Cash buyer or more money

[SunflowerFlower]

If you were selling your house and had a few offers, would you go for more money (around £5/10k) or a cash buyer with no chain?

The majority of cash buyers turn out to be false. What they actually mean is they have sold their previous property and moved into rented.

Often they still require a mortgage and all the delay that involves. As well as notice in their tenancy.

Having been in this position a few times I'd accept the extra 15k. The delays are similar with both sets of people.

Either this or ask a LOT of very direct questions.

How much do they have in place?
How long will it take to access the funds,
Do they need a mortgage top up?
Will they be relying on family and friends to fund a portion of the purchase price.
Are these funds in place and accessible. ( not in long term bonds)

I've been badly stung twice by estate agents not actually asking the right questions.

Take a higher offer and sit it out would be my advice.

I had a bizarre conversation with a friend about this that couldn't understand that she was in a strong situation with her offer because her buyers and sold and completed and she is downsizing so just transferring her mortgage.

So what position are your buyers in "they've sold".

Me "do you mean sold or completed"

"Don't know but they've sold"

🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

Last year, we bid of five properties where we were outbid by cash buyers.

We were then contacted about three of the five houses when things fell through with the cash buyer.

As others have said, cash buyers are often not cash buyers and spring the need to sell their own property or apply for a mortgage late in the process.

I also think that it’s so much easier for cash buyers to bid and go sale agreed on multiple properties and just walk away from them. Mortgaged buyers have to jump through so many more hoops on a specific property with their bank, they don’t have the ability to be in a purchasing process for multiple properties.

I’ve only dealt with cash buyers who have the money in the bank and are downsizing. Some people sell businesses snd have cash. Others are swapping investments around snd buying for DC. People have cash for all sorts of reasons. If the EA knows their exact position, then it’s ok if it all stacks up.

As others say, your EA should be checking proof of funds. You need to be sure the cash buyer actually has the funds ready and available. If that all shows up as described, I’d go with them.

I’d expect an EA not to mark a property as SSTC online or stop viewings until the memo of sale was produced. Before they can do that they’d need to see proof of funds and know name of solicitor so buyer is actually proceedable.

Anything can fall through. There is no guarantee or certainty. However a genuine cash buyer has less to go wrong, so I’d take the hit of a few grand. I would make sure the EA made clear that if there became any sign of them not being proceedable or talking g about needing to sell something or raise finance, the deal would be off. Press the EA to be very careful in checking out their exact status at the outset before accepting the offer.

I received a 5k under asking price offer from a chap who apparently said to the agent “I don’t want you using my offer as some kind of bargaining tool - you can tell the seller I don’t want to mess around negotiating”.

The same day I received an asking price offer from a nice friendly couple who were v courteous at viewing and had a mortgage in principal lined up.

I accepted the asking price offer. The agent then rang the first chap to tell him he’d not been successful and he apparently said “no I really really want that house i’ll give her 10k more”. I decided to continue selling to the asking price couple because I didn’t like the first mans attitude! I felt the other buyers were more solid and reliable. Yes I could have had a bit more going with the first guy, but I felt like he was trying to play a game, and I figured someone like that might try and reduce offer at last minute etc. I just got a feeling. More money isn’t always the best indicator of which offer to accept.

I have also experienced a 'cash buyers' who then turned out to need a mortgage after all.

Thanks everyone. Seems there's quite a few bad experiences with "cash buyers".

When we bid, we were cash buyers and we were chain free but we were buying a second home...we were determined to proceed, but had they screwed us around we'd have walked away more easily - as it happened they saved the screwing around till the moving date - when they seemed to have personality transplant - think promising to leave everything to removing light bulbs. 😂 I laugh because I need to put it behind me!