When would you raise your offer?

[AllOfTheDwarves]

I made an initial offer on a house which was rejected. I was planning to raise it on Monday but I've had a notification that another viewing is booked (house is on with Purple Bricks) so I'm guessing they're not going to accept a below asking price offer until they've had the outcome of that viewing. I'm reluctant to go straight in at asking so wondering how to play it and when to offer. I don't know when the viewing is, just that it's been booked.

Like all haggling it depends entirely on the individual circumstances.

How much you want it
How long it has been on the market
What sort of a position your are in / how quickly you can move
What the market is like where you are and in your price band. Where we live, first time buyer properties goon the day, for over the asking price , so I wouldn't play the games that we all have historically done, at the moment, if I really liked a house.

Then the things you can only guess - what position the other people viewing are in and how much they want it.

Personally I’d only offer once, for what I’d be happy to pay for the house. In your position I’d raise my offer now to that number.

It's a guessing game. The others may offer more, they may not offer at all. I hope it works out for you.

We deal with this by offering what we think a house was worth to us rather than trying to game it. If we're outbid, then as we didn't think it was worth that much it's not a tragedy. If we could have got it for less, well, so be it. We got the house we wanted for a price we thought was fair. At least we didn't lose a house we wanted by chancing our arm.

To be fair, last time, a few months after our offer was accepted, we had to up it because someone made a better offer. But by then we knew more about the house and the alternatives and we thought we could justify the extra.

I wouldnt even 100% believe there was a second viewing. Especially coming from purple bricks. If you were planning to raise your offer on Monday then go ahead if you really want the house. Depends on the house and how much you want in and if its worth the money. Everything could change after a survey.

We left 48h between rejections and increasing offers. We would have been happy to go to asking price but ended up getting it for about 5% less. We started at about 12% under.

Thanks everyone. Very helpful. Can they falsify viewings, @Viviennemary ?

I wouldn't put it past them to say we have had a lot of interest when they've had none. Strange how they've always got a viewing just after you've made an offer.

@Viviennemary a little googling tells me this is common practice with PB. Last viewing was booked on 14/10/21 so seems a bit suspicious that another one suddenly materialises the day after I offer!! I think I need to not think about other potential viewings (real or not) and proceed as I would have done as I don't want to play games. My gut tells me to raise this evening.

We raised ASAP, but PP are right, you need to do it all within the realms of what you are still happy to pay for the house. So we offered 10k under, unsurprisingly get rejected (busy market) as they had another 10 viewings booked in for the week coming. Had a bit if haggling on the same day and agreed to their offer of 10k over asking for the viewings to be cancelled and our offer accepted. It was still within our budget and we're comfortable with what we've paid.

In your case I'd go in with a raised offer if you're still comfortable with that price but say its best and final and don't get caught up with the potential haggling.

We are currently in a chain that's fallen apart twice and hoping to complete before Xmas, third time lucky.

We've been on market for over a year now, had to sell ours 3 times, took us 6 months to find this place it's THE house hence why we're doing everything we can to get over the finish line this time.

It came up with 'offer in excess of' and we were 2nd in, offered asking as soon as we finished the viewing, we had by then both driven and walked around and knew it was our house. They already had an offer from first viewing which was in range of asking, then we got a call saying they've upped it and if we wanted to revise our offer. Considering it's beyond rare for a house like that to come up, for a very reasonable price in a nice area, good schools etc we went in at our max price, £5k over asking if they take it off the market and cancel all other viewings, I initially said let's do a few k over but MiL advised to go all in considering the circumstances. It was blatantly obvious that it would sell like butter and probably for a lot more than it was listed for and we wanted to avoid a bidding war.

So it all comes down to how much you want it and how much you're willing to pay to get it, for us considering we've been following the market for months already the choice was simple.

Good luck!