House sold for £80k less

[MrsMayJune]

There is a house that was sold late last year that I was interested in. It was £800k, in excellent condition. We were encouraged to put in an offer but declined because we knew several offers had gone in and we did not want to get into a bidding war.

The house sold within a week.

Looking now at the Land Registry details, the final price paid was £80 less than the asking price.

What on earth could have happened?

Houses in the area are pretty expensive but there is a wide range. The opposite row of houses range between £900k and £1.5m.

But even if you had offered, you might not have been successful. If the accepted offer was more than you would have paid but the survey showed something awful then the seller likely chose to see the sale through knowing it would always be an issue. I don't think I've explained that very well.

Isn't it quite normal for houses to go under asking?

We had a flurry of activity last yr but some new buyers definitely overpaid. My neighbour was one of the first to put theirs on & asked for 900k but accepted 810k. Other neighbours thought oh wow that's sold I will ask for 950k & one got close to it. The sold prices took a while to filter though.

Phone the agent who sold it, and pretend that you are interested in putting your house on the market and want a valuation, but are concerned about why the house over the road went for so much under asking and why that happened...

It doesn't sound like the garden would have been big enough for this to have happened, but when my friend's parents sold their house, the buyer made them put the (huge) garden onto a separate title deed, so they could buy the house in one transaction, and the garden in the other. This meant they had a much lower stamp duty to pay on the main house, because of the lower price.
It makes it look odd on the sold prices though

The house of a friend's father was on the market recently. Its was a right state.

We know the estate agent are shysters from previous.

They put on the ad that they had closed viewings implying they had many. (They didn't)
They told the would be buyers that the adjacent land had an option to buy on it (It's owned by my friend and she said hell will freeze over first, that she had no intention of selling, and why on earth where the agents misleading the buyer in this way)

And thats just for starters.

They had previously tried a hard sell on us when we dealt with them. They tried to pressure us into selling with them. It got to the point that we said we wouldn't sell or buy from them even if our dream house came up with them, because it would be overpriced and we'd have to deal with the lying bastards.

The moral of this story is very much never trust an estate agent.

@furstivetreats I understood. You explained it very well.

I am sorely tempted to go over there and ask. Really I am. True I can’t do much more noseying after.

I guess it’s the feeling of losing out somehow. Our house is more desirable and has more potential to add more useful additional space. The row of houses we are part of are rather unique because of their position.

One other thing I remember, the drive way is scary. Really steep.

We paid under asking for ours but in the end paid the same but we have tons of work to do and they have none really.

I never want to buy another house. This is our second home and I truly, truly never want to go through this again. So this one will have to be our forever home.

I’m going to try to convince my husband to find a reason to speak to them to get a bit of insight into what happened AND I’ll try the estate agent ruse.

One other thing I remember, the drive way is scary. Really steep.

This would actually be a deal breaker for me!

Personally I'd try the estate agent tactic, I reckon that's your best bet. Let us know if you do find out!

This happened to us, twice!

The first time the agent actually called to tell me after completion that we shouldn't be upset when we see the sold price online (which was less than our offer) as the survey had come back with several very expensive repairs required (it was a 1960's build with a flat roof and I have since seen scaffolding all over it) and so the buyers had knocked the price down (dramatically- they overbid to secure it in the first place).

The second was definitely a dodgy agent - they had identified who they wanted to win the bid on the house before we even offered. Our bid was higher but the other buyers had sold their house through the same agent. I am glad we didn't get that house in the end as it was a renovation project and I could not have faced doing that at the moment but it was a kick in the teeth at the time.

1. sounds to me as if you got the better deal. The better view and longer garden are likely to be there for many many years and you will appreciate them as time passes. For me S and/or W facing gardens are way preferable to N and/or E.

2. If you recently moved in and the buyers of the other place recently moved in, maybe knock on door with a plate of cookies to say hello and share the welcome to the neighborhood. Maybe you'll make friends.

3. I know 80k is a large amount - because house prices are stupid - but it's only 10% of the price. They may fluctuate by that amount in the next few years anyway. Life is too short to get upset about 10%.

4. Good luck in your new home - and with the renovations. It sounds as if it will end up being the way YOU want it - not the way someone else wanted it and which you found acceptable.

You bought on the desirable side of the street.. worth X% for the 'can't put your finger on why', X% for the double the garden size, X% for the river views, the driveway.. eek, definitely worth a few quid, your had potential while the other one didn't, whatever happens immediately, at some stage you would have changed the internal decor and put your own stamp on it, this way you haven't paid for that at all. You have some renovations to do, maybe 150K-250K and what.. you will have a house that could be worth up to 1.5M that you paid 720 for plus renovations.. or you could have paid 720 for a house you could not improve and has a ceiling price due to being on the wrong side of the road, even if it is actually worth 800K, you are still the winners on this one! Now sing along with me, while you dance around your very large garden looking at the river views.. Let it Go, Let it Go...

Oh you ladies are wonderful. Truly wonderful. I feel better reading your clear headed responses.

I called the estate agent today but he wasn’t in. Will try tomorrow and will also say hi to the neighbours.

In any case, I think you all are right. We have the better house and getting envious over the £80k isn’t based on objective reasoning.

@MrsMayJune it sounds like you got the better house and more saleable one for the future. Yes the other one needed less work but will always have a garden half the size of yours with an off-putting driveway. Sometimes there is ‘the house that got away’ sometimes buyers remorse is driven by the sheer enormity of the renovation work ahead of you …. the mess/cost etc makes you yearn for the poorer house. You have won in the long run though even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

It could also be that the buyers were in a more proceedable position? Or didn’t require a mortgage or were chain free? I’d Start with the LR. Pay your £3 and download the title. If there is no restriction from a bank/building soc, there’s your answer…

You cant trust estate agents. They sell to mates at mates rates, they encourage bidding wars that dont exist, they tell their clients what to do.

[quote MrsMayJune]@furstivetreats I understood. You explained it very well.

I am sorely tempted to go over there and ask. Really I am. True I can’t do much more noseying after.

I guess it’s the feeling of losing out somehow. Our house is more desirable and has more potential to add more useful additional space. The row of houses we are part of are rather unique because of their position.

One other thing I remember, the drive way is scary. Really steep.

We paid under asking for ours but in the end paid the same but we have tons of work to do and they have none really.

I never want to buy another house. This is our second home and I truly, truly never want to go through this again. So this one will have to be our forever home.

I’m going to try to convince my husband to find a reason to speak to them to get a bit of insight into what happened AND I’ll try the estate agent ruse.[/quote]
Go and chat to them and report back!

But honestly, OP, it sounds like the house you bought is way better

If an agent suggests there's lots of interest, asks for a "best and final offer" etc, but you don't want to get into a bidding war, you don't have to go crazy and start offering way over asking. But you don't have to walk away either!

We had this situation on our last purchase we offered what we were happy to pay - a few percent under asking price, basically the offer we'd have made in that market without the agent's bluster - and got the house.

Why walk away? Make the offer you were going to make. The worst that could happen is that someone else bids more! 🤷‍♂️

Excellent news, the lower house prices go the better for everybody really.

Just be glad it`s a house......

www.linkedin.com/pulse/pas9980-when-you-thought-things-couldnt-get-any-worse-evans-fimeche

They were lucky to get out before rates started rising, that loss would have been even more now I think.

Sounds most likely that there was a problem with the survey. Otherwise, if the buyers were dropping their offer for nothing, with that level of interest the sellers would just have relisted. You may even have dodged a bullet there. You have better views and a nicer house. Forget the money, as my OH says, you can work on a house to change it to more what you want, but if it hasn't got a nice view, you can't move it to one.

"behind some trees".... How close are those trees as it could mean subsidence.