How low can an offer on a house be and still be taken seriously

[Ruththetooth]

Currently obsessively searching for local houses for sale. Our budget (depending on how much we get for our house) will be between £190,000 and £210,000. I'm looking above our price range in the hope that a lower offer would be accepted, but not sure how low an offer can be before a vendor would either be offended or think we're time-wasters. What top limit would you say we should be looking at, bearing our budget in mind?

now there's a question. The easy way to solve it without embarrassment is to tell the agent your budget. They are keen to sell houses and will point you at ones where the owner might accept your offer. They won't want to waste time showing you round places you can't afford.

do some research if any similar places have sold nearby, to see what they actually went for. Don't worry about offending people, it's a business transaction.

It depends on the house, original price, how long it's been on the Market and how desperate they are to sell.
I've heard of one where they accepted an offer £150k less than the asking price which was a 25% reduction but they really needed to move.
You need to do your research with internet & agent.

Agree with wonky. It depends on each individual property. If a house has just come on to the market and vendors haven't found then they are unlikely to take a low offer. However on a house which has been on the market for a while and is a probate sale sitting there empty the executors may well take a big drop just to get rid of it. And there are lots of scenarios between these two. You have to know the situation involved

I once offered £100k less on a house up for £625k. It was accepted. House had been on the market for 2 years and they needed to move. It was the top of my budget so had nothing to lose! I was willing to wait 6 months for them to move out due to their circumstances, and I think that is what clinched it. I guess if you dont try you will never know...you can always increase your offer!

We bought ours for 75k less than asking (about 20% drop). They really needed to move and the house was priced optimistically. They probably would have got more from someone else if they had dropped their asking by 25k instead of holing out for so long for 'what it was worth'. We made other cheeky offers and were turned down. One of them is still on the market nearly a year later.