Best way to get the house?!

[Beach1983]

We’ve been looking for months, lost a few houses along the way but now a house has come up that looks perfect, exact location I wanted etc - it’s not on Rightmove yet, my estate agent put a preview of it online before it goes live. I contacted our agent straight away and the vendor has agreed to let us see it Monday (a week before the open day) so we will be the first ones to see it.

I need to convince him to sell it to us and not let it go to open day, it’s on for 550k so wondering how much over I need to offer to convince him, also anyone had any luck with a letter? We lost one of our other houses due to buyer sending a letter explaining their local connections etc (which is the same as this one, my family are from the village this house is in) I feel like it’s a bit weird sending a letter though??!

im hoping that as our buyer has no chain and it’s on with the same agent selling us we can make this work, give me your tips! 😩🤞

Sorry OP, I know it's not what you want to hear. But if they already have enough interest for an open day then I suspect they'll go ahead and let others view, and any offer you make will just be used as a bargaining tool for other interested buyers. 😔

Make your position really clear, have your documents, financing etc in place. Yes to the letter-doesn’t need to be an essay. But the sellers may really love their house and want to be reassured you’ll love it as much as them. Also explaining a bit about who you are and why this house helps them to visualise people behind the offer so you are not just a number.

@Whinge Whinge My estate agent markets everyone’s house with an open day, as I said it’s not gone live on Rightmove yet so nobody booked in to view it yet - ideally I need to stop that happening!

@SetSail Thankyou! I really feel like this one is the right house for us 😩

We got our offer accepted in similar circs - not a planned open day but they had more viewings booked for the Saturday. We got them to take it off the market on the Friday after we viewed on the Thurs!

Similar price range, we went about 1% over - have you done your research about pricing of similar properties to back up your offer?
We emphasised our very proceedable position (chain free as in rental and all finances in place), and that we lived and worked locally and the house meant we could walk to school and work.

All of that was just a few sentences in the email with the offer in.

We also needed to provide scanned copies of ID and evidence of our finances to the EA before our offer was accepted so have all this ready to go.

Good luck!

@RidingMyBike Thankyou! Annoyingly it’s a small village and nothing like this has sold for a while, so hard to get an idea of what things have sold for! But it’s similar to another house we offered on and lost that was in a different village and that went for the same price as this one is on for.

Houses round here are going for an average of nearly 20% above asking price following an open day here - you need to know how much over the asking price is normal in the area that you're looking at.

Ah apologies, i'm not used to EA who have an open day for every house, usually it's for houses with a lot of interest. In that case all you can do is make a strong offer and explain how proceedable you are. But also accept that the sellers may still want to go ahead with the open day or marketing via rightmove, especially if houses are selling quickly in your area.

@Beach1983 best of luck! We just went through this and got our forever home. Really stressful when you know it’s the one. I agree that unless you’re a cash buyer, probably unlikely they will cancel the open house. If you offer asking price, it gets you on their radar and you can consider how much over the asking price you want to go if (when) they go to best and final offers.

You can try asking if there is a price at which they would sell to you and not have the open day. It probably won’t work in this market though - we tried it!!!!

If they refuse then I would make an offer slightly over asking price (a grand or two) to show you are serious and then just wait until after the open house with a view to upping it if you need. In making an offer though they will obviously think their house will sell easily and they can get more for it and want to proceed with the open day. Making sure the agent is on your side will really help.

Don’t discount the letter though. We did get the house but we weren’t the highest bidder. The house is in a very popular village with a strong community and they preferred the idea of a young family moving into their forever home than the people wanting it for a second home and the property developer.

You should also ensure you mortgage has been agreed in principle / proof of funds is available.

Depending on the seller a letter may or not work.

When selling my late parents house we had a handwritten letter put through the door, it was a very nice letter but it annoyed me that someone had been eying up my parents house. When we later put the house on the market they made themselves known but ultimately they were not successful.
We went for Best & Finals and the people offering the third best offer submitted a nice letter explaining their history, why they wanted the house etc and they were the ones we went with.

I agree but it’s a lose situation for them. They will want the highest offer so of course they are going to offer it to the whole of the market knowing you will still offer on it. You could try offer 700k. Based on the house prices around here this is slightly above what the house will go for.

@Flopisfatteningbingforchristmas 150k over?! We can’t afford 700k! I don’t think the market is that crazy round here, the most we’ve heard of so far is 25/50k over asking. 150k is insanity - surely it would be downvalued by the mortgage company?!

@BookwormButNoTime thats my thoughts, I would be amazed if they don’t let the open day happen. But then I think why go to the trouble of cleaning your house twice etc within a week if you aren’t at least considering accepting an offer before? Maybe that’s wishful thinking!

We are seeing it tomorrow so will update with what they say 🤞

We’ve been in a similar position recently. House was being shown to a few people off market, there had been 5 viewings (including ours) and 3 offers. London, so not as crazy as other areas of the UK. We loved the house so much so we made our best possible offer, we really had nothing else to offer! We articulated on an email how much we loved the house and how we were chain free and could move very quickly. It still went to best and finals, but ultimately we won due to our chain free position, I guess - impossible to know what the other offers were.

Just to add, we offered very slightly under asking as we couldn’t stretch to asking.

Lots of people in our area are only accepting cash buyers for that reason.

Ultimately you will get this house if you pay more than anyone else and can offer a straightforward purchase with no chain

Luck. Sheer luck is what you need. We viewed a place off-market (we were favoured buyers by the EA as we'd been buying a house with them and the seller withdrew) along with a few others. This new place was in immaculate condition without any clutter, and children long since left home. They hadn't even had the photos taken yet, but were definitely going ahead with that. So we assumed they wouldn't be bothered about having more viewers in later, and would definitely go to RightMove. (with all our children and clutter, we'd have happily taken under off-market to avoid the pain of more viewers)

We debated whether to offer over asking, trying to weigh up if there was a "magic" figure that would be enough to convince them not to, versus them thinking if we were offering that much, then maybe they could get even more if they put it on. After tying ourselves up in knots, we opted to go for an asking price offer, reasoning that they would probably put it onto RightMove no matter what we offered, and maybe a higher offer might give them even more incentive, so no point forcing the price up before we need to. We figured if there were "best and finals" by putting in asking price, we'd be in the running to bid again.

Like I said - luck. We were the only ones to offer. The seller accepted our asking price offer next day. We were immediately and wondered if we'd missed something obvious during our viewing, as this was clearly one of those places that should have ended up with multiple offers and going for over.

The answer came a few days later when the EA told us the seller was out viewing a property, and a few days later, their offer was accepted. It sounds like they had their eye on something unique and special, and having seen the listing myself, I can understand their decision! I suspect they were probably planning on going to market at the usual time, but then this property popped up and they knew they needed to be proceedable to stand a chance when making an offer. Getting potentially a bit less on their own home was probably worth it to them.

We're moving in next week and haven't viewed the place since so I hope it was just for that reason, haha!

Good luck - quite literally!

Round here desirable houses at £550 are going for above £600 although things seem to be slowing down.

Good luck!

I wrote a letter. It was short and I kept it sincere but not overly gushing. I was told by the EA afterwards that it was perfect and could they recommend it to other people. (I take that with a pinch of salt).

I thought about what would be the issues for the seller and what would reassure them. So, I made clear that we were in a good, chain-free position and could go as slow or as fast as they wanted. The site was full of stuff and I said they didn't have to clear it. I mentioned I had a child who would love the garden and then made clear I would keep the fish if they wanted to leave them, so they didn't have to worry about the pond being concreted over.

I honoured all those, lost 2k missing the stamp duty holiday, have so far done around 30 tip runs and the fish are currently enjoying their new fountain.

But, at the end of the day I offered 5% over asking and that probably swung it. Regarding the offer, it was the amount that if I'd lost it I would have wished I could re-offer as my best.

We got it!!!! Can’t believe it! 15k over asking, and off the market! Can’t believe it!!!

Ah congratulations OP 😊🎉

Yay!!!!!