grasping vendors

[donotcovertheradiator]

We are in rented accommodation with cash ready in the bank to buy a house-no mortgage or loans of any sort needed. Our stuff is in storage and so naturally we want to move quickly.

We are looking in an area where prices start off punchy but are quite often reduced.

We have made two offers, both two percent under the asking price. Both houses had only recently gone on. One was rejected because the buyer didn't want a penny under the asking price, although 3 weeks later the estate agent asked us if we could go up a little but by then we had gone off the idea of it.

The other was rejected because the vendor had an offer of one thousand pounds over the asking price from someone else who had just put their house on the market but apparently has an approved general mortgage offer in place.

It seems that being cash buyers with no strings attached isn't giving us the slightest advantage. Fed up!

Ok. So it seems a cash buyer making a good offer-2%- is no better than someone in a chain. Maybe that's why a lot of the houses around here are reduced by 5% two to three months after first being listed.

Thanks everyone for your imput-it's been good to hear differing views

Some are unbelievably greedy. So easy to feel entitled to unearned wealth - this is particularly prevalent in Greater London. My offer on the house I'm buying in Sutton is over the asking price and the vendors still seem to feel they're being robbed in broad daylight. Mind you, it's their inheritance and the house was bought by their mother for less than half the price.

Ok. So it seems a cash buyer making a good offer-2%- is no better than someone in a chain. Maybe that's why a lot of the houses around here are reduced by 5% two to three months after first being listed.

There's no point in being chippy about it. In many cases vendors will be willing to wait 2-3 months to see if they can get their FAP instead of reducing. As PP have said, there may be all sorts of reasons why vendors are holding out for the maximum - they may well be greedy, or they may have an elderly relative with care home fees to pay, or need every penny to get their next property, or be in debt...

If you go into this with an arsey and entitled attitude then you are setting yourself up to make what is already a stressful process far more unpleasant than it needs to be.

Holding out for the FAP is fair enough is the house is priced spot on, or if they get lucky and a buyer with no financial acumen comes along. some asking prices are hilarious, £100k/20% too high. I don't care they NEED the money. There are other, more controversial ways of getting it. One old-fashioned example is actually earning the money

I don't care they NEED the money

If it's being sold for care home fees then they don't have any choice but to show that they have tried to get the maximum asking price. The alternative is falling foul of the local council's funding rules and ending up with a massive bill...

In our case, I couldn't "earn" the money as we were already selling at a loss. Not everyone lives in the SE hot spot bubble!

Yeah, the SE bubble is still going strong. what goes up, will one day come back down tho.

It all depends how much 2% is - on a £million house it would be quite a large reduction and understandable that the vendor would prefer over the asking price with a mortgage.

On a much lower price house I agree taking the cash offer and moving ASAP would be preferable to waiting for a mortgage buyer to be able to proceed.

If you go into this with an arsey and entitled attitude then you are setting yourself up to make what is already a stressful process far more unpleasant than it needs to be. This

When we sold our old home we accepted an offer from cash buyers. They wanted it to go through quickly. We were happy to move to their timescales as we were moving to rented in a new area and wanted to take our time choosing before buying.

Our old house was relatively modern and the buyer was a builder and said he didn't need a survey.

All fine until they pulled out the day before we were due to exchange. They hadn't had to pay out anything significant so it was easy for them to walk away which of course they were entitled to do.

Eventual purchaser came along pretty quickly and did have a survey done. It was reassuring to see them spend money as an indicator of intent.

A word of warning regarding asking the question ' would they move quickly? ' In my experience vendors will say yes simply to get the sale but backtrack on this promise further down the line.
When I was asked the same question as a seller I agreed to move in to rented and certainly kept my word. My buyers did not and changed their minds at the 11th hour about this.
I was also a cash buyer and chain free and initially expected I would be a very attractive buyer and hopefully the result would be that a lower offer would be acceptable. It did not really work out to my advantage which surprised me. Perhaps if you had all the time in the world it would?

I’m not really bothered by cash buyers, the size of the chain is more important really. Being a cash buyer only saves the time of getting the mortgage sorted which takes far less time than the searches etc anyway.

The only thing would make them more attractive is when compared to a complex chain. I certainly wouldn’t give them a discount!

You're also offering on recently listed houses, where sellers are more likely to want to wait to see if they get full asking price.

If someone has recently listed and is in no hurry to move, then basically asking them to loose a few grand to sell to you, which if they aren't desperate makes no real sense.

It seems yiu think being a cash buyer means you get a discount and people will pay thousands for the privalage of selling to you. This is not usually the case.

Your advantage is if two offers are the same, then the vender would go for you, or if there is little in it, ie a few hundred, then they would also go for you. Or if they were desperate to sell and in a hurry they might take more of a hit to sell to you.

Outwith this you'd be lucky to find someone willing to loose a few thousand pounds for selling to you. Cash buyers can pull out and be difficult just like any other buyer.

Also, £1,000 is nothing when it comes to house buying in England. Maybe up north it'd make a bit of a difference, but in relative terms it's peanuts. About the attitude, I started out with a happy understanding attitude, but the house buying process in England is designed to bring the worst out of everyone.

We had more problems with cash buyers than others. They had a tendency to ignore things they were told about restrictions on building on the land and just barge in anyway.

Had to change agents in the end as they were just sending them round regardless, knowing exactly what they wanted the property for, and knowing full well they couldn't do it but being cash buyers it was assumed it would be OK. Not entirely the agents fault, more the arrogant viewers thinking they can develop anything they want because they have the cash.

There are sometimes people you just know you don't want to deal with too, they rub you up the wrong way and feel like it will be a pain to deal with them as soon as you open the door. They would make me hold out for the full price.

I thought a really good cash offer was worth twenty castles in the air! - I wonder if the vendors are picking up on your somewhat superior manner. What matters to you, or what you perceive to matter, won't interest some other people in the slightest.

We once bought of a man who wanted to sell to us just because he liked our attitude and felt that we would care for 'his' house. I think that matters to a lot more people than you would think, albeit not enough for many to lose out financially. People invest financially and emotionally in their properties. But still, hopefully you have seen from this thread that everyone is different.

@AgathaF. I totally get how some people might be enamoured with a nice bubbly attitude, but... 1) most vendors never get to meet the buyers as agents act as the intermediaries 2) these days most people have pound signs in their eyes and everyone says it's just business, which is why gazumping /gazundering is so common, 3) most people would prefer cold hard cash to a nice attitude, it may not necessarily equal preferring cash buyers. One get get a mortage in a week and have the cash so it's a dubious advantage. Would you sell to the devil for 20% more or to a sweet married couple for 20% less? 4) the argument that someone wants to know that the buyer will care for the house is silly. They spend that much, so, of course they will care for it (in most cases...). It's not like the house is a precious pet being adopted. Also, definitions of caring can be quite mortifying (like 'caring' for a gorgeous old house by 'adding value' in the form of a monstrous dormer loft conversion).

We are certainly not chippy and nor do we expect the waters to part for us but we expect a small concession off the asking price as most people, chain or not, do. Some overprice and are living in cloud cuckoo land-that is a fact.

We ask to see the house, if we don't like it, we make up an acceptable reason as to why we don't want to progress..'It's lovely but'.

On the two we liked-we've made a very good offer, ignoring the fact that most houses are usually re-listed in a couple of months for less than we've offered but we're not into playing games.

It seems that our two vendors were greedy and that's probably because they knew we were in rented accommodation and had made a really good offer that showed we were interested as our first offer. Greedy buggers.

Incidentally, I've just seen the first house is now actually on at 6% less-4% less than we offered. Am I going to pass any remarks to them? Of course not! Am I going to quietly snigger to myself? Yes! They were greedy, they tried to squeeze us for evidently more than anyone else would pay and now they're stuck with trying to off load it at a reduced price.

I think anyone who trusts to buyers in a chain are optimistic-especially when most of them will not have offered the asking price because the asking price is not, I understand, something which is offered around here right now, very often.

Chains break, mortgage offers are withdrawn so naturally, there are more risks than selling to a cash buyer and a cash buyer who is pretty near the asking price at that! There's risks to it all but, on balance, less with a cash buyer.

That's why I think a cash buyer- a cash buyer who is making a good offer- is more attractive but I see not everyone agrees.

A cash buyer is more attractive than a chain but I have always seen an opening offer as just that, a starting position for negotiation so I think it is quite normal for them to come back with a counter offer. I wouldn't give your final price as your opening offer.

As for greedy/grasping, you are each trying to get the best deal and the accusation can be fired equally either way.

Well if anyone would like to offer me 2% less 5 beds 3 bathrooms and self contained annex jun 7 m62 I'd be happy

@Chewbecca. yes, I think making a really good offer immediately has been our undoing but we didn't want to get into the ping pong ball of opening with a low offer and then, working up, piecemeal to 2% under. They seem to think that a really good first offer means that you love the house and they have you over a barrel!

Anyway, live and learn. We'll be starting with a low offer from now on and slowly working up to 2% less because I think that sellers are programmed to reject the first offer, even if it was just £500 under and you were going to leave the cash in a neat pile on the doorstep later that day!

When selling, we set our asking price low-Ish and received an offer at the asking price within a week. Up north too.

2% even on a £150k sale is £3k which could make it do-able or not for the vendor.

You can't assume anything until the deal is done until you get the keys

@donotcovertheradiator I had to go over the asking price right away and don't feel I'm being treated particulary well by the vendors. Maybe we should start living by "treat them mean, keep them keen"?

The reality is that if someone selling has their heart set on a particular house then they may well need as much as they can get for theirs. Being asked if they can move quickly may put them off as they may feel you are going to pressurise them and they don't want the extra cost or stress of moving twice.

Your attitude when approached by the sellers who rejected your initial offers seems rather dog-in-a-manger if you do want to move. I can understand finding the negatives as consolation for not getting the first house, but refusing because of the vendors' attitude really doesn't suggest you understand it's business and not personal! If you really wanted either house, you'd make it happen, not take umbrage and moan you weren't given a deal for being a cash buyer.

Oh and don't make up reasons for not wanting to proceed, be honest fgs. Either it's something a vendor can address or it isn't, but don't lie as it does no one any favours.

@YummyFoodie. That is crazy and I don't think we should have to beg to buy a house-or anything for that matter-unless it is truly a one off-there are just too many houses out there. It's a house, not The Holy Grail!

Plus, if a seller shows themselves to be grasping gits then I would worry that they would be bloody minded all the way through and we'd be lucky if they left the paint on the walls.

I take the point about not going back to the first lot of graspers when they found themselves on their arse but they showed that they wanted it all their own way and if someone offered them 500 quid more down the line, they'd dump us.
I'm not getting into a bidding war with anyone...we're not buying a Hollywood Mansion!

No, I won't be telling anyone my true feelings about their house. Too often, they won't be able to do anything about it and it won't serve any purpose. I prefer to sugar the pill and not drag someone down.

Yes, it's crazy. There should be a more sensible system in place, like sealed bids or a binding contract from the very moment of the offer being accepted with deposits paid by each side (subject to survey and financial capability). I suspect hardly anyone would be taking the piss. Now it seems obligatory!