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)

There's a house near me that was on at £X for a good while before covid. It's now on a offers over 70% of X. Everything else of a similar size locally has flown off the market.
It was overvalued when it was built and you can get much bigger, better situated houses locally for less. Yes it has a lovely kitchen but parking is difficult.

There’s a house opposite us that has a bigger kitchen diner and possibly slightly bigger garden ,that has been on the market since end of June.
Ours sold for about 6k over asking in august and we had 2 different offers in the first week (second was accepted) and the ones across the road still have theirs on the market .
They’re lovely people but seem stubborn as they’re asking way too much and won’t lower it at all which is why it’s still not selling.

@StillCoughingandLaughing

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’.

Totally agree, but not sure that’s the reverse. That’s a dated house selling for a Lower price, not a dated house being priced like it is not.

The point I was making is many folks can’t see their home is dated, and think it’s similar to a neighbouring property, when it isn’t. So instead of pricing it lower to account for that they price it like it’s been recently done.

Not saying that’s the ops issue, it could be great and just over priced, but I think logically she must know her house is not a special target for cheeky fuckers, and the fact no one wants to view it now the price has been fixed says it’s over priced for what it is.

I think avocado suites are so cool!! My parents friends had one. It was one door among a whole long row of wardrobe doors along one wall (slatted stained pine!!) that looked identical to each other. I could never remember which was the door to the green ensuite and it was so exciting trying all the doors until I found it :)

A house is what someone is willing to pay for it.

If the offers are all low, it's overpriced.

Simple and blunt but that's the reality. Market forces.

Why not put a link to the EA’s advert? MNetters love helpfully telling sellers what is wrong with their house.

Totally agree, but not sure that’s the reverse. That’s a dated house selling for a Lower price, not a dated house being priced like it is not.

What I meant was you get sellers who think ‘But why isn’t my beautifully finished house selling when that dump at number 12 sold within days?’ - not realising they’re asking buyers to pay a premium for something that’s the opposite of their taste.

I wouldn’t waste another moment thinking about that neighbour’s house. It could be anything, like:

Their garden was nicer;
Their buyers had been waiting to move to your street for ages;
Their decor was more bland and allowed viewers to more easily picture themselves living there;
Those buyers were in a mad rush;
Anything.

All you can control is how your house looks, and the price — that’s it.

The winter is always slower selling houses than the spring and summer. I think due to school terms.

I know it’s frustrating. We put my old house on the market a few years ago and had seven HUGE offers over the asking price. We put our current house on the market 2 years ago and didn’t have any. 😬

@TrickyD

Why not put a link to the EA’s advert? MNetters love helpfully telling sellers what is wrong with their house.

😂

I am on West Midlands and prices seem to be going up monthly here. I have noticed houses on same road are now going for about 7 percent more than beginning of year. But just because they are on market for more does not mean they sell at that price. If a person views and puts on offer now the backlog means it is unlikely they will complete on time for no stamp duty.

Terrible time to go on the market, would be better to wait until spring.

Afraid I am with the majority though that it sounds overpriced.

I would imagine OP isn't going to come back - they've had 7 pages of people telling them why they're wrong, but houses are emotive. This is why sellers get confused when they don't get offered what they think a house is worth... they are offended/refuse to accept that it's part of the process and continue believing everyone else is being a CF!

Will you share a link of your house with us so you can have more people look to see if they notice anything that could be off putting.

From the info you said, I would say your house is over priced. We were looking at moving earlier in the year and have since decided to put it off with second lock down, less job security and Brexit coming in.
The vaccine won’t produce any certainty until it’s rolled out and people feel confident in the economy again!
One of the house we actually looked at (which I think was over priced then) has dropped by over £30k in that time and is still on the market. You won’t sell a house that is over priced in the eyes of the buyers

@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)

I agree with everyone else on here. Your house is overpriced. The fact that no one is even viewing now you have gone for a fixed price proves it.

The housing market in most areas was flying late Spring/ Summer but it has cooled in a lot of areas in the past few weeks. Your neighbours may have sold their house at the time of peak demand and at a point when the buyer assured of getting the stamp duty holiday. Perhaps theirs was a 'doer-upper' which appeals to many people or perhaps there were other reasons why theirs sold quickly as well.
You have to look at the current market and your house is overpriced in the current market. The offers you are receiving aren't 'CF offers'. They are offering what they are willing to pay. Why are you assuming that prices will stay the same or continue to rise? It doesn't seem very likely when you look at the state of the ecomomy and Brexit happening very soon with the significant uncertainties and changes that will bring at least in the short-medium term. If the stamp duty holiday doesn't get renewed come March 21, prices will likely fall because of this too.

@mamangelo

Terrible time to go on the market, would be better to wait until spring.

Afraid I am with the majority though that it sounds overpriced.

depends where you are

Houses are flying here (South East), people must be rushing ahead of Christmas, Brexit and possible redundancies. I don't think a "for sale" sign has been up around here for more than a month. It's very fast.

Where is your house OP? Near a city? Everyone and their dog seems to be moving to the little villages just outside our city, there was a huge flurry over the summer but it's really slowed down now. My guess is your neighbours sold theirs during the flurry.

The house next door has been empty for almost a year now since the owner suddenly died. It’s a nice estate, good sized homes but the owner hadn’t modernised it since purchasing it and hadn’t looked after it much either. The family are asking for an amount I’d expect a modernised home in the area to go for which is just unrealistic. It needs a new kitchen, 2 new bathrooms and replacement windows and doors.

You need to be realistic with the asking price. If people aren’t even bothering to view it then you’re asking for too much.

@StillCoughingandLaughing
Totally agree. Would rather buy much cheaper and reburb slowly in my own style than buy one of those clean crisp refurbed houses for an extra 30k

I recall one poster on here asking why their house hadn’t sold when it was so much better than a neighbours house which had recently sold for less.

The neighbours house was fantastic, extended, new bathroom, kitchen the lot, the ops house had not been touched in decades, was clearly very dated and needed a lot of work. But the op was convinced it was nicer and much better than the neighbours so couldn’t understand why people didn’t wish to pay an increased price for it.

Someone else once commented that buyers were rude, apparently one had pointed out the windows needed replacing, but the op considered that even though this was true it was rude as fuck to say it

It’s quite bizarre how peoooe behave when selling.

If someone knocked on your door and said, “hi, I saw the for sale board - would you like to trade your house for this handful of magic beans?” then that would be a “cheeky” offer.

Otherwise... it’s just standard house selling.

Just because CF is the acronym-du-jour on MN for attention these days, doesn’t mean it applies to your house.

@Pasithea

Never offered full price on a house.

We did in 1999 when the market was red hot and bidding wars were common. Definitely wouldn’t now.

Come back when you have sold the house OP. Thats when you will know what it's worth.

It's worth nothing at all until someone wants to buy it off you.

In the interests of fairness, I also see a fair few deluded buyers on MN My favourite are the ones who complain they can’t live in their area of choice because of ‘greedy’ sellers. Yes, of course you get sellers who hold out for unrealistic prices, but if a whole area is out of budget for you, you need to accept that it’s nothing to do with seller ‘greed’ - you just can’t afford that area.

That's true. I think my parents may be deluded vicarious buyers. We're trying to buy and have a fairly modest (sane) list of essentials and another of desirables. They're helping us with a deposit so we run these past them, and it has become apparently they would really like us to buy a four bed house, with a large living room and kitchen, a spacious garden, off-street parking, and a good village location, for approximately 100-150k less than these things come on the market for. It's a learning curve ...

Sarahandquack

My parents were really openly unimpressed at what we got for our money buying a london flat. But then we sold it for nearly 80% more than we paid 4 years later.