I hate bartering

[BaklavaBalaclava]

I want to put an offer in on a house. I want to pay £10k below the asking price. Am I meant to offer £20k less ? That seems rude...

Am in a good position (renting, have mortgage agreed in principle)

House has been on the market for 3 months with no offers as yet.

Any ideas on how to play it?

If you don't like bartering just pay the asking price!

Work on the theory that most sellers are conditioned to decline the opening offer, so make your first offer in the knowledge that you'll likely be making at least one additional offer.

Lol, yes, that would be one way to do it!

So if I'm aiming at £10 k lower, offer 15 or 20 less?

IME you have to offer enough to show you are serious, at the same time you probably don't want to pay the full price if you can help it. I have usually offered below what I expect to actually pay, and then the sellers come up a bit. It also depends on the price of the property. Sadly, these days 20k can be quite a small percentage of the price. I think the way things are at the moment though (slow) most sellers would be happy to negotiate a deal.

We got a first offer yesterday that was 20k under our asking price (but cash buyers) and would be mad to turn it down just to play the bartering game - things are taking a while to sell around our area and this was our first real day of viewings, and they are cash buyers! It does also depend on property value too - this is only a few percent for us, whereas we offered 100k under AP on the one we want to buy and settled on 80k under, which was under 10% but still a big drop.
If the vendor wants their full asking price and you offer 10k under they will just ask you to come up, i can imagine it'll only be 1 call/email, so shouldn't be too big a deal. Good luck!

Thanks all! Have sent an offer, just waiting for a response. First time I've hated a bank holiday weekend!

BaklavaBalalave, how did it go?
Im searching the threads as im currently dreading doing the same thing tomorrow would love to hear some feedback on your experiance