aibu to think you cant expect the asking price.

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

Very long saga and backstory, but the crux of it is my dm wants to live near me, so they have been supposedly moving for three and a half years. They spent the first two years fannying about looking at houses, moaning about how expensive it is here vs where they now live, putting in lowball offers and not putting their own house on the market. When they finally did, far from the instant sale my df had envisaged they didn't even get a viewing for six months, and have now been on the market for a year and didn't have any offers until a month ago. They have now had two low offers and I have been subjected to my df being righteously indignant about how offensive these offers are, at around 11% under asking despite having put in some downright offensive offers himself

My df just wanted to tell them to go to hell but I insisted it was the starting point for negotiations, and they needed to go back with a number they were willing to accept. The number he came up with was within two percent of the asking price! Fine, but they have been on the market long enough to know it isn't a sellers market! Today I had my mum moaning about the work they claimed was needed to justify the low offer. I told her the reasons they give are irrelevant ( ie you cant just replace a few windows and they will then pay asking price!) it is all just a game, and noone expects to get the asking price, it is all a question of supply and demand, and the only issue is how much they are willing/able to pay and how much you are willing/ able to accept, and not a checklist for webuyanycar.com that takes £x off for dodgy windows!

Aibu to think that everyone knows the asking price is a guide and the chances of him finding a mug buyer willing to pay the asking price is similar to the chances of a pig flying past my window.

" not being able to navigate", I mean.

At the end of the day, if they won't listen to the reason of you, surveyors, estate agent and the plain facts of the market, there's nothing you can do.

When we were househunting, we looked at one empty place that the estate agent said had been on the market for a year. He said, "I don't understand why it hasn't sold." My husband replied, "I do. The boiler's ancient, the radiators are paper thin and about to fall off the walls, the kitchen hasn't got a single uncracked tile in it, the garden's a jungle, the windows aren't double glazed and the bathroom's straight out of 1968. If the seller knocks off £20k they might make a sale but it's priced as if it's all new and perfect and ready."

House is still not sold; seller eventually decided to rent it out instead.

No, my dad doesn't want to move, my mum does. He agreed to but has been doing everything in his power to make sure it doesn't happen. He is just leading her up the garden path

passive aggressive much :(

I agree about a sense of entitlement. The "insulting offers" (ie. at a more realistic price than the asking price) were dismissed by my parents with complaints that "these people are expecting us to give our house away ". They refuse to acknowledge how lucky they have been to have made such an enormous profit on this second house (it has quadrupled in price in 18 years). They think that they have earned it. Oh, and there isn't a problem with housing affordability for younger people, apparently, it's just that they aren't willing to save.

It's infuriating when people don't pay any attention to how house prices, indeed living costs in general, have changed over the decades. Houses and lives are no longer priced around one income and house prices especially are absolutely off the scale in insanity. Of course they could buy when there were 100% or near 100% mortgages to buy houses that were no more than three times a single annual salary.

What do they think they've done to make it quadruple in price in just a little under the lifetime of people who would love to become first time buyers? A few new installations, general maintenance?

Actually when I was 25, I remember moaning about the fact I couldn't see any way of ever owning my own home, and a smug older woman telling me, "Well, you should have bought in 1990." I looked at her, everyone around the table looked at her, working out how old I would have been in 1990, and eventually I said, "Well, I tried, but I couldn't see over the top of the bank counter when I went to make the mortgage application."

Oh, there haven't been any new installations, Sheba -the house still has the same kitchen and bathroom from when they bought it. They just changed the carpets and gave it a lick of paint. It needs a complete overhaul, but they still think that (a) they have earned their massive profit and (b) buyers should be willing to pay them more than for other (better maintained/renovated) houses in the street.

I think some people in their 60s have a massive sense of entitlement, perhaps they're Daily Mail readers. When you look at how much their houses have gone up with inflation I think some of them think it's down to the work they've done but it's really not.

Spot on! However its not just some people, its a lot! Who have been very lucky with pensions, jobs and property. You've just described the stereotypical boomer.

Intergenerational anger is building up. Won't be pretty.

God JeffreysMummy, that is even more infuriating then. Perhaps they should go and have some viewings at comparable houses in the area and check out the prices they're selling for, and the condition they're in? How can they think they have 'earned' such a huge profit when they haven't even put in anything like an extension or new kitchen?

I would suggest switching estate agents in this situation, take it off the market and then launch with another agents. On Right move, Zoopla etc it wont be doing them any favours with it showing when it came to market. If it's a big property maybe suggest a more up market agency?

My house recently sold at over asking price, as have a lot of houses in the area but that isn't happening all over the country.

Is your df usually hard of understanding? It is such a simple concept to grasp, why doesn't he get it?

Considering the (lack) interest they've had, I don't think they should expect asking price. It sounds like their house is overpriced or it is a buyer's market.

Where I am, it is a seller's market and you are lucky to get 5% off, a lot don't get any off at all. The houses that are up longer do go for under, but they were overpriced to begin with.

You can ask whatever you like for your house but you can only get what people are willing to pay!

Mintyy, he does get it, he just does have that sense of entitlement talked about upthread, although he is in his 70s and doesn't read the daily mail. He has previously been extremely lucky with house prices and sold them for ten times and three times what he bought them for. This insulting offer is still 25% higher than he paid for it, but he expects it to double or triple in value.