Best and final offer - help!

[IWantAWittyUsername]

Any advice on how to make a the "best" best and final offer? Do we go to our maximum budget (which is over the cost of the house)? Is it worth writing a letter to the vendors explaining why the house is perfect for us? Any other suggestions please?

(Backstory: we've been let down on a dream property, this house is the only one we've seen that compares and we are also worried about losing our buyers).

I'm sorry but a letter would be irrelevant to me, I would pick the best offer which would be a mixture of price and who was able to move. I'm sure every family has a reason they want to buy.

If you really want it, explain to the agent the max you can go to, the most you can afford then explain why you're in a better position to move, i.e. You're under offer or whatever, finances in order and take it from there.

Thanks for all your messages. I feel sick with how much money is involved but we need to move and I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable buying houses at ridiculous prices in the South East.

We made a full asking price offer on our house after one viewing on the first weekend it was on the market. So did someone else so went to best and final. House marketed at £350,000 we paid £360,250. We'd already lost out on one property so we weren't messing about over a grand or two and there also wasn't much else of interest and everything we liked was selling for over asking price. Bottom line is that you make an offer for the amount of money you are willing to pay for the property. If you win, great. If you don't then it went for an amount you didn't think it was worth to you. I think it's easier when it's a forever home as you don't need to think so much about resale value.

Thanks @babyboyHarrison this is indeed as close to forever as we can be ... next move after would be a downsize as neither of us can imagine borrowing even more money
We have done as you said and offered what we can afford and what it worth to us. It might mean we pay over the odds or it might mean we miss out but either way we did what was best for us. If it's the latter then there are no "what ifs" which is good as I couldn't deal with that!

Sounds like you've made a well thought out decision. Fingers crossed for you

Good luck with, fingers crossed for you.

Thanks everyone!
We've just heard that our offer has been accepted
I am not getting too excited though as we've been here before and it all fell through. But it's a step in the right direction!

Congrats! Can I be nosy and ask what you offered in the end?

@KitKat1985 of course we offered £690,000 which is the max we could afford.

Ahh well done. I'm pleased you got the winning bid.

Congratulations - I hope the rest of the process goes smoothly for you.

That sounds like great news, fingers crossed it all proceeds well

Just in case anyone was interested I thought I'd update on what happened after we put in our winning bid.

Turns out the people we were buying from had not found a property (opposite of what we'd been told) and kept us (and or chain) hanging for 7 weeks. I blame their EA as we caught them out in a lie so who knows if the vendors knew we'd been kept in the dark.

In the end we bought another house a couple of roads away. We went to our max budget and the house needs work but oh wow - we loved it the second we saw it and the location was amazing. The EA of the sealed bids house were amazed we were pulling out and kept harassing us to find out where we were going instead.

We moved at the end of the year and absolutely love it. We are so glad the others fell through.

I checked Zoopla the other day and saw the house we had bid on had finally sold in May. We had offered £690k but they eventually sold for £650k.

We offered 7k over on a "guide price £159k" house.(3 offers of 159 plus already made by others in an area where houses typically sell in a couple of weeks. Sent an e mail stating that we had already sold and were in rented so could proceed quickly.

Thanks for updating @IWantAWittyUsername, I love to hear about houses that 'got away' but a better one came along