouldn't have snorted

I will be honest and say I was upset when someone offered £105,000 for my home which was on the market for £150,000. It felt like an insult, and I asked the estate agent not to accept any further offers from the couple.

It sold for £145000 in the end which is about right.

In some areas places sell well under asking, in some areas you have to go over.

But one thing that remains constant throughout is that estate agents are cunts.

The agent was very rude to have snorted.
Are you sure, from his response, that he will pass offer on to vendors? (he should!)
The average house sells for about 91/92% of the asking price.
So there's a good chance that the house you are looking at will go for 263 - 265 ish
So you're not far off for a first offer
Good luck :)

Zoopla is tosh.

If I look up my road it has our house worth much more than one over the road that I know is superior. This is because the last recorded sale of ours was in 2011, and the other house sold 4 years ago.

Balloon Maybe current value is tosh but it does have actual sale prices, obv less helpful if they're old, but they are recorded there and give an idea of current value if you know the layout etc of a house that sold recently and how it compares to your house

Laurie, we were in pretty much the same position as you! Since none of the other houses had gone for over the threshold we offered below it, and the sellers accepted. Our estate agent wasn't as arsey as yours though, even though our offer was 40k under. Let the sellers decide and try to ignore the attitude of the estate agent, you are likely to have your offer accepted if its a similar price to others in the area. There was no way our house would have sold for any more than what we offered.