Offering the asking price

[Mudddypaws]

After some advice from anyone who has bought a house recently. Did you pay the full asking price? We are putting in an offer on a house this morning and don't know whether to offer asking price or slightly under. We are in the north and the house we are looking at has been on for two weeks, only 2 other viewings and no offers. It's top of our budget and offering 5k less would allow us to change a couple of things on the house. Or are we daft just not to offer the full asking price in the current market?

Not daft at all, they can only say no. I bought last November it was up at 290k and we settled on 287k in the end I think I offered 5k below initially.

If you know there have only been 2 viewings and no other offers then it's fine to offer under.

The thing with the current market is that houses are getting snapped up very quickly and sellers have their pick of who to sell to. That is why people are offering above asking price/ getting "gazumped" etc.

It sounds like that's not the case where you are so as long as you know that's true then it couldn't hurt. If you know there's no immediate competition you can always increase if it gets rejected.

No one can tell you what to do or if its priced right.

5k on a mortgage over 25 years is negligible if i loved it i wouldnt mess about and go full asking.
I did this on my first flat and have no regrets.

However, If theres similar stock on and it fits the bill then you have options, so you could go in at 10 under aiming to close at 5 under

I always offer under unless it's a super red hot market. Even then I bought my current house in August and got it £20k below ask (£920k on £940k ask). SW London before y'all have a heart attack.
I'd go 5% below as a start, leave yourself room to come up. (Obviously I don't know what percentage your suggested £5k is of the asking price).

We offered on a house after viewing it as soon as it came on the market. It was on at 200, we offered 190 and compromised at 195. I do feel as though we probably overpaid a bit, but it secured us the house so I'm not too bothered.

I would go in slightly lower. They will come back to you anyway, so may as well make it a negotiation.

We offered £10k under (asking price £425k 6 years ago) and the estate agent basically laughed in our face. They had two other offers on the table so we offered full asking price straightaway after this, and the accepted. I wonder if we could have haggled a bit but we REALLY wanted the house and do in fact love living in it, so I'm glad we didn't risk it.

We didn’t as the house had been on since jan and they had a sale fall through. We got it cheaper. Our house was sold with a bidding war in under 24 hours. Neither of them even bothered offering the asking price. The first one went over 10k as their first offer.

I would say it depends on how long it has been on for or how desperate they are. I would give it a go and see

I think a lot depends on your area. We looked in three areas. In two areas, properties would generally go for 10% less - no one offered asking. In the other area, properties sold really quickly for asking price and sometimes went to bidding war. If you didn’t offer asking price, you wouldn’t have a shot. Do you have a feel for your area?

Thanks all, all done and dusted now. Offered 5k lower but estate agents said sellers wanted to wait as house has only been on market for 2 weeks and they have more viewings arranged. We have already lost out on two houses that turned into bidding wars so have agreed to full asking price. Has been taken off market now and viewings cancelled. Really happy, hopefully never going to need to move again. Glad we put the lower offer in first though just to see. Thanks again for all the advice

Congratulations!