Question for sellers.

[FunSpunge]

If you were selling your house for say £600k and you had someone come and view your house, love it but then say

"we love your house but we can't afford your asking price, we can only afford 15% under asking. We appreciate you're unlikely to accept such a low offer but should your circumstances change and this offer is of any interest, we would appreciate your consideration"

Would you be offended?

I think they have phrased this very carefully so no I wouldn't be..
Ultimately they are saying they love it but have looked at It out of curiosity and it's worth the asking price.. which they can't afford.

Why would they view a house they can't afford. I'd take it as a piss take.

I think it's an inoffensive message, but I'd be hacked off that I had potentially cleaned, tidied and taken time out of work to show around someone who had no intention of buying the place. I would be telling my estate agent to vet more carefully my viewings in future.

Not at all - circumstances of both buyer and seller can change, best to keep all options open.

Not at all - circumstances of both buyer and seller can change, best to keep all options open.

Have you put the offer in?

Hmm - I think I would add that you've fallen in love with the place but when you've done the sums to include stamp duty and investigated the mortgage implications further that's the best you can offer. Makes you sound less like chancers. Depends how long they've been on the market and how much they paid when they bought the place.

Not even made an appt to view it @mirandaWest because who views a house they literally cannot afford!?! Pipedream springs to mind!

Its just in such an ideal location with everything that we want and there is NOTHING else on the market! We have been looking for 16 months.

I do not want to upset/put the vendor out at all and its likely they could think the same as Raspberry & Yoga

I keep having a niggling thought telling me "you never know, they might accept...."

who views a house they literally cannot afford!

Everyone should.

If your budget is £550 look up to £600.

wow they bought it years and years ago, not even registered on land registry. its not going to be everyone's cup of tea for various reasons but it has only been on a few weeks so every chance it could sell for way more than we can afford.

Just do it, what's the worst that can happen, you don't get the house, but no harm in trying

I want to view it because there is a chance it wont be for us once we've seen it and I can psychologically move on but at the moment i drive past it every day to and from work and sigh to myself.

I would make that offer through the agent BEFORE you view, because if you make it afterwards I think they stand a good chance of being put off. I'd be really hacked off and write you off as timewasters, tbh.

Snowiest that's exactly what friends & family say but we run the risk of alienating the vendor if they take offence

We viewed a house like this but I said clearly to the agent that the asking price was over budget so we don't want to waste their time but if there was flexibility in the price then we would be interested. Agent said there was flexibility and vendor would be happy for them to say that. We viewed, loved it and offered 8% under. It was turned down but the asked is to increase our offer by 10k. It would have stretched us and it was a grade 2 listed property that we loved but would have been a money pit. At the price we offered that would have been okay for us but 10k more just meant too much angst. We had to walk away and use our sensible heads to purchase a newer home in a town not village but with double the space and parking for 40k less.

I wouldn't talk numbers but make it clear you wouldn't be able to achieve asking price and ask whether the vendor is happy for you to view despite that.

Why would they take offence. Folks make cheeky offers all the time. You've nothing to lose. View it and make your best offer. They either accept it or reject.

You are over thinking this. Go and view, make your offer and use the wording in your first post. Let it sit. You never know. If you don't do it, will you always wonder "what if?".

You will be gutted if you look on Zoopla in a couple of months and find out that it sold for £550... Go and see it. Maybe it won't be for you after all. Maybe you really will love it, in which case, make an offer. Do NOT offer before viewing, that's mad!

But they can't even manage £550k! You don't have to make a formal offer before viewing, but I think you should be upfront that you can't afford the house at the asking price (in reality you can't afford any higher than £510k and I hope you have come to that figure after considering all the other costs you will incur).

If it had been on the market for ages - maybe. But it's just come on. What incentive is there for the seller to take such a low offer?

Just do it. As a seller about to exchange, at one point we were prepared to accept 10% below the asking price as our buyer let us down. So it is work asking.

Most good estate agents want to see a statement of means before letting you view property to weed out time wasters

Most good estate agents want to see a statement of means before letting you view property to weed out time wasters

Normally that's when you put an offer in, not just to view.

We weren't asked to provide a statement of means. Just asked what our position was. We said our house was on the market and we were looking for x beds up to £XXXK.

No one would provide a statement of means just to VIEW a property. You'd be leaving your details all across town potentially. EAs can't be gathering and storing data on that many people.

15% isn't THAT cheeky. I would just go and view it w/o further ado.