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Original poster

How much below asking price can you go without the vendors thinking you are taking the piss??

111 replies

tiredemma · 11/07/2010 20:05

????

Is there a percentage that you can go to realistically in this day and age? I keep hearing its a 'buyers market'- does that mean you can be slightly ridiculous with an offer?

OP posts:
lulurose · 11/07/2010 20:10

Hi, we've just sold ours for 352 (on for 360). We had an offer accepted for 405 on a new place and it was on for 425....had been on since March though so think they were a bit desperate to get a sale. Definately a buyers market...there aren't many serious buyers out there according to our agent, due to budget/cuts etc (thats in North London though so may be different elsewhere).

mintyfresh · 11/07/2010 20:33

We got £15k off the asking price - was valued at £225k. I wish we'd got more off but first offer was rejected (a bit cheeky really!).

Go for it - you should be embarrassed by your first offer apparently (according to Krusty and Phil)...

Original poster
tiredemma · 11/07/2010 20:37

thats helpful- have seen two properties- one on at 229950 and the other at 219950. Dp said he is going to offer 200000 and be prepared to be told to piss off. I thought he was mad but I may take Kirsty and Phils advice and be embarrased! what have we got to lose???!!

OP posts:
BeenBeta · 11/07/2010 20:42

If you are not embarrased by your offer - it is not low enough.

The market has started to fall again after a brief bounce. This time it will not bounce back.

Think 30% off.

Original poster
tiredemma · 11/07/2010 20:46

seriously??? 30%???

OP posts:
BeenBeta · 11/07/2010 21:02

That is what the OECD and other commentators estimate UK house prices need to drop to be fair value.

My calculation of long run historic (1929 - 2009) multiple of average UK house prices to average male annual full time salary is 3.2 It is currently about 4.7 so to get back to a 3.2 multiple we need a 30% drop.

Look at how much house prices and commercial property prices have dropped in Ireland.

Scary stuff.

Fimbo · 11/07/2010 21:03

Go for it tiredemma. My parents house in Scotland has been on the market for just under a month and they haven't even had a single viewer...........

BeenBeta · 11/07/2010 21:06

I am not saying anyone will accept an offer 30% under asking price at the moment - but they will in the end.

Its just going to take years of pain to get there.

sethstarkaddersmum · 11/07/2010 21:11

My dh agrees with you BeenBeta.
We've just seen our dream house but we ain't going to get it because dh is very bearish about the property market but I don't think the other buyers will be as bearish as him.... however as he is probably right I don't want to take the risk of stretching ourselves to manage a high offer. Will just have to hang on and hope another dream house comes up/everyone else is put off this one by the amount of work it needs.

LIZS · 11/07/2010 21:12

Depends how much it is on for but within 10% if sensibly priced. 270 would probably accept below 250 for example due to stamp duty threshold but 230 may not go to 200/210

Salbysea · 11/07/2010 21:18

I honestly think it depends on the area, from talking to friends in other parts of the country there does seem to be variation, here going in with an offer of 10% or less is standard and 20% off is a serious offer (but not usually accepted, the final price normally ends up between 5 and 15% bellow, but its a respectable starting point for negotiations)

NOTHING goes for asking price here (and that's not a recent thing, that's just they way things are done here). Its silly really because agents factor it in in the valuation so it can go down to the 'done' price - would be much simpler if people laid their cards on the table in the first place wouldn't it? instead of going through the motions on each side to get it down / up to 10% off asking price.

Salbysea · 11/07/2010 21:20

that's 10% OFF lol, not 10% of the asking price! that would be a bargain!

OrmRenewed · 11/07/2010 21:22

bb - we sold our house in 6 weeks. Unheard of round here. How? We put it on the market and just below the lowest valuation. We could have put it on at 17k more and waited 6m to get to the same place but seemed a bit pointless.

oopsandbabycoconuts · 11/07/2010 21:27

We offered 195k on a 229k house they turned it down we offered 200k as a final offer ready to walk away and they accepted the 200k and we moved in 7 weeks later.

TheNextMrsDepp · 11/07/2010 21:37

A house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. If a house has been on the market for six months without a sniff of an offer, then you offer 30% below the asking price, then maybe that's what it is worth. But if there is a lot of interest in the house, or it's newly on the market then you may not get anywhere. But they can only say no, right??

We moved last year, and bagged a good deal on the house we bought (originally on for £535k, bought for £440k after six months on the market). The vendors only accepted our offer because they had found the house of their dreams that very weekend and didn't want to lose it.

moominmarvellous · 11/07/2010 22:07

We put an offer in on a house today and were advised that to go 10% less was a rule of thumb.......but you're all saying 30% less?! drats! Still the house we're after has been on the market a while and was recently reduced by £20k so it's not too bad.

BeenBeta · 11/07/2010 22:20

The thing that almost no one living today has ever experienced is a sustained period wage deflation. It is wage inflation that has driven house prices for the last 70 years - that is the entire basis o fthe 'property ladder'. It is now ending with deflation beginning to set in.

This poses the biggest future risk for house prices. Ove the last 6 months UK average salaries have fallen by an annualised £2600. That is nearly 10% cut off the average salary - almost unprecedented in living memory.

Job losses, cuts in public spending, cuts in pensions, falling wages. Inevitably house prices have to fall in line with falling wages and have to fall faster for a while.

I have friends in Ireland who describe the horrendous mess of their property market with 75% of (commercial?) mortgages in default.

Salbysea · 11/07/2010 23:30

in my experience vendors usually refuse the first offer and offer a counter offer or split the difference (just for the sake of it sometimes)

so if you go in at 90% they might agree to 95% whereas they may have settled on 90 if you went in at 85.

sushistar · 11/07/2010 23:34

gulp - we're trying to sell...

SchnitzelVonKrumm · 11/07/2010 23:38

BeenBeta, I agree we are in line for a sharp drop in house prices but don't overdo the comparison with Ireland (or Spain or the U.S.) because there has been massive new building in those countries - the fairly sizeable rural Irish town my DH comes from has literally doubled in size in the last five years.

sushistar · 11/07/2010 23:41

...and we were hoping to get pretty near the asking price...

sushistar · 11/07/2010 23:42

... are we DOOMED???

bigstripeytiger · 11/07/2010 23:46

I think that it does depend on the area you live in - if you look at a website like nethoueprices you will be able to see what houses near to you have sold for recently.

bigstripeytiger · 11/07/2010 23:47

sorry - nethouseprices is what I meant!

sushistar · 11/07/2010 23:52

Tricky, there is very little comparable to our house sold recently...