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

[tiredemma]

????

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?

I think its all quite regional at the moment though; there is a lack of supply in some parts of the country. We've just sold a house we used to rent out, in Oxford, for £385; it was on for £395.

In answer to the OP - I think anything more than 10% lower offer is a bit insulting, unless the house has been on for a while or has something that makes it hard to value.

Go as low as you dare.

In September 2008, we offered 50% on a house; they refused. They accepted at 56% of the original asking price.

There were, admittedly, complicating factors involved (house required total modernisation and a huge amount of renovation). However, the fact remains that a respectable company of estate agents had valued the house as it stood at one price, and we got it at quite another.

If you can believe it, we still wonder whether we could've got it for less, ie. closer to our original offer. This keeps my DH awake at night sometimes.

So, as I said, go as low as you dare, so that you don't have any regrets.

Of course, there will be regional variation. Where I live, there is still a high demand for housing (and not much building going on) which is sustaining house prices. Whether this will last remains to be seen. I suspect that for a variety of reasons (strong-ish local "industries", etc.), the housing market here is and will stay reasonably robust.

The Ireland situation is analogous in particular, I think, with certain urban centres of the UK (e.g. Manchester and Birmingham), with the property boom propelled by construction and a false prediction of sustained credit and an ever-increasing market for the properties built - a Ponzi scheme in bricks. At one point, new-build flats in the centre of Birmingham were selling for extraordinary prices; their value has now collapsed utterly.

The point about BetaDad's levelling-out is that, as with all averages, it will hit some regions harder than others. There will be a larger decrease in the market in some areas, while others will see only a minimal decrease. You need to research your area to work out which kind it is.

so tell me - east london - how do i figure it out? From what i understand london is tricky cos areas very close have very different prices?

Here in NZ it's all quite different. Most houses aren't advertised with a price. Our first offer made the estate agent storm out in a strop. Hee hee. Here we've been basing our offers on what we think a property is worth- it's value, rather than any price suggested by the dodgy as arse agents. It takes more research but is the only way to go. So far we've been bang on with the two properties we lost out on (one was sold before we got to view it so we had a back up offer on it. The other was valued at exactly our offer but turned out to have serious Ishoos).

In the UK I'd offer 10% under no problem. But expect them to reject the first offer.

It's totally dependant on the location, i.e, prices in London's better areas and SE commuter belt will not drop by 30%; London is the major center of employment and under-hour commuter area will always be in high demand.

North Birmingham area (sutton coldfield to be precise). Lots of similar, samey houses in good catchment areas for schools all on at very similar prices.

We've had our house on the market for six months, initially it was valued at 125, after a month of no offers we dropped it to 115, someone offered us 80, we declined. We have gradually reduced it to 95 and have now decided to take it off the market and rent it out. We don't live in it, nor have we ever. It was an investment property near Eccles.

We've just sold our flat in a nice bit of London at 4% below asking price. We saw 3 agents. The eventual sale price was 50k less than one agent, pretty much bang on another's estimate and 75k more than a 3rd...

If you can, before you make the offer try and find out something about what the seller is up to. E.g. we've moved in with my parents so pretty much rent free and long term accommodation is sorted. If we hadn't got what we thought it was reasonably worth (after research), we would have let it out again and seen what happened.

If someone is desperate to sell though it is definitely worth making a cheeky offer.

sushistar depends on your asking price I think

did you go with the highest valuation, a middle one or the lowest?

They all valued within 5 k of each other at end of april. We waited a couple of months to put it on market and rang back the agent we liked, and he's dropped valuation by 10 k! So he said before market at 360, achieve 350, now he's marketing at 350, thinmks we'll achieve 340, but i'm still hoping for nearer 350...

Do you know how long it's been on the market? Might be worth trying to find out before you put in a really cheeky offer.

I've read that in England the abolition of HIPs has led to a bit of a rush of new properties on to the market so it's definitely a buyer's market in some areas there atm. Not so much in Scotland where HIPs have been retained.

We're about to put our flat on the market and have been told by the agents that although you don't get as many viewings these days, most of those are serious buyers, who have already sold their property (we're in Scotland, so slightly different - a sale being pretty much binding once an offer is accepted).

we offered 565 on a 650 house and got it.

the amusing thing was how many people said they would have happily offered 600 if they thought it wouldnt have been laughed at.

fortune favours the brave!

Our two fave houses have been on the market for at least four months.
One of them had a sale fall through and I am aware that the vendors are 'ready to go' so may be open to offers way below asking price.

Thinking of offering 207k on the 229950 one and 198k on the 209950 one (10% reduction on each).

In our area it has become the norm for estate agents to advertise a property as offers over X and the property tends to go for around that amount.

Very few properties go for much below the asking price there is even still a little gazumping going on this area.

Do also remember that estate agents are playing stupid games like taking a slow moving house off the market for a week or two then bringing them back on at 20% more so they can con people into making a 10% below the new asking price thinking they have got a bargain.

Its happening a fair bit round here where some houses have been on sale for 4 years.

So.... if UK house prices are going to drop by 30%, is that an average? And does it mean that some areas will drop by more?

Price of houses will collapse most where the local economy collapses most. That means any area that is dependent on goverement spending. Job losses, lower wages, lower ensions and lower benefits.

At the moment, central London house prices are the least overpriced because of the enormous international earning power of people who live and work in central London.

Central London no longer is part of the UK housing market. It is part of a network of global mega cities that have economically detached from the national economy they physically sit in.

Quite true BeenBeta - I think areas where there is high public sector employment - like Bristol (so overpriced is untrue!)

Especially areas where the local authorities invested and lost money in Iceland (country not supermarket!) so cuts and redundancies may well be steeper....

sushistar from what you say the agent said, the asking price is not the REAL price that it will go for IYKWIM, like round here.

All very lovely having just been gazumped on two dfferent houses in Oxford - market is madness here

badembabe - Oxford is insane. Used to live there. I cannot believe the prices they are asking. It is the desperation to move into school catchement areas. I am sure people come up from London and pay higher prices than in places like Putney.

Just rent. There are some nice things to rent.

you can always offer - then say when told to piss off - ok come back to us if you change your mind.

back in 1993ish we saw a place for sale and it was in a awful state really, so we offered 50k as the place was up for 90k but we knew that really about 20k would need to be spent.

Anyway they just laughed at us...4 months later they were on the phone trying to see if we were still wanting to offer 50k

By this time we had sorted other stuff out and said sorry not any more.

The place stayed on the market anohter 12 months.

So call leave your offer and then when they come back think about whether you juts want to leave the offer there and say come back to us later if you change your mind its not a problem later...

salbysea, yes, I think he's expecting it to come in under the asking price. I am trusting in blind optimism to pull us through. Or the sudden sad death of an unknown rich elderly relative would do just as well!

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Housing Survey for June just came out this morning.

The balance of surveyors/estate agents saying that prices rose versus those that say prices fell turned sharply down. It is at an 11 month low.

The number of sellers has increased sharply and the number of inquiries from buyers has dropped for the first time since the start of the year. Estate agents have plenty of houses on their books to sell and prices are softening as a result.

I think it does depend on location - some areas are far more market resilient. We've been looking since 2007 so we've experience the UK dip and rise again. We sold our house in a less desireable area summer 2009 for about 20-25% less than it would have got in 2007/08. However, asking prices in the much nicer area we're renting in haven't moved at all. Houses only go for asking price, and if they don't sell they just stay on the market - I'm not exaggerating, some houses are still on the market 3 years later at the same price!?

We are now buying a house - we initially offered 95%, then 97% and then asking price and vendor still feel hard done by!

So, there isn't a golden rule on what you can offer although I suppose a cheeky first offer is always worthwhile. Some areas will fall more that 30% some not at all.