To ask how much you offered under on a house?

[Auramigraine]

Hi all

Went viewing a house today, it’s perfect location, great style house but it is a bit small and a lot more work needs doing than earlier anticipated (new kitchen) etc..... the asking price is £135k which is excessive in the area for the type of property it is. One on the same street sold for £130, but it has its own drive and a lot more modern than the one we are going for (ours has a shared drive) estate agent seemed to agree it wasn’t worth the actual asking price and seemed happy for us to put a lower offer in, but my question is how much is too much for them to think we’re taking the p*ss? I’m thinking roughly 10k/ 10% under asking price but wondering what reaction I may get to that so thought I would ask first, how much did you manage to get off a property?

First time buyer so new to all this!!

Thanks x

I’m reeling reading all the house prices!! Where does everyone live??? It’s 500k plus for a medium sized detached house here!! Clearly living in the wrong area!! Chuck me some areas for those 200k prices please!! Where should I be living? Clearly not anywhere in the south!!!!

I'm in the north east

We offered £2k more than asking. I was seven months pregnant and we were desperate to move and had looked up on Zoopla what he'd paid for it three years before. We knew he'd been turning down what he called 'insulting offers' and basically knew he wanted to walk away feeling he'd made some money on what he'd paid.

In the end he made £2k.

Don't regret it for a second. Love our house. And when we came to get our mortgage there were no concerns we were paying over the odds (our one concern!)

Nottinghamshire - the house we bought for 101k is probably worth about 125k now. Fairly standard 3 bed semi

First place on for £149,950 - we bought for £145,000

Put it on when it was time to sell for £299,950 - happily accepted £290,000

Second place on for £420,000 - had been reduced to this. Paid asking.

18 - years ago, was up.for £49,500 offered £47,000 and finally agreed at £49,000 - the house was being sold privately so was probably £5k under valued and I wouldn't have been able to afford it at that point (was 22 earning £14k and remember my mortgage rate was 6.5%!)!

It also depends on supply and demand for a particular area. I had a house for sale with an asking price of £295,000, & wouldn't accept anything under that and eventually sold it for £299,995 as 3 people got in a bidding war for it. But I definitely think the location was a lot to do with it!

Erm. Shared drive. I’d not. We have new neighbours now so all is fine and dandy. But for over 10 years with the last ones it was awful.

I’d knock at least 7 off for the lack of own driveway.

We got our house for 20k under the asking price

We put in an offer for 320 on a 350k house. It needed a load of work (without needing a survey to see) and others on for that price on the same road were modernised. They refused, fair enough, but estate agent was arsy. We found one we loved, offered a bit under again and got it.

Arsy estate agent rang back 3 times due to the house still, over 2 years later, being on the market. Funnily enough it's now at 330k so will eventually got for 320k or less.

@IAmTheChosenOne

Genius. We've just had an offer rejected and I've just text DH to tell his mate to put in a lower offer

There just isn't an answer to this... it depends on so many things, such as, the price of the house, its location, and desirability. Its current price relative to other sold houses, its condition at time of sale, how long it has been on the market and how much interest there has been. In our area, it even depends on which agent is marketing it - one is known to heavily over-value, and another is known to price to sell. Your position as a buyer (whether you're in a chain, whether you're proceedable) also plays a part. The idea that you can simply ask for 10% off is unrealistic. Sometimes you can, sometimes you're going to go to sealed bids.

All anyone can do is weigh up how much they want the house, and how much it is worth to them.

Houses round here (booming East Mids market town) seem to be selling for 10% under the asking price. However the market has now stalled, partly due to the massive number of new homes being built (which are way more expensive for the space you get) partly due to brexit and people waiting to see what happens!

@Auramigraine I feel a little guilty now! It wasn't my intention to completely put you off, more to forewarn of the issues possible. I read some real horror stories, not including a woman on here the other week whos husband regularly blocked their shared drive causjng major issues with neighbours.

You will find the perfect place. [Flowers]

@Merchant I’m South west

Nothing. House was offers over £250k (not Scotland), paid £255k as there was a lot of interest. Houses of this size and price go bloody fast here. There was no chance of getting anything under asking price.

Mum’s house was on for £400k, sold for £390k

We had advice with ours so made the offer we were ‘told’ to. House was up for 135 (found out later it had been on at 155 but was definitely not worth that), first offer was 116, went up to 121 (which they nearly accepted!) but eventually settled on 126.

But there’s so many factors. We were buying from someone who has bought it outright for £12k and rented it out for 20 years. Everything she made was profit (there was minimal upkeep and we’ve had to rip it apart to start again) and age basically wanted to know she’d made £100k on her investment. Whereas my aunt is trying to sell at the moment and is desperate to move but will stay put if she doesn’t get the £350k she wants. (She won’t, the cesspit and oil tank need replacing!)

We offered 10k less, they accepted 8k less in the end. You’ll never know until you try.

Put in 10k less and negotiate from there. The estate agent is the one who priced it so unsure why he thinks it's worth less.

I offered £5k under, they refused, I paid asking price because I really wanted it.

Ours was 227k when we viewed initially. Before we put an offer in they dropped it to 199k, we offered 185k which the accepted.

The house was massively over priced initially, and had bright red carpets and walls in every room along with a mirrored ceiling in the master bedroom and a black ceiling in what is now our sons room.

Took thousands to sort it all out!

We offered 5k under but they accepted straight away so wished we'd offered less now with how much work we've had to do. Paid £122,000 for a large 3 bed terrace, East Of England.

@AdobeWanKenobi

Noooo please don’t feel guilty!! It was on my mind before I posted this anyways about if we had neighbours who couldn’t be civil enough to share but I’m hoping to buy my forever home and wouldn’t settle if we got new neighbours a lot......

I’m glad for the warning, honestly xx

On for £225 offered £200 got it for £207. Always offer under, if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Reading this thread is an eye opener on the huge disparity between different areas in the UK. I'm used to seeing 700k plus for house prices. No wonder so many people leave london.