"I'm a cash buyer so I'm offering you 20k less than your asking price"

[AlanBstardMP]

Just aaaaaargh. I shouldn't be phased by this but it really got to me today.

House has been on the market a week. We've had three offers so far, none of which are quite what we want to settle for. The last of these came today, obviously from someone chancing their luck.

Does being a cash buyer really make you that attractive? We're going into renting for a bit so we're not desperate to sell, and our house is prime first time buyer material. So I might be naive but I dont see a huge difference between cash buyer or first time buyer really in our situation.

I never knew this house selling lark was so ruddy stressful.

Our "cash buyer" couldn't get his hands on the money for 90 days. Much slower than a mortgage. A first time buyer is just as good as a cash buyer due to the absence of a chain.

House buying and selling is very very stressful. Always. Very few exceptions.

We have been a cash buyer and got house 7k cheaper than other offers, this was on a 2 up 2 down mid terrace. 20k on a large house seems in keeping, but as others have said only beneficial to you if you want to move quickly and not wait for other offers and to go through the wait to complete.
We completed in a couple of weeks.

Our first supposedly cash buyer suddenly decided that he did need to sell a property to fund his purchase.
We wasted 7 months while he messed us around.

Our actual buyers were cash buyers, but couldn't access their money immediately so the sale took 4 months.

Well I know our local area and trust me here it is buoyant. Housing market has been so even during rough patches in the housing market nationally. There are 'pockets' like this in certain areas of the country. I'm not outing myself by saying where though .

I'll definitely be going with the 'checking of where funds are coming from' as suggested. Although it's looking likely that our most likely buyer right now is a first time buyer anyway.

Another one whose cash buyer turned out to be a provisional mortgage offer not actual money in the bank. He was fine though, the sale took forever but not because of him.

I had to accept £85k less than the asking price because a) it was overvalued - stupid EA - and b) the London is finally slowing down. Annoying for me but I fully accept it needed to happen.

FYI 15% off asking price isn't that cheeky - it's about standard as a first offer if you think you can get away with it. You just don't have to accept it