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 spoke to a very helpful estate agent yesterday as I was quite concerned about this. He said that house prices in our area (Herts) are still reaching close to the asking price he said that some houses are still reaching more than expected. They had a house on the market for offers over £345k, expected it to sell for £350k and yet it actually sold for £375k.

I would go in about 15% under the asking price and hope to get it for 10% below.
I am in East Midlands and the properties we have bought this year have all accepted around that amount.
Especially as they are ready to go!
Ask the agent if any offers have been refused and when - I was surprised at how much they tell you.
Have also had an agent call back today asking me if I still wanted a house where my offer was turned down 2 months ago - seller will now accept. Too late though, already bought another!

We are in Oxfordshire and sold our house in 2 days for full asking price! Am still shellshocked about it. I think it sold fast partly because of the right buyers at the right time, etc, but also because it was priced right up against the Stamp Duty threshold and if that were higher, we would have put it on the market for a bit more - ie, I think it was a bargain.

We're dithering about what to offer on a larger house and this thread has firmed up my confidence a lot - I think we'll start with 30K below the asking price, with a view to getting it for 20K below (that is rather less than 10% - so should we actually offer even less? Am I embarrassed enough yet? ).

"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. "

--- again, it depends on a location; national averages are irrelevant for the individual house buyer.

There are so many differing opinions about what is happening to house prices. One view is that houses in the South East will go UP by 30% in the next 5 years. I don't think you can compare with Ireland as what happened there (as I understand it) was that they built far too many houses without considering growth of demand. One thing is for sure, there will be no let up in the demand for houses in the London area. There may be a dip, but they will go up again, so our approach is not to overstretch ourselves, ensure our heads rule our hearts and see this as a long term investment. Who wants to save in a pension plan? Now that IS risky! I think prices are too high though and I have seen prices being dropped by 10% which are still not selling. We haven't found anything we want to make on offer on yet, but we shall be embarrassing ourselves!

Hi Guys,

I have seen a house up for £165k its been on the market for 7 months. Do you think they will think its ridiculous if I offer £130k (78% of the asking price)??

Thanks for your input!!!!

Depends, nothing to loose by leaving a cheeky offer on the table. Also depends on how strong a position you are in as buyers?
We bagged our house with an offer 15% below asking price, but that was because we'd already sold and were renting so were able to move very quickly.

Good luck!

I was offered 15% under asking price and told them no but the flat had only been on the market 2 weeks. Seven months down the line, I might have taken it

I've just sold a house at 12% below asking price. First offer was about 20% below and we worked from there.

Price was approximately 30% below what the houses both sides sold for a couple of years ago, but still about 55% above what I paid for it.

We offered 6.5% below asking price and in the end agreed on 5% less. That doesn't sound like a great deal, but then I knew the vendors had already been steadily dropping their asking price over the previous months to come in line with the market. I don't think you can give a standard 'you must get X% off' amount.

Questions to ask are: how competitive is the current price vs. the rest of the market? how much competition do the vendors have from similar houses in the area? how long has the property been on the market? And also: are you willing to walk away if the lower offer is not accepted?

And even then, some vendors are in negative equity or need the proceeds from the sale to move on, so may simply not be able to accept a low offer.

Like Ciske says, there's too many variables to be able to say what's reasonable.

We've just offered 7% under asking and got a straight rejection, no counter offer and this is on a house that's been on the market 8 months with the current agent and was with another agent before that. It's had one sale fall through too.

Depends on personal circumstances. Houses we looked at were people downsizing who needed a set price before it was viable.

It depends whether the house is priced competitively to start with. If you know the market - you will know straight away anyway and so will everyone else - believe me! Prime areas will always sell and the owners are more likely to hold out for longer. Remember it's only the start of April.

A house came on the market in the area we liked (small 4 bed detached but with a great garden) but it needs complete refurbishment being in early 80's timewarp and we would do an extension to make it into the house we want so we made an offer 10% no chain offer (already in rented) under the asking price on Mon - we liked it that much. They have had tons of interest (not surprised because it's a great location) and rejected it. Apparently, they've had another offer but won't indicate what it is - obviously not asking price otherwise it would be off the market. We've decided that if it goes to another buyer, it goes to another buyer.

I suspect that they would have turned the offer down even if we were cash buyers since it's only been on the market for less than a week and have a raft of viewings lined up.

Head over heart in this case - since the amount required to even tart it cosmetically won't make it worth its current asking price in our opinion and the sold prices for that street in the last 2 years. It's a balance of how badly I want to live on that street since houses come on the market rarely and the answer is not that badly even though we've been actively looking for the last 6 mths.

We're currently renting a house opposite the only Ofsted outstanding primary in the area. Houses within 0.5 mile (the catchment area in reality) sell like hotcakes despite it being a bog standard 80's housing estate and achieve close to their asking prices if not really overpriced in the first place so it definitely depends on the location.

As low as poss. Been beta is right after all teh QE and low rates reality will bite over the next few years and 30% down is likely with no return to these sort of levels for years and in line with inflation.I have just finished another house and was going to keep it but have decided to sell now while it is still a profit as I think it will be worth at least 15% less by xmas. I am then going to rent again for a while I think until I can downsize without losing space. Offer what is comfortable for you should rates rise and incomes drop 200k is enough and should be accepted in the current climate.I have a friend who writes financials for one of the papers he usually advises me and has never been wrong and he says get out of my house now while it is in profit!

noddy what area are you in?

looking at selling/buying in london but the prices still seem bonkers - would be interesting to see if your friend agrees with the London bubble opinion or not...

Just found out that the house we made an offer on on Monday has been sold for 'close to the asking price' so that's that. In the end, we made a second offer 5% under the asking price of 500K and decided that we had to be slightly rational and not go above that. Looks like we lost that one which is disappointing and not sure whether we made the right decision now since we really liked the house. A minor part of me can't believe that someone paid pretty much the ceiling price for the street for the smallest house on it which also needs a total refurb as a minimum! Anyway, we left our details with the agent should the sale not go through. Being sensible sometimes is little comfort.

it totally depends on whether the house is priced to sell or not. We lost the one house we bid on at asking price because someone else decided it was worth even more (sealed bids). It was clearly a bargain in the local market.

I think the current stat is that houses are going for 93% of asking price on average though I can't remember who tracks that.

I agree with BeenBeta on the 30% drop but I totally disagree that London overall is some special case. Maybe in Knightsbridge and Chelsea but where I live in SE London the market wholly relies on young professionals being able to buy the flats and small houses of growing families trying to move into bigger houses.

At the moment, house sales are dominated by existing owners who have equity moving on, first time buyers getting massive government and parent subsidies, and some buy to let investors returning to the market. That is not a particularly healthy or sustainable situation.

I predict the first rate rise will have a sharper and more immediate effect on prices than many so-called experts are forecasting.

I can't see the big price drops coming that many people are hoping for - I have to say I think a lot of this may be wishful thinking by people wanting to talk the market down. In the parts of London we're looking in, asking prices are rising not falling, and I've seen cheaper 'projects' hanging about while the more expensive houses are sold. I think the main reason for this relative 'stability' is the (so far) lack of dramatic rises in unemployment. As long as people can pay their mortgages, there will be no forced sales and no impetus for them to sell at bargain prices. Yes, I know unemployment is high, but at the moment it seems largely controlled and slowly paced. Lack of jobs for uni leavers will not have an effect in the market and older workers taking voluntary redundancy doesn't create mass panic. At the moment, low levels of new stock coming on the market are holding prices up in certain areas and that's likely to stay like that as long as people feel insecure in their jobs. They won't move unless they have to, and let's be blunt, mortgages (if you can get one) have never ever been sooo cheap - alot of people are having it good. So, my theory is - job insecurity keeps houses off the market thus pushing up prices on the available stock and people who would normally move house are hanging on to jobs and staying put while enjoying record low mortgage payments, that means very few bargains. Difficulties in getting mortgages means ready and able buyers are a rare and valuable commodity but their desire to take advantage of their situation is not reflected in sellers wanting or needing to move - so we have a housing market where prices are relatively stable and with very little reason for price movement or increased sales activity. Anxieties about the future of the housing market probably exert too great an influence on people's decision making when generally, it seems things are just crawling along rather than showing much sign of going backwards - but hey! it's just a theory!

I think it sooo depends on where you are - and not just the simple things like north/south divide. We live in a town which has historically been cheap, and so people are moving out of the nearby cities to take advantage of the house prices - and also from London. They're still coming, so prices for a certain sort of house are holding up. The newbuilds, meanwhile, they can't give away.

I also read something a few months ago, which said that, because of the mortgage shortage, almost 50% of the transactions were with cash or near-mortgage-free buyers. So if you're aiming at that kind of person, you'd do better than if you're trying to sell to first time buyers.

Oh, and I forgot to say. Friend's parents are selling a house with an asking price of £379K. They weren't offended when someone offered £310K, although they didn't accept. They were offended when he came back with a follow-up offer of..... £310K.

I have seen a couple of posters in this thread who seem to be quite shocked that house prices could come down by 30%.

It wont come as a shock to me if it does happen because it was quite obvious that the banks could only keep up the irresponsible lending for a certain amount of time, thankfully they have now been caught so it should drive the price of housing down, some people may be in for a shock after accepting an offer on their homes and then the buyers bank refuses to lend them enough money to complete the purchase because their surveyor has valued it below what the fella in the suit (EA) with no surveying qualifications valued it at.

I have already seen examples of this happening over on the MSE house buying and renting forum, you have posters asking how can they convince their banks that the house they want to buy IS worth more than a qualified surveyor says its worth to enable them to gain a mortgage. some of these people even end up loaning the shortfall from members of their family so that they can pay over the market value for a house.

I will be looking to buy a home sometime next year and if the houses im looking at have still got the bubble price as the asking price then ill be making my offers 30,40 or 50% below the sellers asking price because thats how far the price is going to come down in my opinion, the free money has now gone so the market will slowly get back to normal.

Hope i dont end up putting offers in on houses were the owners have MEWed all the cash out of it, that would be a waste of mine and theirs time.

I do love the optimism of the plummeting house price people :o FWIW both property transactions I've recently completed were valued within £5k of what was paid.

In 2001

We paid 20% under asking price on house we have just bought but the vendor through personal circumstances really needed to sell and I think we were the only people brave enough to make a very cheeky offer.

You can follow house price reductions if you install property bee (it's free and great). I've used it for a few years and love watching all the price reductions. You need to use Firefox as a browser. It's very easy to install - if I can do it anyone can.

I read about it on the house price crash website.