Feeling sad to be loosing my dream property

[Ellie2015]

We have seen a 4 bed property but that’s in market for 650K. All the other houses in the area on an average have sold out within 525. One house for 5 bed, same area as this one, sold last year in 630 but other than that all well below that. Given all the added advantages and our interest we offered for just under 6 but rejected straight away as the seller wants the asking price so we have to let that go. Apparently they have another offer near asking price and apparently the houses in the area sell like hot cakes! I am so very feeling sad. I have no idea how this seller is managing to hype the property price suddenly when prices are likely to crash and also they already have an offer. In two years of our search, this house ticked 10/10 for our liking BUT the price seems extortionate .

Just wanted to offload myself...really feeling down to see the house slipped away from our hands, despite offering way above average price in the area...:(

Don't be sad & there is always another house over there in future.

I completely understand your feelings and feel your pain, last July we lost our dream house, it has been sold to a cash buyer, and paid asking price &sold literately within a week when it appeared in the market. It has been exchanged contract and finished in 2 months. Anyway it's not meant to be mine.

This year got so many things& uncertainties happened in my life, worried job security etc..i am still keeping saving, hopefully can get another dream house I can pay asking price as well when it comes the end of this year..

You offered below £600k for a £650k and are mystified you lost out to a near asking price offer. Depending where you live if it is a "hot cakes" area it always will be. Many places in the country are not yet in a declining property market and indeed the recent stamp duty breaks will boost the market.

You tried to play hardball and lost out. I assume you won't make that mistake again. Ridiculously low offers will generally turn off any seller because even if you go up to a reasonable price they would assume you will try to knock them down at every stage.

Average is just that, an average.

Some houses will be higher and some lower so if you want one of the best properties in the area you have to pay up.

Well that's sad for you but I guess the owners of the house are happy.

@SeasonFinale

You offered below £600k for a £650k and are mystified you lost out to a near asking price offer. Depending where you live if it is a "hot cakes" area it always will be. Many places in the country are not yet in a declining property market and indeed the recent stamp duty breaks will boost the market.

You tried to play hardball and lost out. I assume you won't make that mistake again. Ridiculously low offers will generally turn off any seller because even if you go up to a reasonable price they would assume you will try to knock them down at every stage.

Agree with this, a house is worth what someone will pay for it, clearly someone was prepared to pay near asking price so it appears the value is correct. You have not ‘lost’ this property, you chose to offer well below the asking price and your offer was rejected.

Presumably you didn't want the houses which were average at 525k and there must be particular aspects which meant that this house was a 10/10 and was the first in two years you wanted to buy. It is probably those same aspects which others also find attractive and make it worth more money.

Who told you about the other buyers?

Surprise, surprise - dream houses which tick 10/10 boxes are expensive and popular.

I do sympathise - house hunting can be tough, and if you don’t have an unlimited budget, you will probably have to compromise somewhere on that tick list - but you seem to feel like the vendors are screwing you over, and in that respect YABU.

I remember this happening to me, and it was part of a learning curve: the next time I saw a 10/10 house I had my mortgage all set up, and put a bid in at asking price provided it was taken off the market again straight away.

You need to experience disappointments like this to be very quick on the next one

Yeah, I may have paid slightly “too much” but J had learned by then that my taste was very common and that I want what lots of people want, so then you have to either pay for that, or lower your price and your requirements

Good luck on the next one!

I'm quite clinical about houses. I dont get emotionally attached to them. If i get a whiff of EA bullshit and bidding wars i dont really react much and if it falls through well so what? there will be others. I can remember putting in an offer on a property and the EA spent the next week feeding me crap about a lot of interest and other buyers so i just put on an air of nonchalance and ignored his calls for a few weeks. The house was still there and i eventually bought it. He was bullshitting all along. I think you have to know your limits and stick pretty close to them.

We lost a dream house or I thought our dream house at the time when we offered 15k under. The vendor was not in hurry and waited for two more months and sold it for 12k under. We got really frustrated by the agent as we suspected they made up other offers for us to go higher. In the end we felt pissed and walked away even though we could have gone higher.

We had our offer accepted on a head house soon after the that. We love our current house now and have done some small renovation jobs and will hopeful soon add an extension.

For a while a really I didn’t know if we made the right decision but as time passes I am more and more in love with my current house and the disadvantages of the lost dream house become a lot more apparent.

I had a list too and it ticked all the boxes. My current house was more a project and on a bigger plot, something I didn’t think I would appreciate that the time.

It may take time, but you will get over it.

Where I am the market is booming

Rabbit carrot- thanks all the best to you too x
Arnoldthecat- it was EA who told they had the higher offer. I don’t trust them too much as such because one of our friends who even offered asking price for some other property, they played up with them about someone else offering higher etc and wanted money more than than the asking price just because they gauged that they were really keen on that property...
Anyway my approach is same as yours I think. I know my limits and infact we went way beyond our limits due to interest (perhaps the desperation of having own house is more than the interest) but if still doesn’t come to us, then so be it. Just this evening another house has come up that is looking nice too...and surely there will be many others. 600K is not an easy money so defo will get into it carefully. Thanks for sharing your views

Mothergooseinnorthwest: I think our situation may turn out similar to yours. So glad you shared your experience. It simply means we are nearly there...thanks x

Agreed Ellie ,, its difficult, especially if as most people do, they also have the anxiety of a chain and its potential collapse. Luckily i was in the driving seat as i had nothing to sell and cash in hand. I do think the housing market in this country needs real reform.

Arnoldthecat a great attitude, I admire you being able to ohld your nerve and not be hung up in ay particular house - I'm in the process of looking/about to offer now, and when viewing today got the spiel from both EAs how there is a lot of interest and that they'll sell these two at asking prices - yeah right, when both are well above sold prices for the street. It's easy to be taken in and think well maybe I'll never get anytrhing if offering low - but this is not even a 'hot' area!
So thanks for the great advice!

*hung up on any

EAs tell the same old pony to most if not all their potential clients. They cant be trusted.

True. We ended up giving an offer of £620K but strange enough they wouldn’t even send a correspondence of rejection! There were to gazump the current buyer and asked us if we could go above the asking price to fix the deal for us! (Same thing had happened with one of our friends who actually agreed for the asking price!). I find that so unprofessional but what can you do?!

We've just "lost" our dream house too. Unfortunately it was a deceased client and it was the beneficiaries who were selling the house. They marketed it as the same price as a house on the street sold for in January this year for 210k.

However, the house in Jan that sold had a conservatory and was nicely decorated to move in. The house I had my eye on had heaps of potential but would cost around 20-30k to get it to the 210k standard. It needed completely gutting and redoing and a new bathroom and kitchen asap. It had no carpets, would need rewiring and had some dodgy looking piping and radiators too. We were willing to do all this work for the right price but it was not to be

We put in what we think its worth, obviously under the offer, and got rejected. Even the estate agents said they're looking for the asking price and will not accept a penny lower even though nobody is willing to pay it, and that they'll just sit on the house until they get what they want. The house has been on the market since late January and houses in the village I'm looking at usually snap up, I knew there was a reason that meant it wasn't selling.

I feel stupid for getting so involved in a house. I know there'll be other houses, and there wasn't anything particularly special about it but once you start imaging yourself living there, and all the work you would do to it its hard not to get attached. I feel for you OP!

Aw thanks...yours somehow feels like might come to you optimistic...might be a matter of chance...if the house has been there for so long, who knows they might change their mind...really hope it happens and you get the house...not wanting you to get more attached to the house but it looks like it might still be a possibility. In ours case, it’s gone to someone else already. But who knows the sale isn’t complete yet! :)