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!

A tatty house or hideous decor can both be changed @donotcovertheradiator and there are ways of saying things which aren't insulting. By highlighting next door's trees as an issue the seller has the opportunity to try to address this with the neighbours or accept that their asking price is too high or the situation narrows the potential market.

You clearly have your views and aren't prepared to consider that your attitude may be the issue. I wonder how you have come across when making those offers that they have been dismissed so readily by the sellers?

I don’t really get why you’re surprised that a vendor won’t immediately take a below asking price offer when the property is newly to the market. It’s perfectly normal, not greedy, to give it a bit of time and see if anything better comes along.

Do you consider OP that if you really want somewhere you might have to offer asking price, or over? All your posts are determined that you’ll go lower, when the reality is you’ve missed out on houses for never offering enough. It’s odd to have a blanket strategy like that

@wowfudge WE make these very good offers to the agent. One rejected it and then, when they realised just how good it was, they came back and asked us if it still stood.

We told them it didn't and now they have reduced their house by 6%. That is 4% less than we offered them. I guess they're wishing they had taken our offer.

We have only made two offers but every house that we have looked at-not made offers on-is now reduced, so it would be a bit foolish of us to make asking price offers. We're not going to buck the trend.

@Passthecherrycoke. As detailed, if we wanted the first house we offered on, well then we could have this morning at and for much less than we offered so-in that case- we're not the ones 'missing out". They are!

I seem to be demonised here by a few for making cash offers of less than 2%. Yes, that's right-CASH offers of LESS THAN 2%.

Crazy! Maybe those posters all live in a part of the UK, where most houses are snapped up for the asking price by cash buyers the day after they go on!

I don't though. I live in a part of the country where most houses are on for months and a significant proportion of them-most I think-reduce at least once and-this is the important part-they knock much more than 2% of the price.

I have made two mistakes. One has been to make them a brilliant offer first off instead of going in with a first cash offer of 10% and then moving up.

The other has been offering to people who have just gone on and think my amazingly good offer means that there will be a flood of people offering even better.

You keep going on about cash. As a vendor, I get your money in cash whether it comes from your bank account or the mortgage company. I don’t care about your cash.

What you are really offering that’s attractive is that you are chain free. As are first time buyers and many, many people who sell first and rent for a bit exactly as you are (we did this also) it’s not as unusual as you seem to think.

First time buyers won't be looking at the houses we're looking at. Most people will be in a chain, unless they have sold theirs.

Estate agents-in my personal experience-like potential buyers to be in rented accommodation and they like it even more when mortgage companies-with their demands for price adjustment-aren't involved.

Interest rates could shoot up after Brexit-that will have an impact on those who are buying with a mortgage-they may re-think about how much they are borrowing-but it won't affect cash buyers. Brexit may make those thinking about a mortgage re-think the whole thing if it affects their job but it won't affect cash buyers.

There may not be much difference but there is a difference and, in all those cases with a difference, cash is king.

This is bonkers, do you have anger issues? I'm struggling to find another explanation for your behaviour on here.

I’m not sure where you live but first time buyers can buy anything. They can even be cash buyers too 🤔

You’re just ignoring everyone (normal people who could well be the ones selling the house you want) saying it’s not that important.
Brexit has been delayed for months. You’re trying to buy now, in May 19. The point is your position isn’t as attractive as you seem to think it is.

The sheer amount of bile directed at people whose only crime is to reject the first offer they were given! With a nice chaser of vindictiveness and spite of they come back to you.

Would you be like this if you were negotiating to buy a car? Do car salespeople always put their hand out to shake the very moment you offer less than the listed price? If they did, frankly I would think you should adjust your strategy. If they don't, do you brand them all graspers and refuse to buy from them at all, however much you like the car? It would be a weirdly personal and fraught way to do business

It's a funny time in the housing market at the moment. Sales have been in the doldrums for ages round here but now the March deadline for Brexit has passed and the sun's come out, there seems to be a huge spike in house sales round here. All the people who've held off in the last year or so. Also agents seem to be increasingly engineering bidding wars and houses going for over asking is way more common now than it was 10 years ago.

Bluntness I think you may have hit the nail on the head there. Such a blinkered and entitled attitude is astounding.

First time buyers won't be looking at the houses we're looking at - .

Yes I think bluntness has it too Agatha. Lol at first time buyers. The first property I bought was £675k

It's just odd. The hurling abuse, insults, name calling, and the sheer anger and venom directed at people who have done no more than reject a below asking price bid.

It's one thing to be a bit hacked off when you lose out, but this is something else entirely.

I did point out that a seller may not want to feel pressurised into completing a sale quickly by a cash buyer.

Also, the market can be buoyant in some areas when everywhere else is slow or dropping. Anecdotally, a stack of houses near us now have For Sale boards up after Brexit was delayed by six months.