Advice on potential first home purchase

[newsparklythings]

I am wondering if those more experienced in the 'game' of home buying and selling could advise.

We have been looking for a first home for a while, have a substantial deposit and MIP, so know what we can afford. No pressure to buy, we are renting a reasonable property for now.

A property came up that looked ok, I will change a few details here to avoid identification, let's say it came up for £300k. Not entirely unreasonable for the area but we looked around and thought ok, it is a little on the small side and we would think it is worth more £250k but has a big yard / room for large extension so someone may be willing to pay the asking price.

The owners kept in touch with us directly and quickly advised that they had an offer at the asking price and had accepted. Ok we said, all the best and we will carry on looking.

Now the owners have come back to us (again directly) and said that we are 'welcome to' put an offer in regardless. We are a little confused.

As this is a direct conversation, no estate agent there is no third party to liaise between us. We are feeling a little wary. is it normal for sellers to encourage other potential buyers to put in new offers once they have accepted one offer already?

Could the 'we have an offer at asking price' thing be a tactic to encourage us to put an offer in at (above) the asking price?

Is it being sold through an estate agent?

Given you are sounding slightly underwhelmed by it I would just say you aren’t interested in putting an offer in higher than that (you will know if the other offer doesn’t exist as they will come back to you). Personally It would also slightly put me off the seller that they aren’t honouring the offer if they have already accepted it.

Could the 'we have an offer at asking price' thing be a tactic to encourage us to put an offer in at (above) the asking price?

Decide what it's worth to you and stick to that.
I would be wary of people who mess around this early in the process; it does not bode well.

I would call the estate agent they are selling through and you viewed the property through.

'You will remember we say property X on date Y. The sellers have been in touch saying that there has been a full asking price offer. Can you give me any further information?'

The reaction will tell you everything you want to know.

They’re playing games; either they’ve had an offer and want a bidding war, or they haven’t and they think you’ll fall for this.

Don’t walk away, run. Vendors who pull this type of crap this early on in the process will only get worse as the process goes on, and anyway you don’t think they house is even worth what they are asking. I bet if you tell them that they’ll fuck off rather swiftly.

*The house, not they.

Totally had this... was a mess around from start to finish, they suggesting cutting out the agents and all sorts... proper dodgy stuff... ended up I think we were just used to push the price up for other people buying...

Oh was relieved as he didn't like the way they dealt with it

If you think it's worth 50k less than asking and they have a full asking price offer then there's nothing more to say on the matter.
Unless you want to pay over 50k more than you think it's worth... I will assume you dont