House Purchase: DH - seller is going to be difficult

[Stellaaaaaaa]

Need some advice re a house purchase.

The house we are interested in is being sold by the children of the owners, to pay for their care home fees. The parents have both in residential care for over a year.

The house came on the market in late spring/ for £750k but was later reduced to £735k.

It remained on the market at £735k and an offer was accepted in July / August.

The house has come back on the market because the prospective buyers failed to sell their home.

We’ve had two viewings and placed an offer of £705k which was rejected. We placed a second offer at £712k, a day later, which has also been rejected.

I think our offers are reasonable based on the condition and other comparables. The local market has had a slow down this past month, and a few houses are back on the market.

We are chain free, having sold our home earlier this year.

I want to place another final offer but DH is no longer interested.

He thinks the sellers will mess us around because there isn’t the incentive for them to push through sale, unlike a normal sale. He also thinks they won’t negotiate on price if the survey reveals faults.

Has anyone purchased a house which is being sold by someone who has power of attorney? Does it make things more complex?

Id like to get people’s thoughts if they have similar experience?

Someone needs to point out to the sellers that by hanging on for their asking price, theyre losing out on a massive amount of interest on the money. They should be acting in the best interest of their parent, and believe me, £712k put into a high interest account will generate a massive amount of interest per month whilst leaving the house unsold.
For example, investing that amount for a year at 3% interest would have increased the total by over £21K! They have lost out on that money by holding out for a further few £1000s.

My sisters and I just sold out childhood home as dad had to go into care

it is different in that’s what we are not in a hurry or in a chain, we wanted an as pain-free transaction as possible

we priced the house factoring in that it pretty much needs a complete revamp and worded it that way too

we chose a buyer who was proceedable, no chain, could move in 2 months, who wants to gut it and completely do it up (it has not been changed since the seventies 😁) factors for us were:

• proceedable
• no chain
• realstic about the state of the house
• wants to use house as family home
• came in with a serious reasonable bid as a first bid

they were not the highest bidder but looked like the easiest to deal with buyer

ultimately we were under a lot of stress already and we just wanted it done. 5k was neither here nor there it will all go to care anyway

but we we did not want faffers if that makes sense

This thread is, in microcosm, what is wrong with the housing market!

It is a business transaction at the end of the day - you want to buy a product, they have a product to sell, the estate agent will make a commission on that sale (and the difference to them as to whether it sells for 725 or 712 is neither here nor there).

I would leave your offer on the table (for a set period of time) and then walk away if they don't come back.

Houses on our street were on for £895 at the beginning of the year - one is now on at £825. The market is softening and people have less money in their pocket - you are in a good position; I would hold firm..

It's a business transaction.

It's also entirely reasonable to ask why someone is selling a home - in the same way that they seller can reasonably ask the buyer to explain their position and source of funds.

Houses are worth what someone is prepared to pay for them. And the seller's situation can't be that desperate, otherwise they would have accepted an offer by now.

Purely out of curiosity, have you checked on Zoopla if they've priced realistically? It's just an estimate but still. Clearly they have decided what they want to sell for - I'm with your husband on this one. I'd tell the EA my offer is on the table for x weeks and walk away.

I agree with this. You’ve tried quite a low offer. If the second was too low, think what they must have thought of the first.

I’m not sure any of that suggests they will muck you round; however, it sounds to me as though your DH has got a bit of rejection ache and will be too proud to try again, which is your real problem here I think.

Thanks everyone for your comments.
There are some posters who are suggesting we are messing the sellers by offering to low. I don’t think an offer 4% below asking equates to messing anyone about.

They are the one with the house whether an offer is reasonable is not up to you but them

So offer what they are asking for or move on

Asking prices around our area have been reduced by 2%-5% on Rightmove.

We will go back with a final offer.

You are majorly overreacting here. They will probably have volunteered this information to demonstrate that they will be the end of the chain. And I'm afraid it is often blindingly obvious when a house is a probate or moving to care home sale just from looking at the pictures on a listing.
"Why are you moving" is quite a standard question to ask, although you may not get a 100% truthful answer.

With the reduced price, you need to bear in mind that they have already done a reduction, they dropped £15k. You then came back with an extra £30k below, which makes the drop from their original expectation £45k. Appreciate you stayed above £700k, but you got the numbers wrong because you forgot about the original reduction meaning it just isn't enough. Offering £720k to settle on £725k would have been the expected amount. If you feel that's too much, then you walk away rather than mucking about with £705k!

Agree with this. I think based on asking price your offers were low. As the vendor is probably expect offers starting at £715k with a view to agree something around £725k.

Obviously you think your offers are reasonable! You want to buy it!

If you really want it up your offer or just walk away.

Just checked zoopla: estimate was from £692 to £730k.

Good luck, OP.

In my experience (actively house-hunting for the last 7 months or so) people have unrealistic expectations of what their houses are worth.
A lot of properties are not selling and being significantly reduced.
We viewed a property with an asking price of £700k but did not think it was worth that much due to the size and condition of the property and the large amount of work required. We looked at Zoopla to compare with sold prices of similar houses on the street, including houses that had extensions and loft conversions, and we felt that given the amount of work required, the house was worth £625k. I had a few conversations with the agent who actually said that none of the other people who viewed the house thought it was worth £700k and no one else was interested in making an offer. Personally I think the asking price should have been £650k and they should have considered £625k. However, they rejected our offer of £625k despite having no other offers. They have now reduced the asking price to £675k but still no offers. I can only conclude that they don't really want to sell.
All very frustrating! But I am not willing to overpay.

FWIW if you're going to make a final offer I would make it no less than £720k.
Depends how much you want the house.

Nobody is in the wrong. You’re not in the wrong for offering what you have but they’re not in the wrong for saying no. It’s still their house, and they have the upper hand.

Yes, we were in the process of buying a house like this. It was a nightmare. They would not budge on the asking price at all because there was no incentive to do so and every little thing had to be discussed between the children so it took forever to get answers.House had very archaic heating system etc, and we couldn’t find out anything without weeks of waiting. It was like one of them didn’t really want to sell the house so was stalling but that’s just a guess on my part! We ended up offering what they wanted because I couldn’t t find anything else in the area that I liked. I knew it wasn’t really worth the price though. Fortunately for us our chain collapsed ( in hindsight it was fortunate!) and we couldn’t sell anyway. We ended up staying put but I’m really glad it all fell through as it was such a tricky negotiation process and don’t think it would have got better.

That is what I am worried about. There might be 3 brothers and it will be painfully slow if they need to agree on every single thing.

Then offer what you want, they can accept or not it is their house

It doesn't really matter if you don't think they were low offers. The vendors think the offers were too low to accept, that's all that counts really. I don't agree with your OIEO comment, they've reduced the price; that is the amount they want for the house now.

If you would really like the house, now you've tried low offers that have been rejected, put in an offer of the maximum you'd be prepared to pay and see what happens.

You made your offers, they rejected them move on

I absolutely wouldn’t put it on the table for 1 month.

They will use that as a springboard for every other offer.

Yes but I had a sensible buyer who took my offer (chain free) over another higher offer (had not yet sold their house) and then was prepared to negotiate further when the survey came back.

When they have already had an offer (presumably) close to 735 they will think someone offered it once so someone else will in the future. That means it’s really hard to get them to go super low. If you can’t offer 725+ I’d walk away.

If the sellers are multiple adult children as opposed to a couple, they might have agreed a hard line price below which they don’t go. Rather than second-guessing them on price, your best bet might be to communicate how quickly you can move - we can close by x date, this is advantageous to the vendors as if the house is currently empty, it may be less appealing for them to leave it over the winter. So speed is your final card to play.