s it "greedy" or common sense to ask a potential buyer (house) to up their offer

[hatwoman]

The offer is approx 95% of the asking price. I think it's common sense. I just assume that everyone who makes an offer makes one a bit lower than they're actually prepared to pay, fully expecting the vendor to seek at least a bit of an increase (it's certainly what we did). dh (typical laid back bloke - self confessed sufficer, rather than an optimiser) thinks it's greedy. I've always been very sensible with money - brought up to plan for rainy days (and, when I was a kid, we had rainy days...dad went bankrupt, our house was security for business loans, all pretty horrible). At the end of the day we could afford to accept the offer...but "afford"'s a relative thing really. we could "afford" to give half our money away if we really thought about it.

thread title is missing an i. sorry about that!

Hmm really depends on how keenly you think your house is priced. I negotiated upwards but not to asking price when I was selling a few months' ago and my vendors accepted a 95% offer. I think in the current market I would have told them to bog off if they'd said asking price or nothing as this house was over-budget anyway.

it's priced fairly - we deliberately did so to get a reasonably quick sale. I asn't thinking of holding out for the full asking price - more of splitting the difference - half way between their offer and the asking price

you can only ask!! be prepared for a long wait though as they may keep you waiting for an answer. tbh in this market id take the offer!

I priced mine at the higher price the estate agent quoted but sold it at the price he reckoned it would sell for iyswim. I deliberately included a bit of wiggle room.

I think it depends on how desperate you are to sell and whether you can afford to lose this buyer for the sake of £5k or so. I do expect to negotiate - did it on both my sale and purchase (went for a midway point in both between offer and price)

I think 95% is a good offer, you can see if your estate agent can ring a few thousand more out of them but I'd be more interested in how proceedable it was than a screwing every last penny.

I don't know about people always offering low, but when we had our home valued recently, the EAs said that they would price it at such a price and expect it to sell about 5% below so it cuts both ways.

I think that is a very good offer in this market but can they proceed - mortage offer in principal etc.. Also have you found somewhere to buy, that can determine whether you should accept it immediately.

I do agree that usually you offer a bit less than you can afford. Although if its at the top of your budget you sometimes offer all that you can so that you can secure the property.

How much is 5% - if its on £100k property thats very different from a £1m property.

none of you are answering my real question though! is it "greedy"? (can you tell I'm offended by my dh )

It might be a bit foolhardy and slightly unrealistic is the long and short of it.

Depends if you think they do have room to up they're offer.

We offered 20% under on a house first week of november but made it clear that was all we were prepared to pay.

Offer was declined unsurprisingly.

However fast-forward to last wednesday and offer suddenly accepted.

So to me 95% sounds pretty good.

What does your estate agent recommend you do?

We're about to offer a substantial amount under asking price for a house. We fully expect a counter-offer. So starting low is our way of reaching what we want to pay.

I don't think hard negotiation is greedy, no. Well, except for the bloke who bought my flat who wanted to pay 1/4 of what I'd paid for all the brand new furniture I was leaving even though I know he's minted (because my CM's DD is his lawyer's PA :o)

This is what you pay the estate agent for.

truth be known I haven't even got all the details yet - estate agent spoke to dh and I have only had the briefest of chats with him - not yet home from work.

No it's not greedy,IHMO. But be aware of the market in your area, if you get them to to the price you are thinking of then what else is within their grasp ?

Do bear in mind, a lot of sellers would bite their hand off for 95%

Depends at what point you do it.

Negotiation stage - no.

Just about to exchange contracts having agreed a price several weeks before - yes.

It's not greedy to negotiate, it's accepted practice. Whether it's wise depends on how much you want/need to sell your house.

update - we asked for a bit more and they said ok.happy....but sad too...we actually moved out 2 years ago but were going to go back. and now we're not. it was a very happy house. dd2 was born there.