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!

Totally agree! They invite offers, a very fair offer is made but then they start to think they should ask for the asking price, prepared to lose a good offer for the sake of 0ne or two percent that could be in their bank in a few weeks.

One would have to be a saint and have blood of milk not to feel a bit of satisfaction at seeing them offering the house a few weeks later for a big reduction, much bigger than was offered...by a cash buyer! I am not that saint!

The problem with sugaring the pill is that by the time the EA has watered down your non-descript feedback it will be largely meaningless. You're unlikely to ever see the vendors again and even if you did, they may be glad of the honest feedback.

As a vendor I have had 2 buyers so far, both allegedly cash offers. The first one pulled out a fortnight before exchange because their son (and girlfriend) had changed their minds about moving in with them.
The second was telling me 'as soon as x is in place we can exchange. The cash is in the bank waiting'. This was done the following day and he then changed his mind.

Being a cash buyer is no guarantee in my book

I'm not saying it's a guarantee but those things could happen-more than once- in a chain.

With a cash purchaser there is only one chance of it not coming off but you can multiply that by however many there are in a chain!

How on earth could they be glad of something that they couldn't change...like a tatty house or garden next door or next door's trees growing too close to the boundary or double yellows for miles, so that no visitor could park. It might be hideous décor that the next person might find gorgeous, so why insult their taste.

I'm happy to harbour a warm feeling against graspers but not depress people with negative feedback about what is their home after all.

By the way, when I say graspers I don't mean those who won't take an average offer, I mean those who won't take a good first and final offer of slightly less than 2 percent under because they are greedy buggers and think a great offer means that they should hold out for the asking price. Happy to see those graspers have to reduce and wait months before taking a much lower offer than they could have had ages ago!

Op, honestly you can throw your toys out the pram all you want. Be as deeply offensive as you can about people who won't sell to you at a discount on here but bottom line is, it's never going to get someone to sell to you at a price you want. It might make you feel better, but you're still houseless.

@donotcovertheradiator my thoughts exactly. Prices have been going up too fast for too long and people got silly.

You come across a bit nasty OP.

No one owes you anything because you're a cash buyer. Calling anyone who doesn't accept your offer "grasping" just makes you sound bitter.

Sellers want to get the best possible offer, for them. They are allowed to decide what they think the best offer is - whether that's because it's chain free or because it's simply the highest offer. They get to do that analysis for themselves. Just because you disagree with that analysis doesn't make them "greedy buggers".

@donotcovertheradiator agree with you, id love a cash buyer to place an offer on my gaff, we hope to be cash buyers when we do sell so would assume we would be in a stronger position, also with the current housing market 2% below asking is bloody good!

That's good then Ellie, you sell at two percent below asking as soon as it's listed,. Bit shitty of you to decide what others should accept though, don't you think?

No, the nasty people are those who ask for offers, get an offer as near as dammit and then, buoyed up by that-from a cash buyer-decide to hold out for the asking-or more than the asking price.

They are free to say fixed price or offers above but no, that doesn't occur to them until their snouts start to twitch with the idea of fleecing someone who has made them a generous offer. They misled by saying 'offers in the region of'...liars and greedy in fact!

Do people really think an offer of just less than 2% under by a cash buyer isn't an offer in the region of?

Yes, I'm houseless but I could buy one tomorrow-the people who have had to reduce theirs after reducing the best offer it transpired they would get, are the ones stuck. I'd rather be in my spot than theirs! They have been hoist by their own petard and that petard is greed.

@Bluntness...are you on the market?

And one of those houses I could buy is the graspers' who rejected 2% under and are now on for substantially less! Ha Ha!

We moved 18 months ago. We saw a house. Empty. Needed work doing. Asking price 410k. Next door fully done up sold a few weeks earlier for 400k. Our final offer was 390k. They were divorcing and both acted like we had insulted them. Hugely entertaining that a year later they had spent money on it judging by the photos and sold it for 392k.

Well ok then op, you win. They are graspers.you can rest easy.

Thanks @Bluntness. I'm glad you've come round.

@AJPTaylor….how satisfying!

You sound deranged. Have you ever sold a house yourself OP?

I can see your point OP, we've been trying to buy and some vendors have their property on for far too high. We did a viewing of two flats on the same road - identical in size, just 10 doors apart. One was 100k more than the other!! You can guess which one we bid on.

Of course! Many times, which is how I know the value of a cash buyer! Naturally, it's the money from the last sale that is financing this one..a unicorn just didn't shit it down in front of me you know.

I started this thead because it has been my misfortune to offer to grasping sellers who don't seem to understand how the market is doing and, in one of the two cases, went flat out against their own agents' advice! I just wondered if others had come across it.

I must repeat, I'm not including vendors who have had silly offers just those who think a penny less than the asking price-from a cash buyer- is an insult!

Ans as the next question will be what did I accept...why 2% below the asking price!

Just out of interest was the 2% the only offer you put in on that house? Only because it is fairly normal to use your first offer as a jumping off point to start negotiating, not as your best and final offer.

I think most people would expect you to come back with a 2nd offer, and if it is close to asking price then they would expect you to go to asking price with your 2nd offer. Negotiating is just part of the process of buying a house.

Also if the property is newly on the market then the seller hasn't had a chance to gauge interest, so is less likely to accept an under asking price offer. They might need every penny to fund their next move.

In the lovely market town near us you basically don't get a property unless you're a cash buyer or chain free so I guess it's the culture of the area OP. When we sold last year, I would have taken a 2% lower offer from a chain free buyer and a bigger discount for chain and cash free. Chain and mortgage are fraught with risk and how the planets ever align is beyond me!

Someone said that OP sounds deranged. How would you call the people selling the below two houses then, if not deluded and greedy? Both are in a much worse condition than the pictures show, they have come on and off the market for a year now. Always at £475k they must have made some sort of price pact at the asylum!

www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/property/london/sutton/angel-hill/

It just seems very entitled to me to run around bad mouthing sellers because they've dared not to accept your offer.

If it's such a terrible error of judgment on their part then they're the ones that have missed out. Banging on and on about them being "grasping", "nasty", "liars and greedy", "greedy buggers" etc. makes you sound way over-invested and bit crazed.

They're perfectly entitled to sell to the buyers, and for the price, of their choosing.

@Frettfrett. Yes, that was our mistake. Over the years, we had enough of silly game playing-stressful for all-and so mistakenly decided to make our best offer straight away. It seemed straight up, less fretful. more honest somehow.

We were delighted to get rid of ours to a cash buyer for 2% under. It was fast, we didn't have any more viewings, no more tidying, throwing out kids and dog and no worrying abut a chain breaking, a horrible thing which we had had previous experience of years ago.

Of course, we hadn't reckoned on meeting The Graspers! We weren't and neither were friends or neighbours who had sold in the last 2 years or so, which gave us the wrong impression.

T'was a big mistake and our next offer will be 10% under moving up over a very limited time period.

@YummyFoodie...quite right!