to think the vendor will accept our offer?

[LucasTheSpider]

Been house hunting for the best part of a year now. Needless to say, last year was pants and there were not a lot of properties coming to the market.

Things seem to have started to improve now and we've a few viewings these last few weeks.

Our budget is 500k (we could maybe stretch to 505-510k at a push, but no more).
We viewed a house last week that has been on the market since October 2023. The asking price is 550k. The vendor has found a property they want to buy and is obviously waiting on getting a buyer for their property. We are chain free (staying with family) and have offered 500k. Should hear back from the EA tomorrow.

Am I being ridiculous to think they'd accept our offer? I'm expecting the EA to call tomorrow and tell me that our offer has been rejected. It's been on the market for a while now though, and if they want to move, they need to sell.

Your thoughts? Anyone else been in a similar situation and had their offer accepted?

Good luck @LucasTheSpider. You have a decent chance of getting it if they have had no other offers since October 23.

Thanks all for your comment, thoughts and advice. We will probably hear back from the EA tomorrow, so I'll post an update.

How can anyone possibly say without knowing more information. Can you share a link?

It's all realtive.

From the third property we moved into, it was chain-free and had cash offers by us as we hate chains.

So if you was chain free, had cash or ready to go with a mortgage, in our experience sellers are more willing to lower price but not always

you can only try but dont forget if they accept a lower offer and chain crashes, they may want more as prices creep up

It was the EA who brought the house to our attention. He encouraged us to view it. Perhaps he's overestimating what he thinks we'll be able to stretch to?

Either that or he knows they're desperate to move - though of course he won't pass that onto you

Offering 10% less is by no means unreasonable, especially when Rightmove's packed with reductions now, and with the time it's been on the market and your buying position they may well be unwise to refuse

It'll depend what their own purchase is priced at of course, but with the same EA involved across the chain maybe they can ease things there too?

Anyway good luck; as you say, if you don't ask you don't get

I've recently accepted a 10% reduction on a property worth half of yours. I could do this as I'm not buying anywhere yet as have another property to sell. My house is not lovely and needs a lot of work and am quite grateful to get an offer at all.
In your case, they have their eyes on somewhere and I would expect them to come back and initially reject your offer. You could offer the extra £10k but what if you need to do work on the house, where would that leave you?
Don't let them leave you 'hanging'. Tell the agents 1 week and then you will withdraw.

Our offer was rejected 😔
I was expecting it, but it's still burst my bubble.
The EA said the vendor hasn't given an indication on the lowest they'd accept. All they've said is that they are looking closer to the asking price.

Well, I guess that's that then. Back to house hunting. My sister said to go back in with our max offer of 510, but from what the EA said, it doesn't sound like they'd take that either.

I'd be shocked if they accept.
I'd be surprised if they go for anything less than 530

Don't go back with anymore, time will tell if they get any other offers and if not they may well come back to you. You were true to your word.

Good luck finding your dream home.

It’s a shame they rejected your offer but it was a big drop.

I would say to the agent to bear you in mind if anything changes but that your absolute maximum is 510 as you just can’t afford to go higher.

Then keep looking. And make sure the agent doesn’t let you be persuaded into viewing anything in a higher price bracket. Not just for your benefit but to ram home to them that it is your maximum. I think sometimes agents think that although you tell them your maximum they think you don’t really mean it!

Of course you can go back with your highest offer. You have nothing to lose. You're not going to be in any worse position and there's an outside chance they might reconsider. What is the downside?!

(Edited to add: you can only control what you do, not them. So no point second guessing.)

@LucasTheSpider Firstly when buying or selling, be very wary of believing anything an EA tells you. Secondly, go back to the EA, or even drop a letter through the vendors door, upping your offer to £510-£515k. Make sure everyone is very clear this is the final offer, as it is the top of your budget. There will not be any further increases.

If accepted, great, if not you are in no worse a position than you initially were. Walk away from that house, there will be others, it may not feel like it currently but there will be.

Buying and selling is never easy, you may walk away now, if the offer is rejected, the vendorsmay struggle to sell and come back to you at a point in the future.

Only worry about the aspects you can influence, which currently is to increase your offer to the maximum. If the EA keeps saying they will not accept all they are doing is working for the vendor to get the maximum price, they may have said to the vendor, I think I can get Lucasthespider to pay £530k for example.

Good luck!

I'm not surprised they wouldn't accept £50k below asking when it's only been on the market since October in a slow market.
It's a common estate agent trick to try to make you fall in love with houses above budget, in the hopes you can just increase your budget.
What I would say though is ask to be notified if they reduce the price, and save as much money as you can.
We had a call about 4 months after a viewing, the house had been reduced by enough that it was only £5k over our maximum budget. We had saved enough that by the time completion had come around we knew we could afford it. As it happens, we'd fallen in love with somewhere else so we didn't take it anyway, but the option was there.

Conveyancer here. IMO all prices should be subject to survey/review of the legal title anyway. I’ve a Client at the moment who is negotiating a further £15k off as the loft as enclosed spray foam insulation. Dependent on your area, house prices have fallen in the last four months so this property may well be overpriced now.

I don’t think there’s any harm in trying, they can only say no! We were in a similar position, we viewed house that was 525, our max was 475. They had a house they wanted to secure, the owner of that had found one she wanted to secure, so we knew they were keen to get a sale. We offered 475, they initially declined but rang back an hour later to accept! It really does depend how itching they are, plus the market has been dropping.

Plus remember agents play games, be VERY clear about your max to them and ask them o make that clear to vendors. Saves this silly phone tennis plying mind trick

Make your offer and see what happens.

I am looking at properties in an area we hope to move to. It’s pie in the sky really unless the ideal home comes up which is not that likely. There has been one property that could have been suitable, we want some land but a smallish house, there are many houses that have been on for months. My friend sold her house last year for quite a bit less than she could have but she had found her dream home. She sold for 350k and could have got 400k. It was cosmetically very dated and some houses that size are on for 450k, not selling though.

Excellent advice

Sorry this one didn't work out OP - at least not yet - but there'll be others along

I agree with your sister. Tell the agent to go back and offer £510k, stress this is literally your final offer and reiterate that you are the ideal buyers.

Worst thing that can happen is you're still in the same position you are now.

Don't be too quick to increase your offer. Just because they have turned the first offer down, it doesn't mean they aren't considering it. They will wait in the hope that you will go higher (the estate agent has probably told them that you can).

We offered £600,000 on a house intending to go up to £620,000 if it was turned down. The asking price was £680,000. The offer was turned down. We waited for a (nail-biting) week and were just about to increase our offer when the estate agent called to say they would accept our original offer.

It's a buyers' market and the asking price will be more than the house is worth (they all are at the moment). If they don't get any better offers, or they think they might lose the house they want, they'll come back to you.

10K less is one thing…but you offered 10% less?

That’s a huge whack.

‘Closer to the asking price’ at £550K is £540K not £510K! There’s no harm in asking, but I’d think you were having a laugh if it was me and have you pegged as a time waster. ‘Ideal buyers’ are never ideal. Something always goes wrong tbh

I have bought six flats/houses in my life and always when it's been a buyers' market (as it is now). I have had offers turned down, but I have never bought a house for more than 90% of the asking price.

If a house has been on the market at £550,000 since October and has had no offers, it is unlikely to be worth much more than £500,000 in the current market.

House prices have gone down since October, so even if it was worth nearer the asking price then (which it probably wasn't, otherwise they would have sold it by now), it certainly won't be now.

OP would be foolish to pay more than the house is worth, just because the vendor has unrealistic expectations. Keep looking. You have an excellent chance of finding the right house at the right price.

I agree with this. I'm sorry they didn't accept your offer. I wouldn't increase it, just move on. They may come back to you in another month.
It's over priced or it would have sold by now at or near asking price. Meanwhile, prices continue to fall. More fool them for not trying to negotiate with you.

Thanks everyone for your supportive messages. We are holding off increasing our offer for the time being. We do really like the house.. but, we do feel it is overpriced at £550k. We could stretch to £510k, but it would be a real stretch for us, so we're not sure we'd want to. There's no rush for us to make a decision, so we'll sit on it for a little while longer while we work out what's best for us. Meanwhile, hopefully house prices and interest rates continue to fall and maybe something else might come up if this house wasn't meant to be ours.

Spray foam insulation is a disaster, but I meet so many people who are very proud of it!!

I never take offers at any stage, price to sell and thats it, keeps it simple and sets your stall out early.