Is this normal when making an offer on House?

[offerquery]

I've seen house to buy. It's been on the market for around two months or so. It's already been reduced in price online.

When it was reduced, I made an offer slightly under the asking price. After a couple of days they said they want full asking price.
So I immediately offered the full asking price.

Anyway, I haven't heard anything so I've just called the estate agents and they said the family want to think about it. So they will get back to me on Tuesday.

I was really confused about this because I've offered the full asking price so I'm not sure what there is to think about?

She said they feel somebody else might be interested in the property. I asked a couple of questions about this… It turns out the person who is "interested " hasn't sold their house and hasn't said they want to make an offer. They've simply said they like the house. But have not indicated at all that they are looking to make an offer.

I have a feeling I know who this is because when I was viewing the house for the second time, a woman was there and I heard her say that she likes the house and that was it. So I'm not sure if that's the person

I just don't understand. I'm not sure if they're trying to get more than the asking price from me. Or if they're just waiting to see if they get any other offers over the next few days?

This happened to my parents, cash buyer no chain offered full asking price.

They dicked them around and then when all the surveys were done said that there was another buyer could they up the offer by 5K. So my parents withdrew their offer at EOB.

Panicked call from EA next day.. the other offer "didn't come through" so my parents could now buy at full asking.

My parents offered 5K less than the original offer and it was accepted.

@Ger1atricMillennial
Oh my god really? These people will try anything! It seems so daft to me to think of them playing silly games like that for an extra £5k when they could risk losing the sale. Glad it worked out for your parents.

@Scarletttulips
They did email me a letter to say that my offer had been passed to them. I emailed them with my position.
I will email them tomorrow with a deadline.

Continue looking for a house

The English system is awful. I have done both. In Scotland it’s not always a closing date where the highest bidder wins. Far more often you make an early offer to avoid waiting for closing yes it’s offers over but you know how much to offer because you take advice from market experts in that area. Also the value is based on the survey which the buyer has done prior to your offer so you can have full acces to that before you decide to make your offer or not and you know what the mortgage companies will support you paying since it’s value based. You offer legally via solicitor with a date and time for acceptance eg. Seller must respond within 12 hours or offer is invalid sort of thing and it’s all completed within about 6 weeks. You agree move in date ant this time too. Easy. England. Not so much. Takes months and that was an easy no chain purchase.

The EA could still tell viewers the property has received an asking price offer - they could omit the little detail that the offer has subsequently been removed.

Personally I wouldn’t do anything more, just wait until after the weekend. It isn’t a great market at the moment so it’s probably unlikely they will receive a better offer than the one you have made whatever the EA says. But you definitely should demand a response next week.

Quite right.

Im with @FredsRoses @LoobyDop on this
And agree probate reduces urgency.

We put multiple offers in on a probate places
We stop viewing any probates in the end because they either wanted us to wait 18m and/or were trying to squeeze every pound possible. We had multiple offers at or over asking price rejected.

Set up viewings and keep your options open.i was v upset about 1 of them but the house we ended up with was wayyyy better than the probates ones.

We’re selling our house and we haven’t had any offers yet (although it’s not been on long).
We had a family who expressed they were interested but we showed them round and they picked apart everything in the house and were commenting on how much needed doing (it didn’t). We decided that if they made an offer we’d decline because they just gave off the vibes that even if they offered at asking they’d make it a nightmare and that they’d try and chip the price away at a later date!

@TemuSpecialBuy
Im glad you ended up with a house you preferred. I was thinking of it differently because in my mind I thought they'd be eager to sell as quickly as possible to get the money from the house. Obviously not. Didn't think that about probate houses but I'll definitely bear that in mind now.

Until you exchange, you don’t own the house. Some estate agents continue to ‘quietly’ market a house until exchange.

I do think that everyone has their own ethics about house buying and selling. Personally I like to behave honourably until I am messed around. Then bets are off.

They clearly aren’t honourable (you should ethically accept an asking price offer unless it is a ‘weak’ buyer) so you don’t have to be either. If they come back and accept your offer, it clearly means they haven’t had a better one, so I would reduce it at that point.

Never think that you own a house before you do or that you need one particular house. It puts you in a very weak position.

You keep saying it has been on for months with lots of viewings and yours is the only offer - but forgetting that it was attracting all these viewings at the higher asking price if I read you OP correctly.

So as soon as they dropped the price they have had your offer and continue to attract lots of viewings.

The sellers do seem to have quite a lot of potential buyers. I'm not surprised they are continuing viewings at the new lower asking price.

How much did they lower the price by?

I think every situation is different. I had to sell a probate property and we were keen to sell as quickly as possible. Not just for the money but also because it can be emotionally difficult.

You may well get a good response from them next week but have to be patient over the weekend I feel and not phone the EA again.

100% withdraw the offer this morning. You are being used by the agent and vendor to drive the price up.

Happened to us in a divorce sale. They wanted to maximize their individual share and kept telling people they had an offer 'close to asking price' so they could get offers at that and higher.

House we ended up with, we offered asking on the condition it was removed from the market immediately, no one else to view. They had people knocking on their door begging to look round, luckily for us they were decent people and refused.

Don't be surprised if, after the weekend, and no further offers are forthcoming, they come crawling back to you. At which point, you go back to your original offer.

It really confused me when I bought my first flat that I offered the asking price and was told I had to wait for the seller to consider it. I'd assumed the asking price was what they wanted! (It wasn't "in the region of xxxx" or "offers in excess of yyyy" it was just listed as a price.)

I think as others have said it’s different when it’s an estate sale. It doesn’t sound like these vendors are in much of a rush- they know they’ve had a lot of viewings & are willing to hold out to see if they get a higher offer. It’s not like they are reliant on this sale for an onward purchase. That’s probably why they don’t seem that bothered or have that level of urgency.

@Twiglets1

I am bearing in mind the emotional aspect of it. When I viewed it the first time, everything had been left exactly as it was then the family member passed. The estate agent said the family had found it difficult to come to the house. Then I went back a few weeks later and it had been tidied up a little bit. The neighbour said they're keen to sell to buy they're own house. Their family member only lived in the house for 2 years before they died.

Thats sad.

It sounds to me like they actually are motivated to sell the house but maybe just want to delay accepting your offer slightly as they have another viewing(s) lined up over the weekend. The EA should contact you early next week with an update on whether they are accepting your offer or not.

I wouldn’t try playing games. But I would be firm that you don’t want to offer any more money.

This might sound a little bit naughty.
I actually had no idea she was going to do this,
But my mum has just messaged me to say she phoned the estate agent this morning and asked if she could book a viewing.

They said to her that they are not holding any viewings at all now over the bank holiday weekend. And they told her that an offer had already been made that will very likely be accepted.

Do you think that's a good thing that they've said it's likely to be accepted?
Or do you think that could be so that someone bumps up the offer?

That sounds promising for you.

Probate sales can be a nightmare - possibly one of the beneficiaries was holding out for more but has now been made to see sense by the others! It's very common.

@Elphame
I really hope so! I would really love it if they didn't make me wait until Tuesday, but I think I might just hold out until then, especially as I know they are not having any viewings this weekend. That does make me feel a little bit better

We viewed a house twice and then someone else made an offer. The estate agent then contacted us to say an offer had been made and if we were still interested we would have to make an offer then. We declined but maybe the other party has asked for a day or so.

When we sold our house we did two days of viewing and then allowed three days for those that viewed the property to put in an offer before deciding which offer to accept. We wanted to give all those that viewed the chance to make an offer but didn't want to disadvantage those that need a day or so to make a decision. We did best and final offers so no bidding wars. We had a list of preferred buyers too so it wasn't necessary about cost - we would have accepted slightly lower from polite punctual viewers over the family that turned up late and allowed their child to rummage through our clothes in our bedroom drawers and jump on the bed!

This is a cautionary tale not to bring emotions into house purchases. Though obviously I accept and understand it does carry emotions (and have been there myself!), I do think it's a good idea to continually remind yourself that at the end of the day it's a business transaction and that everyone is either trying to get the best deal for their purchase and the best price for their sale.

I don't think two months is terribly long to be on market, especially considering that mortgage rates were unexpectedly hiked again in May, and lowering asking price does often cause a flurry of new interest from buyers who were previously out of budget. When a vendor has already price dropped, I do not blame them for using an offer to encourage other potential buyers. I would do the same, as I'd want to achieve the very best outcome.

When we viewed our current house it has been on market for almost a full year and had price dropped a number of times – it was still receiving a flurry of viewings from the most recent price drop. We offered under, rejected, full asking, then they waited a few days as they then had another potential buyer offer full asking. They chose us after we wrote them a nice letter and we had cute baby twins. The other potential buyer was a single man. Go figure!

Interesting that people think a probate sale lacks urgency - I would want to sell as quickly as possible to get rid of the responsibility of the house - and presumably people like to get their inheritance too.

Although I know when MIL died, my sister in law and my DH took that view - my brother in law was keener to wait for higher offers but SIL and DH persuaded him a bird in the hand was better.

That sounds promising for you that the EA was putting people off viewing and believes the vendors are very likely to accept your offer.