To think these house buyers are time wasters?

[Coolbeansjeans28]

Trying to keep this as clear as I can but it all seems a bit odd to me.

Context house on market for around a month, requires some work but this has been reflected in the price. Not looking to discuss this aspect.

Onto the real question. Had a viewing, was fairly brief and they have also got an offer in on another property but could pull out as they like our house, its location etc. In the end said house lovely but too large. Thanks but no thanks.

Later that day recieved an offer 100k under asking price due to work needed done etc. This offer was just declined as it is ridiculously below what we know the house is worth. This was later adjusted to 50k below stating they had made a mistake with the first offer (online EA). We countered with 25k below asking price as this is a low as we would like to go given the value of house and waht we need for onward purchase. They offered to meet in the middle of their offer and ours but we declined and they have said they need to consider if its affordable to them. We are happy to go a bit under with a stale market, lack of interest and just wanted to get the house sold!

But, the whole situation feels a bit off to me. The initial comment of it being too large so not for them, the purchase of another property which will be available sooner than ours (as they are currently in rented accommodation) and the messing about with wildly varied offers. My gut says avoid, but also if they come back woth an acceptable offer who am I to say no based on my own assumptions and imagining?

YABU - proceed with sale if offered.
YANBU - dont touch with a barge pole.

We had the same issues when we were selling our house. Buyers were coming in with ridiculous reasons to offer lower amount, one of them wanted to knock it down by 25K as there wasn’t an ofsted outstanding school in walking distance.

Our original buyer dragged his feet for a good month before instructing solicitors and then ghosted everyone for weeks before pulling out.

Our eventual buyer played games from the moment he looked at the property until we exchanged contracts…it was so much stress. He offered ridiculous under the value offers, tried to offer as cash in exchange for lowering the value, tried to make out the EA had told him we had originally sold it for less than we did and sat on the survey for months before suddenly having issues just as we were about to exchange. He eventually bought the property at the agreed price but only after the EA forwarded him a stern email from us basically saying we are more than happy to walk away from the sale and wish him well with upcoming wedding. Looking back I wish I went with my gut and gave him a swerve as he was still causing me grief months after he moved in. I think it all boils down to how much you want to move and how much you can afford to lose.

A month isn't a very long time for a house to be on the market, especially if your agent is not great. £100k under the asking price is a cheeky offer. This early on the market I think stick to your guns and hold out for the price you are comfortable with.

If your house had been on the market 6 months to a year then reconsider what offer you would accept, but a month is nothing. Especislly if it hasn't got the 'wow factor'.

Also, does the online agent verify that a buyer has funding in place? That would be interesting with this first set of interest.

I was wondering this too. You can have different packages, one is you do communication yourself.
When we were selling we were using a family friend as our conveyancing solicitor. She said she would not work with Purple Bricks. That spoke volumes to us.

I don't think it's necessarily off. I suppose some red flags are;
-They were viewing houses after getting an offer accepted on a different house. However, it could be they loved the look of yours, or that the original house they offered on had something flagged, or it just wasn't the one and they'd panicked and offered.

• they did start their negotiations low, but don't let that cloud them for you, they came up fast and I do think project houses (sounds like yours is) attract a variety of offers because people hope they can get them cheaper, or the amount/cost of work varies depending on the buyer (e.g. do the bathrooms and kitchen NEED doing, unlikely, but they might want to cost them in for aesthetics)

-they said it was too big on viewing. Tbh I think this is classic "well don't say you love it or we aren't going to be able to negotiate" so they grabbed any old word to stop you thinking "they love it so don't knock the price down".

I'd test it out, say you're happy with the offer but it's staying on the market till survey is done and they'll have paid for that, plus your EA should check deposit and mortgage offer. You can't really lose doing this and if drama comes from the survey, or if they don't get one booked, then it stays on the market anyway.

This is why a real estate agent is worth the money.

They can be a conduit, negotiate, make sure there are no confusions and you don't ever have to speak to the buyer!

Wow that sounds awful! Sorry you had such a terrible experience, thats exactly what I'm worried about

They do and it did say that the had not yet got a mortgage in principle... it doesnt stop them booking a viewing unfortunately

Who valued your property? Any viewings aside from this one?

Yopa! On researching ive saw they all have bad reviews of this style. Id heard the purple bricks horror stories and was hoping we had avoided!

Well update for everyone they have withdrew there offer! Ill be honest I feel nothing but relief after ready the stories / experiences on here.

Thanks for everyone's advice I think we will definitely change our approach to our next offer (hopefully!!) Theres be alot of good food for thought

I think no viewings aside from this one in a month would indicate the price (did you value or the online ea) is too high.

You won’t like that. But the evidence indicates that is the case.

The problem you are going to have is they want to pay much less than what the house was valued at, you know this due to all the low offers they’ve sent your way. The likelihood of them getting close to exchange and starting to downgrade their offer again is high, I wouldn’t want to take the risk.

Personally I would use a local EA as they can vet potential buyers. At the start we had people who hadn’t even put their property on the market coming to have a look. After a few time wasters, we refused to see anyone who hadn’t already had a buyer for their property or if they were a first time buyer, they had to have a mortgage in principle. It’s amazing how may people just want to have a nose around your house with no intentions of selling. All the interest from our old house came from rightmove. Our house was originally listed for 600K (we used a very big chain greedy EA wouldn’t recommend them) we even told the EA it wouldn’t sell for that amount. We had no interest whatsoever for their two weeks. We then lowered it to 550K (which we thought it was worth) and also made it easier to find due to the value search on rightmove and then we started getting offers.

Leave it on the market till a serious buyer comes along. One month in is early days.
These other people just want to see if you're up for tipping them a big bonus, gonna make it worth their while.
I wouldn't speak to them again till you' ve failed to sell it after a couple of years 😋

It's not don't touch with a barge pole, just don't spend time on it. They are hoping for a steal on price. At least ,whatever other motivation may be. Just a polite no thanks we're looking for the guide price and let them drift away.

It was the 3rd viewing we have had. One not interested, another not proceedable and then this group.

The price its on for at the moment is less than online EA and what a local one suggested who seem to sell alot and quickly near us. Perhaps it is too over priced still!

Yes if it’s been on a month, and at this time of year, then it would seem so

Have you had any other houses down your road up for sale or sold recently? Luckily for us, no one down our road had sold for ages so buyers had no other houses/prices to compare to.

we also had it listed as a guide price, 550-575k. We knew we would never sell it for more than 550 but it gave buyers the impression they were getting it cheaper when they offered us the lower end. On our new house, we offered the lower guide price and DH thought he had saved 25K and was very proud of himself until I explained to him that we did the exact same thing with our old house.

Go with a brick and mortar EA, none of this online crap. Even a cheap real EA is better than this. These people sound dodgy and as others have said are gonna find stuff wrong with the place to mess you about. Unless you wanna let them pay for the survey and refuse to lower the price....then they lose their survey money which serves them right for being twats. LOL

I couldn't help noticing that a number of times you referred to knowing what the house is worth. If it has been on the market for a month,without any offers save for these individuals, I fear what you know to be the value and what the market decides to be the value may not align. One real issue at the moment is the high costs of labour and materials for the work that you mentioned needs to done. Sellers increasingly make insufficient allowance for the cost of the works which is sadly rising almost by the month. That said, I do quite understand your point that it would need to achieve a certain figure to make a move viable. In the event you don't achieve what could prove to be an aspirational figure, hopefully any onward purchase would also be priced to reflect the current market and be to your advantage especially if you're trading up.

Depends how much you want/need to sell the house. Its only worth what someone else offers to pay.

We had an awful experience with Yopa, we were having no viewings to the point it seemed suspicious and so got friends to "book in" as a test and they just never got back to them. We complained and got ignored, had to escalate for weeks and finally got a "We've been really busy" and an offer for a few hundred refunded. After 5 months they couldn't manage to collect a key or let us know where to drop it to do viewings.

Found a buyer within 6 days of moving to a well reviewed local agent but the market had definitely cooled while we were waiting for Yopa. Biggest mistake of the whole process for us.

If they are willing to pull out on someone else and mess them around they wouldn't hesitate on doing it to you either, I'd stick to my guns on price if it's fair for what your selling, if they want it they will make it work

This is one thing that annoys me about this country, how 'buyers' can so easily screw you over. If it gives you any hope OP after bad experiences I recently had a lovely buyer who paid the asking price, no tricks, conditions etc. It was almost unbelievable, I put it down to all the bad experiences we had had.