Offering £30k under asking

[whatsontonight]

Viewed a house which we love, it needs a bit of work doing to it such as new paint throughout, carpets etc. It has a new ish bathroom and an ok kitchen. We offered £30k under asking, it is priced at 210k. The estate agent seemed completely shocked we had offered this and now I'm wondering if this was a CF offer

A house is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If it’s been on the market a while the vendors may be keen to accept at any price. At worst they can say no or ask you to raise your offer. Good luck

Good for you sweetie, enjoy your new home. Glad your cheeky offer paid off

I'm really surprised at all the people saying it's cheeky! It was an unwritten rule of house buying that your first offer should be really low (15% below asking) and you would expect it to be rejected. You worked your way up from that point and met somewhere in the middle. Different things determined whether the vendor will accept. Need to move quickly, no chain involved, first time buyer, mortgage ready to go etc. All of those those things would potentially encourage a vendor to go a bit below what they were asking.

I'd tell you to jog on. What an insult.
Carpets and paint will already be reflected in the price.
If you can't afford the house why waste their time.

I was an estate agent and once had a client offer 100k under. The seller didn’t accept. But hey. You don’t ask you don’t get.

@TitusPullo

I worked as an estate agent for 10 years

I never once knew of a client who refused to deal with a vendor. Not once.

Ours was on the market fairly cheap (500) and we offered 30 under, got rejected but estate agent let it be known they would be amenable to 485, could only go 480 and they accepted seemingly because the owner thought we were a nice family, and mortgage ready, no property to sell etc. Always worth a go, maybe when the agent gives your offer to the owners they can let him know their minimum?

Agree with PPs that houses are only worth what people are willing to pay. We were told by multiple people that we were paying too much for our house but they had other offers and we really really wanted it, for where it was and the huge driveway mainly.

@Lorieandrews - thank you for confirming that! I did once pull out of a house sale because of a batshit buyer but it was nothing to do with the price!

You can offer that you like. I would never accept that low an offer. X

Its what the house is worth to you. Nothing to do with the market price.

That's what it was worth to you, so no worries!!! I hope you get it. Buying a house is sooooo stressful.

Thats a pretty low offer at 86% of asking price. Its always worth looking at what the average % of asking prices go for in the area. Round here its around 95-97% of asking price so if its similar where the house is im not surprised the agent was shocked. Like others have said its up to you what you offer. Just be sure that you may lose it. We recently moved and we wouldn't even enter negotiations with those that came in with offer under 92% of the asking price as it wasn't worth our time

If you dont ask you dont get and you can always increase your offer if they say no! Go for it!

I don't think the offer is unreasonable, but I guess it depends what condition the house is and how well it was priced to begin with. Some people are very reasonable when pricing and price to sell the house, others go for maximum profit. Ultimately the sellers will come back with a counter and you'll reach a price you are both happy with so I wouldn't worry about it.

Plus, the estate agent is working for the seller and looking after their fee, so the more you pay the more they get!

Just hang on for a bit and see whether they come back to you. I think there is very rarely a "dream house" that you can't afford to let go.

The OP has updated, people!

It's gone very 'cancel the cheque' on this thread.

YOU CAN FILTER TO JUST READ THE OPs POSTS PEOPLE!!!!!!

I think that the main problem is that if you don’t have a decent relationship with your buyers and sellers when you come across problems you might find that someone won’t work through them.

We offered 175k on a house priced at 195k. The vendor refused and we settled at 185k. The surveyor priced it at 175k because there was some work needed on roof etc and we re-offered at 170k which the vendor accepted because they knew they wouldn’t be able to remarket at the original price after the drop in valuation. We did the work and resold at 220k three years later. It pays to stick to your guns and have a look at the survey report to see if the price can be shaved.

@CherryBlossomTree7 for context the house identical across from us sold for 325k the week before ours sold so actually it was very competitive despite ours needing less work.

Houses in my area actually don’t sell typically 10% under asking price - typically 10-25% over asking price as bidding on open days is usual. Therefore an offer under asking price when there are 20+ people looking round on day 1 is quite unusual.

We achieved over asking price and paid over asking price on our new place.

You might think it’s strange but it’s my honest experience which clearly differs from yours. Clearly OP wanted a range of opinions and mine is not less valid than yours because it’s different.

The market varies a huge amount depending on area.

Those are all cosmetic things though and easily and cheaply fixed. When we were buying we got our house even though our offer was lower as the other buyer’s first offer was way under. They then offered 5k more than us but vendors chose us as they knew we wouldn’t mess them around.

@Dopeyduck - that’s definitely the case in the current Bristol housing market. Most houses going above asking.

I offfered 50k under asking on my current house 5 years ago and got it for £30k under-was expecting to pay close to asking so was delighted

Shy girls get nowt. Good for you. Hope it goes through without any hitches

As earlier posters have indicated, your offer is just that, it's an offer.
It's either accepted or not.

When I put mine on the market last year, I was looking for 200

I sold for 195, my asking price was 220, there first offer was 180.
Pretty similar to yours I think.

The buyer wouldn't have paid stamp duty either and neither will you if your offer is accepted.

My advice is not to revise your offer until you have a response from the seller.

And CF? not at all