To put in such a low offer?

[smudgedlipstick]

Looking to buy first home, very new to how it all works!
The perfect house is up for sale and has been for between 6 months to a year. The price hasn't changed. It is up for 220, would it be totally unreasonable to offer 190? That is sort of where we are really, and defiantly can't afford to asking price. Would a drop of 30 grand be seen as rude?

If you think the average EA is REALLY working for you, you are a bit naive IMO.

^ This!!
As a buyer, estate agents have always told me the lowest offer they think the vendor will accept.
Vendors ask the top price, we offer the lowest and we finally meet in the middle.

If 190 is your maximum, I'd go in slightly lower, so there's some room to increase your offer if they say no

This ^

Always leave yourself some wiggle room to negotiate and stick to your budget like glue.

It should go something like this :-
You - will you accept 'low price' which is lower than the max you can afford.
Them NO, make a higher offer
You - okay how about this price and offer a bit higher
Them - still NO but they name a price that's lower than the asking price
You and they negotiate to find a figure in between those two which is acceptable to both of you. They might want to add in carpets curtains etc. Only consider them as part of the negotiations if you want them.

If you play it right, that acceptable figure between your latest upped offer and their latest reduction should be at the most the max you wanted to pay in the first place.

If they stick to their guns and want more than you can afford to pay, then withdraw from negotiations and find another property.

Good Luck

YoungGirlGrowingOld
Wow! Did you do anything to offend them?! Sounds extreme if all you did was offer a low price which was accepted! 😳

A colleague of mine arrived at their new house to find that all carpets, curtain tracks, light sockets, light fittings were missing. Boiler & plumbing had been disconnected and the place was filthy. Garden covered in dog poo and bins hadn't been put out. Unwanted furniture/ junk was left in the house.
She was outraged but had been gloating only 2 weeks before that she and her DH had dropped her offer by 10 K at the last minute ('Gazundering'?).
TBH, it served them right!

What are the recent sold prices like on similar properties?

Of course, that doesn't mean the vendor will be willing to accept an offer. Lots of vendors are certain that their house is worth considerably more than all the others around them, despite all the evidence. These houses always sit on the market forever and don't sell. Sometimes the vendors will eventually reduce the price by £5 or 10k but it makes no difference when it was £50-75k overpriced in the first place.

If the sold prices are all under £200k (which is possible) I'd put the offer in explaining what comparisons I used. If the vendor rejected it, I'd just put them on the 'wants the moon on a stick' list and move on. I'd actually laugh if they instructed the EA to have no further dealings with me.

The EA will talk rubbish too. They'll try to claim that the comparison houses aren't really comparable (even when you're talking about recent new builds that are identical down to the same developer kitchens, tiles, carpets and white paint) and that they have just sold others for even more than the asking price of the one you're interested in. They either just want to maximise their commission or they know the vendor won't accept what it's actually worth and are hoping you're foolish enough to believe them.

If you think the average EA is REALLY working for you, you are a bit naive IMO.
Interesting! Maybe we've just been really lucky with the ones we used. We had very specific instructions regarding the price so I guess all they had to tell people was that we weren't taking anything below our"offers over" price. Estate agents we've negotiated with have never told us the buyer's floor and just said to make our best offer.

Our house was on at 265, dropped to 240. At which point we offered 207 and agreed on 217.

I once saw a house with a perfect for us layout, work needed, great area, on for £260K which would have been a huge stretch. Anyway, we didnt go for it. The house was empty and the owners lived a few hours away. It was a parents house who had passed away. I found out later it had been bought for £200k! Was gutted :(

Offer whatever the house is worth to you, then it is up to them to decide whether that price matches what it is worth to them.

Someone offered £45k less than asking price on ours. I know the EA is obliged to put forward every offer, but I was really annoyed. He knew it was a try on as well. We waited and they upped the offer by 10k. This carried on for some time until their final offer which was 10k less than asking price and was accepted.

There's so much Kirstie and Phil, trying a cheeky offer for their 'clients' that everyone expects to make a low offer. An EA's asking price though, is just that and you can't base your plans on it, or set your heart on something based on what the EA says. Your house is only worth what someone will pay for it and if the property has been on the market for a while, then the price is probably not realistic.

I don't think it's an unreasonable offer but it depends whether that is your final offer or just a starting point. We offered 35k below the asking price for a house which had been on the market for a year (on and off). After this was rejected we upped our offer by a final 10k which was also refused so we walked away. . . within a fortnight the vendors' ea was back in touch to accept our offer!

Elodie; they offered considerably less and to be honest it indicated to us they weren't remotely serious about actually buying the house.

You know what it's like when selling - you clean and polish and make everywhere look and smell lovely and take time out of your day/evening to show people round and then they made an offer of just under £100,000 - for a house on the market for £135,000.

We were having a lot of viewings (not many offers!) and there was no way we were going to accept such a low offer and decided we couldn't be bothered with time wasters.

Thanks all, it's great to know it's not unusual to ask that much off the asking price. We will have another meeting with our mortgage adviser and get the mortgage sorted then go and view it, and hopefully put an offer in just below what we can afford, this is all great advise for a ftb with no experience in this! On a side note, do people really take light bulbs and things with them when they move?

people don't normally take the light bulbs with them - but some do

When i bought my first flat the seller left a bottle of Champagne and a card for me, and it was such a nice thought, i have always done the same when i have since sold (even though negotiations sometimes got a little fractious!)

We sent flowers to the seller of our most recent purchase and she wrote us a lovely letter in return.

I've been pretty lucky TBH - 7 houses and no problems.

The vendors of my current house were especially kind and left a card, bottle of wine in the fridge, a toy each for DSD and DS and the house was spotlessly clean.

I have heard some horror stories though but you should remember that contents of the house that are included as part of the sale such as light fittings, white goods etc are all part of the negotiation and you will be asked to document this.

If you agree that curtains for example are part of the sale and the vendors then remove them you are entitled to gain legal and financial redress from them as long as they were itemised as part of the legal documentation.

Should add that you should remember that contents can be part of your negotiation strategy.

For example, you offer £188k and they say £190k and we have a deal....your rebuttal could be to offer £190k on the condition that the curtains, white goods, garden shed etc etc are included.

Obviously it depends on if you want any of these things and what you think they are worth.

I'm a doer upper re houses so generally shy away from any inclusion of contents - but as a FTB it's worth things about how much all this stuff can cost.

Sorry another though - be wary of assuming what is included.

Lots of people get caught out with things like range cookers and move in to find a gaping hole in the kitchen.

First rule is if it isn't built in and is potentially removable then assume it's not part of the sale unless YOU specifically specify that it is.

YY to checking what is included in the sale. With my first house it was the opposite though- the sellers had left the house full of junk (think broken bed frames, cabinets, massive dog kennel in the garden . . .) which they just couldn't be arsed to get rid of.

I've been advised recently by somebody in property not to buy unless vendors reduce by 12% as that is likely to be the short term fall in the market

We were once selling a house- when stamp duty boundaries were very fixed. Knew exactly what it would sell for based on boundary

We got a very low offer as soon as put on the market. Refused it. They came back with more, pleaded poverty , tried to get stuff included but we had written them off as time wasters. I didn't continue any negotiations- told them the price we wanted. They came back below that again and wanted even more thrown in.

Got offer from another couple at expected price. They didn't try to plead poverty or get the brand new £2k fridge and most of my inherited furniture thrown in.

1st couple then came back irate and said that they would have paid the same price. Well why didn't you offer it then?

That said OP- if you can really only afford much less them make a low offer but don't do it and then up the offer time and time again. If it is a low offer as that is all you can afford then be honest with them and make 1 offer.

Just because the price is 220 doesnt mean its actually worth that. Definitely go in with lower offer!

Im looking to buy too and my uncle, who i hold in high regard, has lovely properties loads of money and brains told me to go in with "almost rude" offers.

Justanothernumber2
Elodie; they offered considerably less and to be honest it indicated to us they weren't remotely serious about actually buying the house.

Except that they viewed your gouse liked ot and started the offering process. You sound so entitled. Couldnt you just say "no, want want £x"??

I would say go for it op. We put in an offer at a similar level of reduction, but the most we could afford on a house we hadn't stepped inside I know, imagine the nerves.
Seven weeks later we had a phone call from the ea accepting our offer.
What the ea said was at whilst the offer was less than they hope for it was enough for them to move and they liked 'us' based on what ea had told them.

So I would say you have nothing to lose.

I would be really frank with the agent: say you love the house but simply aren't able to raise more than 190, so you'd like to put an offer in at 190 just in case. They will try all sorts of pressure to get you to raise the offer, just keep repeating 'I wish we could but we just don't have it.'

Make it absolutely clear to the agent that you are chain free and completely flexible on move dates and willfit in with whatever seller needs. This might be more valuable than £30k if it enables the seller to get a deal they want on whatever they buy next.

Remember, at all times, the agent is working for the seller, NOT you, they are not neutral and many will happily lie to you.

I'd go lower

But also do your research look at sold prices in the area. Look at what they paid for it.

I have a toolbar on my Pc which gives toy all the changes and how long it's been listed and any changes in price etc.

You can't go down so always start low.

No elodie we certainly didn't gazunder. We haggled on the price because it had been on the market for a year without a single offer, and the couple were getting divorced and desperate to sell. So we were cheeky but not offensive (I hope).

We planned to get the house deep cleaned anyway because of their dogs. Tbh all the issues cost much less than 65k to resolve and I think they were arseholes who would probably have been less than considerate anyway. (3 teenage kids who didn't want to move, apparently - we know this because they wrote all over the bedroom walls ) It's just put me off making any more piss-takey offers because I cried buckets on our completion day and for a week afterwards