Loads of CF making silly offers on my home

[pV5p]

Is anyone else having issues with CF wasting time and making silly offers on houses?

We put ours up for sale end of October as we didn't want to move until next year. A very similar house was snapped up at full asking price within a few days earlier in the year so we waited to put it on the market.

But several people have made very cheeky offers (over 10% less than the asking) for a home that is very well priced and extended and in much better state than the neighbors that sold quickly. One was even at the same price as the neighbors when ours is worth far more and obviously we're not going to sell at that price as in no rush!

We've changed it to fixed price and not even had a viewing in two weeks. IS anyone else noticing problems with CF and weirdness at the moment? (south west)

At the end of the day it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay.

If the neighbours houses are selling quickly for the same price, but there is no interest in yours at the same price (or only lower offers) something must be putting buyers off.

Is your house well cared for, clean, in good repair? Is there clutter, eg lots of toys out or photos everywhere? Cobwebs? Signs of damp?

Do you have pets as that puts a lot of buyers off, they may feel they’d need to replace all the carpets and have it deep cleaned so they deduct that from the asking price.

Is your garden the same size and position? People often favour flat south facing gardens with lots of mature trees/shrubs for privacy, and a modern patio.

Maybe your neighbours have more modern kitchens/bathrooms? Or more recently fitted floors, freshly painted walls, newer boiler, more storage space, extra loo etc?

Unless you’ve looked around their houses you might be missing some subtle differences. Things like solid quartz worktops, underfloor heating, more natural light can secure a sale at the asking price.

It’s quite normal for people to offer under and haggle the price down, they’ll only offer what they think it’s worth.

Today i saw a house on our former estate come up for £240k. I thought it was insane. Strangely enough DH saw it later in the day and commented on it going 'how much???!!!'

Barely anything has shifted in the last two months around there and its priced £25k more than identical properties have ever sold for there. Its priced higher than better properties nearby and its still leasehold and has estate fees to pay unlike other properties. Its simply not worth that.

Either the estate agents or the sellers are trying it on. I can't decide which. A mortgage valuation will not come out at that price. It won't sell at anywhere near that price. I will be surprised if it goes for more than £220k.

@nosswith

Two words. Scottish Law. What we should have for house purchase, unless anyone has a better idea.

Scottish law does not force buyers to pay more than they want to for a house. It's a better system than England but not for this reason.

@Constance1 possibly but things are really slow right now .
We sold our house end of august and we probably have another 3 weeks (if we’re lucky) till exchange as everything has slowed right down and solicitors are snowed under as they’re working from home and the rush because of the stamp duty holiday has meant they’re even busier .
We are contract ready, so are our buyers but their buyers have been struggling with their solicitors as they struggle to get hold of them.
It’s very frustrating!

God where I am (south east) prices have rocketed because everyone is rushing to “save” on stamp duty. It’s got to level somewhere.

I always look to get £10-15k below the asking price and this isn’t CF - it’s just how it works

A house is only worth what someone is willing to pay.

Markets change really fast! It’s disappointing but you have to weigh up how much you want to move.

Sellers almost always think buyers are ‘CFs’. No one wants to accept a lower offer. But the clue is in the name with ‘offer’, as in you don’t have to take it - as it is with ‘asking price’, in that you can ask, but won’t necessarily get. If you think you deserve a better price, hold out for it - as long as you can afford to do so. Just remember too one owes you that price; if you need rather than want to sell, you’ll have to accept that you might not get what you want.

I had an offer accepted on a property on Monday after about a month of looking. It was the fourth property I’d offered on. My best offer on the previous two was £5k below the asking price. I’m not in a chain, I have a mortgage agreed - that’s worth something. Both vendors rejected my offer, as is their right, but surprise surprise: those properties are still on the market. One of the agents rang me last night to ‘see how the search was going’. Pound to a penny, he knows his client was daft to reject an offer that close to the asking price six weeks before Christmas, in the middle of lockdown and just prior to Brexit, and wanted to keep me on the hook. Too late - I found someone who did see the value in my position, and we negotiated a price that worked for us both.

P.S. Like a lot of others on this thread, I probably wouldn’t even look at a fixed price listing. You might think a property has a certain value, but I am valuable as a chain-free buyer too - I want to negotiate on the basis of that position.

I'm having the opposite problem - would love to buy a house, have had two purchases fall through this year not through our choice. We are cash buyers who are currently in a rented house and can move quickly. But we are seeing things on the market that are just stupidly overpriced for what they are. It's not even worth us going to look at a house priced at say 335K when it needs modernising - much more than redecorating - and other identical houses on the same road with the same outlook, footprint, garden size, and parking have sold for £310K recently already modernised and have nothing to do. We saw one house reduced from above our budget to just inside it - and it's still not even worth that for what it is. That said, it's clear there are still hotspots where people are prepared to offer over what seems to be a reasonable price - we'll just have to wait things out on those and look elsewhere in the meantime.

It’s overpriced, the neighbour took an offer.

A property is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it.

As said on other threads,sellers often confuse what their house is worth v what they need to move. The two are not always the same.

Also folks can’t see their homes properly, often dated kitchens, bathrooms, decor needing redone, flooring needing redone and they look at it and say gosh it’s just like next doors, when it’s not remotely.

Something is making buyers say this house is worth less, the issue is op you either don’t wish to or can’t see it.

I experienced similar to you OP (admittedly a long time ago)

We just briefed our estate agent, exactly as you have said to us - neighbouring house sold 6 months ago for x, this property has the extra additions of a, b and c - and for that reason it is being marketed at £ whatever.

Agent relayed this to buyers - who then went ahead at our asking price.

Also folks can’t see their homes properly, often dated kitchens, bathrooms, decor needing redone, flooring needing redone and they look at it and say gosh it’s just like next doors, when it’s not remotely.

I think this can work in reverse too. A neutral refurb can add value to a property, but you need a buyer who loves your taste if you want to bump the price up on presentation. If you’re on the market at £250k because of your swish new kitchen and bathroom, but the one down the road with pine cupboards and an avocado suite is on at £240k, a buyer might think ‘I could get that for £230 - 235k and choose my own kitchen and bathroom’.

Things are slowing down after the inital rush after lockdown. Lenders have tightened their belts and a lot of people will be back on furlough with uncertainty over their jobs plus now is typically quiet time for property sales. As others have said there will be various factors why it hasnt sold and is only worth what someone is prepared to pay.

We bought earlier this year. We offered 12% below asking as we thought that was roughly what the house was worth.

Sellers refused and kept showing it. No proceedable offers better than ours.

We agreed on 8% below asking in the end.

It’s not personal or CF, people are just trying to get what seems like a good price, both buyers and sellers.

You remind me op of my old neighbours who priced their property high, convinced that was what it was worth. It was also what they needed to achieve to buy what they wanted. That was 3 years ago and they never sold. I think they’re happy with that outcome but you need to comfortable that might be the consequence of refusing to negotiate in the face of market conditions.

My mum has just sold her property for what the estate agent said she'd get if she wanted a quick sale. It's the price.

One low offer makes me think CF.

Multiple similar offers with nobody coming back to offer more makes me think overpriced house.

Totally agree with both @StillCoughingandLaughing's posts.

(Sorry, can't remember who posted this)
I thought a decent estate agent would get the offers and wouldn’t send you CF offers? Or at least collate them so you’re not bombarded.

I would hope that ALL EAs would pass ALL offers on to the vendor. It is up to the Vendor to decide whether it is worth them selling or not for the price offered, or whether it is worth starting to negotiate from that opening offer. It is not down to the EA to decide that any particular offer is to cheeky. It should also help the vendors to come to realise the current market value of their property, by hearing what offers they are getting, or indeed, that they are not getting any offers.

Also, with regards to the other similar house that sold recently, you’ve reminded me of a situation here a couple of years ago.

We live on the edge of a new-ish build estate. All if the homes are 3, 4, 5 or 6 bedroom houses. 95% I would say are detached. However the plot sizes vary ridiculously. On the road next to mine, one at each end, there are two 6 bedroomed detached houses. Due to road layout, islands, chicanes etc neither house offers the possibility to park outside (or even close by) and each only has a small one car driveway. Totally impractical for such large houses. In a village setting with next to no public transport (two buses per day in term time). Both went on the market at once. Both for around £500k. One sold very very quickly. The other still hasn’t sold, two years later. Having met the owners of the house that sold I now know they moved from the London area & wanted 6 bedrooms as several children and a set of parents living with them. They needed to move in a hurry so viewed both 6 bedroom houses available in an area they had previously chosen & bought the one that was chain free. It was as simple as that. Apparently the other vendor has never lowered their price as they believe their house is worth the same.

Sometimes it’s just circumstances & a vendor gets lucky.

@nosswith

Two words. Scottish Law. What we should have for house purchase, unless anyone has a better idea.

@nosswith People have massive misconceptions about the Scottish selling market. Offers are only binding once the missives have been signed, both parties can pull out up to that point and it can take weeks. Work in that industry it’s actually really common for sakes to fall through. People might not get the finance they need, another suitable will come up and they want to go for that or simply change their mind.

YY, I also agree with @StillCoughingandLaughing. We're currently house hunting and we've looked at a lot of places where it's clear the owners feel they've spent money on the house so dammit, they deserve that money back. Sometimes their choice of kitchen etc. is perfectly nice and sometimes, honestly, it's awful. But it's never going to be exactly what we'd have chosen, and there's something a bit depressing about thinking 'well, those metro tiles are two years old and the grey granite worktops are perfectly good, so we'd be silly to rip it all out, but ...'.

Very occasionally I've wondered if there's something wrong with a house, because it's done up all fresh and new but is on at the same price as a more run-down house with a similar amount of space. I couldn't be sure all the time, but you do wonder if someone's had to do that lick of fresh paint to hide the damp, or they've just re-plastered because it was all cracking off from subsidence.

I would always start at 10% ish below asking price, I had no idea that was considered insulting.
I would just expect a counter offer of 5% which I'd try to up to 7%.
Nothing personal OP, just everyone likes to think they've got a bargain.
If I was selling, I would probably inflate the price by 10% in anticipation of haggling.