How to deal with the 'budget' question when talking to estate agents.

[surreygirl1987]

Hello! We are soon to be completing on the sale of our house (fingers crossed!) and will be moving into rented property in the area we are relocating to. Because we don't live there and the market is so mad at the moment, we thought we'd hold of serious househunting until we are in our rental place (a month's time). But I'm a little concerned that there aren't that many properties we love on Rightmove, and the ones that are on there that we like seem to go immediately. I know everyone suggests getting on Estate Agents' lists to hear about properties before they get marketed (I know this happened for our house that we are selling, as we had lots of viewings set up before any photos were even taken of it!). But I know that when I ring the EAs they will be asking me for our budget. People on here seem to say not to disclose max budget to the EA as they work for the seller and can therefore tell them? Our max budget is £600k. So what do I say? Do I just tell them? Do I say 'in the region of? Do I give a range? Do I say higher so I can view more expensive houses with the view to putting an offer on (eg £625k?). Or is it more sensible to say lower so their clients don't know we have a higher budget? Am I overthinking this? Would love any advice on this please!

Also any other ideas for smart house hunting? I've seen people suggest leaflet dropping which we will definitely do. And i check Rightmove at least a couple of times a day. Is there anything else that I'm missing?

I'd say your absolute maximum is £600,000 but maybe I am naïve.

We had a budget with a wide range when we were looking. We had an amount we wanted to spend in mind which was a lot less than what we could spend if something amazing had come up - a difference of several hundred thousand pounds. We were looking for over a year, and I was open about this with the EAs. I didn't ever feel pushed towards properties at the top end of our budget, but maybe we got lucky. In the end, we bought a property on the lower end of our budget.

I just said I was looking for houses in the region of £450k to £500k. We had an agreement in principle up to £625k but didn't want an enormous mortgage (and are going to try to have a baby in the next year). I never went into it in much detail, as it's not really their business to know beyond the fact we could afford it.

They didn't dig into it until a few weeks into the sale when the seller was worried we couldn't afford the house as our own buyer pulled out and we got a new buyer. They queried if we could still afford it, at which point we said we were £100k under our affordability limit.

Your budget is your budget, you don't need to feel pushed beyond what you want to pay. Good luck!

Thanks! We are happy to spend the top of our budget but they needs to be £600k as although we could get an AIP for more than that, it would be an awful mortgage. We would be happy with £600k. So do I just literally say that? Or maybe say we are looking in the region of £500-600k?

I’d probably say your maximum is £600,000 but you’re looking to spend around £x (whatever you think is a fair price for the kind of house you’re hoping to buy).

Agents aren't stupid. They take what you say with a grain of salt. If you say your budget us £600k, they may think they could push you to 625 or more for the right property. Or that maybe you are being truthful. Regardless, if you then offer £580k on a house as your top limit, then it doesn't matter that the agent knows you could go to £600k, you've set your limit at £580 for that property and the seller either accepts or doesn't.

Yes true. Good points. So actually it doesn't matter after all if I tell the EAs my budget? Lots of people on here say never to do this but it sounds like that's actually not the case at all - just crack on and be honest?

We've always been honest otherwise they'll send you properties your can't afford or properties that don't tick all/most of your boxes because they're in a lower price bracket.

I think it's best to say.

I'm looking for blah blah blah in the region of £x-£y. I have an AIP for over that, but I don't wish to spend that much.

You're telling them the price bracket you're happy to pay, not how much you could pay!!

Think of it like any other purchase. You either decide how much you're willing to pay and get the best you can within that budget or you decide you want xyz at pretty much any price.

Many thanks!

I would just say you have a wide range from 450 to 600 and while you can go to the upper end, you’re happy to look at lower. We did that and we didn’t feel pushed to go higher for our house once we said that was our final offer.

They aren’t going to price a house based on what one potential customer (you) has said on the phone to them! They’ll be getting phone calls all the time with people wanting to go on mailing list etc.

I would always say a vague amount, because it depends on so many things. If the house needs work you’d want to pay less. If it’s perfect then you’d pay more 🤷🏻