Aibu to ask for house buying advice

[Arfarfarf]

Specifically price related.

We are moving to Brighton. Need a 3-4 bed family home and have viewed several recently. We offered 405k on a 450k 3 bed semi (Brighton - house prices are insane). Got flat out refused without counter offer. It has been on the market for 9 months...

Never mind, we found another one for 450k, 4 beds this time. We really like it but how low do we go? Houses seem to be on for months as a rule which leads me to think they are overpriced, but sellers don't seem too happy to accept less. This particular one has only been on for a month and I want to toe the fine line between not overpaying but not pissing the seller off either... won't post link sorry similar ones in and around the same street vary from 385k (though these tend to not be as nice/need some work doing) to 570k which is laughable really...

Our situation: have to sell our own house (priced to sell, we don't want to mess about) which has only just gone on the market, and we have a mortgage agreement in principle.

Help!

You won't be taken seriously until you have a buyer for your own property. £405k on a £450k house is insulting from someone not in a position to proceed, sorry.

But is it? Lots of people have told me to go in at 10% less and start negotiating from that point. Especially on a house that has been on the market for a long period of time and is therefore clearly overpriced. I understand that we are not ready to proceed yet but if everyone waited until they had a buyer first before looking for a house no one would ever move

Seems fairly reasonable prices for Brighton, the prices are insane, I agree. Where in Brighton are you looking?

I never understand this idea of not wanting to insult a buyer. It takes two seconds of their time to say “no”.

The trouble with going 'too low', as you've found, is you risk offending the owner and cutting the negotiation short and not-so-sweet.

Knocking 10% off as an opening offer seems harsh to me, personally, even if it has been on the market a while. But in end something is only worth what someone is willing to pay!

No one is going to accept offers without you having sold your house first. They have no incentive to take the house of the market and forgo potential offers for a maybe.

That's cheap for a 4 bedroom house in Brighton!

Roselilly36 anywhere in Brighton would do tbh!

Areyoufree I agree and how insulted can you really be when the offer is still 100k than you paid 7 years ago... sigh.

How much can you afford? What does the home report say?

Personally I think £425 is a more reasonable offer but it depends on the above factors.

The fact that you don't have a buyer also makes you a less attractive prospect.

I was personally thinking 425 too.

As a Brighton local I can tell you that you’ll have to go to at least £435k to get any chance of one priced at £450k.

But yeah probably will need to find a buyer asap first. Which I really don't envisage to be a problem but I can understand it from the sellers' point of view.

Any serious seller won’t entertain an offer from you until you are proceedable.

Good luck in the house hunt op

I agree, you're not in a position to be making offers. Noone will accept an offer from you when you cant proceed. Get yours sold (under offer) then make offers. I completely agree that making an offer at £405k on a £450k house when yours has only just gone on the market is silly. No wonder you didnt get a counter offer, its just a waste of everyones time.

Completely depends where in Brighton you're looking but that is already the lower end of the market for that size of house (particularly a 4 bed)

It’s OK to look but pointless making offers until you have accepted an offer on your own from someone who is also proceedable.

Thanks runoutofideasnow

Ok thanks everyone, will hold off until we have an offer ourselves. And be less cheeky in our initial offers...

Oh and just to add, I've just bought in Portslade (a cheaper bit of Brighton) and got 2% below asking price because I was chain free. 10% off is huge

Brighton is much cheaper than I thought! I didn’t think you’d get any kind of house for £450k. It must be a bigger place than I realised...

But yep I would think £425k is a good first offer

@Arfarfarf

If you want the house simply pay what is asked! This shows you are serious and gets things moving.

We have always instructed our agents to list "fixed price" [i e no offers] and it works well. No chancers!

Pay what is asked only works if that's what the house is worth.

But if you can’t find what you want for £405k then how does that work OP?

We've only started looking - it's a bit early to conclude that we can't find what we want for 405k and therefore let's just pay whatever overinflated price someone wants