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Original poster

As a CASH buyer how much should we offer for a £350 house?

18 replies

RTKangaMummy · 28/02/2011 15:10

I have never bought a house before so have no idea how it works so please forgive my stupidity

We have seen several houses that are around £350

Some of which are really overpriced ie one bungalow {that said it was 3 beds but was 2 tiny tiny ones in loft} we saw on Saturday for £350

in the same road others going for £385 with 4 bedrooms and a study + bathroom in the loft extension

or one just sold for £335

And we saw one that was £387 that had had £350 offered on it and accepted

Anyway how much do you knock off the asking price without looking stupid?

We have the money ready and waiting to spend but don't know what to do in what order

OP posts:

mamatomany · 28/02/2011 16:03

I would start at £280k and go up to something in the middle around the £300 mark and be prepared to walk away because it will be worth less than you paid for it unless you get it for £280 pretty quickly. Take your proof of cash purchasing power into the estate agents too as plenty of people tell them they are cash buyers but what they mean is with the banks cash ie a mortgage and plenty of people cannot get a mortgage at the moment but this is only discovered 3 months into a chain.
Aim for 10% off in the end if you must move now, but I would wait 12 months if you can.

Rollmops · 28/02/2011 17:10

Kerrist, where do you live, mamatomany? Around here (SE), prices are raising steadily.

mamatomany · 28/02/2011 17:13

They are falling hourly here I would say, the Estate Agents might not agree but then they atren't selling anything either it's stale mate.

Rollmops · 28/02/2011 17:20

We had couple of bidding wars in the neighbourhood over the past few weeks. Talk of the town village it is.
Which area are you talking about, if I may ask?

mamatomany · 28/02/2011 17:32

Up north, which is where the carnage will be I suspect, we live in one of the better parts, footballer country but even so I cannot see things doing anything but dropping.
A house in our street has been on the market for three years now
I've almost given up on ever selling ours and am trying to work out how we extend it or else rent it out.

noddyholder · 28/02/2011 17:33

310k

bibbitybobbityhat · 28/02/2011 17:36

at your ftb budget!

I was going to say £310k like Noddy.

iskra · 28/02/2011 17:41

are you in Cheshire, mamatomany? We are looking at buying in south Manchester, been pondering what the market will be doing there...

eviscerateyourmemory · 28/02/2011 17:42

You are better to try and work out how much the house that you want the most is worth, rather than treating it purely mathmatically, IYSWIM.

Have you looked at nethouseprices to see what houses in the streets that you are interested in are selling for (the figures are a few months out of date, but will give you an idea).

mamatomany · 28/02/2011 17:49

iskra - not quite a bit to the west on the map, not sure about South Manchester but our area is similar to Hale, Bowden etc and nothing is selling at all so if you have the cash and can find someone who needs to sell you might be in luck.

tyler80 · 28/02/2011 18:11

I'd take off at least 15% of the asking price, although I'm basing that on my area, local to you might be different. I'm sure they say you should be embarrassed by how low your first offer is.

BrandyAlexander · 28/02/2011 18:18

In similar circumstances, we went in at 10% below the asking price, and settled on 5% below. This was at the height of the property boom though.

mamatomany · 01/03/2011 08:09

www.ftadviser.com/FTAdviser/Mortgages/News/article/20110228/85055aec-40f7-11e0-8e70-00144f2af8e8/House-prices-fell-by-34-since-2007-says-Halifax.jsp

House prices down 30% since 2007
Of course the poorer areas will fall first but the domino effect will knock onto neighbouring area's.

traceybath · 01/03/2011 09:04

Depends on the area.

Round here (bath) - I think its fairly standard to offer 20% under initially.

But depends on so much really - I was looking for a long while so got a good feel of the market and also which agents over-valued in my opinion.

fapl · 01/03/2011 10:24

This is a really difficult question that nobody on this forum can answer for you. Do your research and offer what it is worth to you taking into account a number of factors, one of the meain factors being why are you buying the house, to live in hopefully forever, or to live in for less than 5 years? If it is your forever home and you love it, it matters less if it drops in price after you buy it. If you want to live there for a short time getting it for the best possible price is much more important so you do not lose money. If you pay to much you could end up being better off if you had rented for 5 years especially taking into account buying and selling costs on a £350K home.

Also, from looking around myself, I can identify immediately in the areas I am looking in if a house has come onto market realistically priced or if they are trying their luck and it definitely needs £50k knocked off. If the vendor has priced realistically they will not accept much off the asking price. If it is unrealistically priced they probably need a few months on the market before they get a reality check so will probably not accept such a low offer immediately but probably will in 3 or 6 months time.

The other unknown is if the vendor needs a certain amount to be able to move on to bigger home, clear debt etc. A vedor may just stay put rather than accept a low offer. The vendor may be better off staying where they are if they cannot acheive a certain amount, even if that amount is more than the house is worth and an unrealistic price.

Decide what you think it is worth in the current market, what it is worth to you as a home or investment (or combination of the 2) and go in £10-15K below that to give yourself room to up your offer and then be prepared to walk away after you have made your final offer. If you go in with a silly low offer on a house you really like you may get lucky and have encountered a distressed seller, or you may just annoy a vendor who won't take you seriously (more likely as there are not too many genuine distressed sellers because interest rates are so low, most mortgages are cheaper than rent at the moment).

Good luck!

fapl · 01/03/2011 10:28

BTW if you are a genuine cash buyer you are in a great position to pick up a bargain at auction, that is if you are prepared to take on a project and do work on the property. If it is not a house that is currently mortgagable just make sure it will be mortgageable in the future e.g a house without a kitchen is unmortgageable but with a kitchen probably is mortgagable, a house made of some types of concrete will never be mortgageaable.

wednesdaynewbie · 02/03/2011 14:34

Sorry to hijack this thread but how do you find a house auction? I have googled and seen lots of sites which require a subscription. Are there any free sites?

I am in Oxfordshire if that makes any differnce.

Many thanks (and sorry RTKM for hijacking!)

nappybaglady · 04/03/2011 22:12

Hi RTKM.
We've just had an offer accepted on a house. We offered 3% off and negotiated to 2 % off. This all took place within 3 days of house going on market so I'm pleased to have managed to pay less than asking price. We've been in rented for ages waiting for the right place to come along so we've done loads of homework. We knew that quicksale houses were going for about 3% off but slower ones were selling eventually for 10-12% off.

We're in a relatively stable area for property prices but the market has definitely reduced while we've been waiting.

Good luck

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