Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Flip

Original poster

Accepting first offer on house?!

17 replies

Catred4 · 30/05/2022 22:15

So our house went on the market today. We live in quite a sought after area so we had 7!viewing requests in the first 5 hours of it being live.

We had a viewing today from someone our estate agent had tipped off prior to it going live due to it fitting their exact brief and them having lost out on a similar house recently.

As soon as they left, they put an offer on for the full asking price.

The thing is, we still have 7 viewings booked in throughout the rest of the week. Do we just cancel them and accept the offer, or wait to see how the other viewings go to see if anyone would offer more / give us options on buyer?

I'm just not sure what the "done" thing is!

OP posts:

Rainbowqueeen · 30/05/2022 22:18

I’d see what the agent recommends.

For me, it’s not just how much they offer but whether they are in a chain, have finance approved, solicitor in place etc.

easyday · 30/05/2022 22:18

Say you are considering but want to have the other viewings. Also if you do take it make sure they are in the best position to proceed. If they love it that much they can wait. But don't keep them hanging forever.

bilbodog · 30/05/2022 22:19

I think i would let the viewings go ahead that are already booked in but not allow any more and see if you get any other interest. This gives you the opportunity to choose the best buyer - not necessarily the highest offer. Good luck.

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 30/05/2022 22:19

Get the agent to check if they are proceeable and obtain proof. Then suggest that you see out the remaining booked viewings (but hold off booking more). They will likely then add a counter higher offer and have given their proceedable proof to the agent.

RandomUsernameHere · 30/05/2022 22:22

I would go ahead with the other viewings, that's completely normal. The EA should have already vetted them to make sure they're not time wasters. Good luck!

SafelySoftly · 31/05/2022 07:09

go ahead! Tell agent to tell everyone there is asking price offer. Then do sealed bids. I’d accept offers/viewings for next couple of days but squeeze them in in day next couple of days to keep interest up.

NewHouseNewMe · 31/05/2022 07:43

We accepted the first offer at asking price - which was the second offer - on the first day of viewings!
In our case we needed to move quickly as we had found a house, their chain was almost complete and waiting for them to find somewhere. There was no messing around and we were moved within 3 months.

Savoretti · 31/05/2022 07:45

let the other viewings go ahead. This happened to us and we have 4 asking price offers. EA sorted it and it went to best offers

Buildingthefuture · 31/05/2022 07:49

Do the viewings, then go to sealed bids/best and final offers. The media is stirring up a storm about the housing market but everything around us is selling within days, for over the asking price.

StageRage · 31/05/2022 08:01

Say you are not ready to accept the first offer yet, but will hold until you have seen the booked viewings / viewings this week. (You might get more)

Then assess all offers based on ‘proceedability’ (in a chain / AIP for mortgage / offer price).

Whinge · 31/05/2022 08:05

We had a viewing today from someone our estate agent had tipped off prior to it going live due to it fitting their exact brief and them having lost out on a similar house recently.

With this is mind, i'm surprised they only offered asking price. I'd go ahead with the other viewings. It's a popular area with plenty of interested buyers, so you'll definitely get other offers.

lashy · 31/05/2022 09:36

@Rainbowqueenmakes an excellent point.
I viewed a property last year, along with 5 other separate viewers.
The vendor (wisely, IMO), told us from the outset that she had X number of viewings booked over that week.
The agent advised me that the vendor was then going to make a decision by the end of the week/the Friday.
Sure enough, the property changed to STC on RM about 4pm of the Friday (not to me, as I could not afford the asking amount [close, but not close enough]).

I put an offer in on another house - late afternoon on same day I viewed, but the vendor had already verbally agreed a figure with someone else (lower than my offer) and felt obliged to stick with that buyer.
She'd potentially have had more money if she hadn't been so hasty.
8 months later that sale fell through and she had to relist it.
In the meantime I had had an offer accepted on another house and am currently 9wks in, waiting ....

StageRage · 31/05/2022 16:22

The people who made the offer: are they selling theirs through the same agent, by any chance?

If so be a bit wary of the EA steering you towards their offer, desperately trying to keep a chain together. Not a bad thing, an EA working really hard to progress a chain, last time I bought and sold it was really good that the EA I was buying through, was selling my buyers flat. So knew what any hold ups were and could reliably inform my vendor that all was OK, just slowish.

Just ensure that the offer is as high as it should be.

But if you are buying, a reliable sale to well motivated buyers is worth more than a few extra £k from people who mess you about, gazump at the last minute or pull out.

MrsJamin · 31/05/2022 16:39

I don't think you have anything to lose by letting those viewings go ahead. It's your prerogative to limit the window for these to just one day and to let people know an offer has been made at asking price. Don't make anyone wait too long though, its horrendous waiting for an offer to be accepted!

Paranoidandroidmarvin · 31/05/2022 20:03

We sold ours last year. We had three viewings on the next day.
two made offered. Both over £10,000 over the asking price. I did let another viewing on the Monday but we were still in negotiations at that point as we had to people in a bidding war over it.
The reason we took the first offer was this was the highest anyone had ever put this range of house up for this price ( live in a village and lots of the houses are the same ) and the estate agent wasn’t sure if we would even get it. So we took the money. We also needed to move quickly.

But I have to say if there first offers were under I wouldn’t have said yes quickly as I would have like to have seen what other offers were going to be given.

Original poster

Catred4 · 31/05/2022 21:09

Thanks for your advice everyone. We didn't accept, we had another viewing today who came back to the EA and asked "what would you accept to take this off the market" 😱 so we told them a price. Will see what happens! What a crazy market we're in atm!

OP posts:

Twiglets1 · 01/06/2022 07:11

People shouldn't feel pressurised by their agents or even themselves to sell to the first person who makes a decent offer, there is no harm in saying you will think about an offer for a few days even an asking price offer - this allows other viewings to go ahead.
My daughter offered 10k under on a flat in London and it was accepted even though it had just come to market and had lots of interest. If only the vendors had known - someone would have paid the asking price. Even she would have done if they had pushed her a bit harder.
We thought their estate agent probably put pressure on them to accept her offer because it was multi agency and he was worried the commission could go to the other agent if it stayed on the market!

Flip