Offers below asking...

[Amichelle84]

Do people even put in offers below asking anymore?

We saw a 3 bed earlier which we both liked and is on for £365 which is reasonable for the area.

The kitchen is really small though but I think we could configure it to work and we would need to potentially knock internal disused chimney breast (if possible) in one of the bedrooms. We don't have a lot of disposable cash so thinking if we offered a bit below asking we'd have a bit of cash spare to put towards the upgrades we'd want to do.

Don't ask, don't get right?

Exactly!
Also it’s a lot of hassle for buyers to negotiate. They’ll already have spent money - on a survey, on instructing solicitors, on getting a mortgage (for which there’s a lot of paperwork). Weeks of stress leading up to that point!

It’s not like they offer, then pull out cost free. There are also consequences of needing to get a new mortgage, on a new property.

The recent spate of down valuations have shown how overheated the market is. To be fair it’s not simply about vendors being greedy, if their next house is overpriced then they can’t sell their own on at a lower price. But the extent to which agents have gone… sealed bids, 50K over asking… they’ve gotten away with it earlier in the year, but with interest rates etc rises I’m starting to see more sitting on the market.

Our first buyers' offer and the valuation were fine.

They then waited six weeks after the survey and a week before exchange, to demand £25k off the agreed price.

Cheeky fuckers. We said no and they flounced.

@Minimalme Exactly the same as what happened to us. We lost our onward purchase as a result. I hope your outcome was ok.

Ultimately it all comes down to greed, both buyers and sellers. The English system is so flawed that it allows it to happen.

Try checking their utility bills and gauge if they are selling to avoid the upcoming increases. If so, then negotiate hard, because it's you that will be picking them up.

Is the house on an estate that requires lots of driving costs? Is so, negotiate hard!

Exactly. It’s inconceivable that chains are allowed to form in the first place! If even developing countries have straightforward processes why not the U.K. =•=

Agree with this. We're buying atm and our offer was accepted at 10k below asking.

Offer £400k then wait until the seller has really invested a load of time and money into finding another house, solicitors etc. Then lowball them at what you want to pay when you have them cornered with news your mortgage company has down valued it.

tbh we lost out on 4 houses this yr. I based my bid on what it's worth & knew down-valuations are likely. I had a good deposit but knew what I needed mortgage wise. 2 of the sellers went with higher bids, one the chain has collapsed & one sold for less than we offered so obviously negotiating had happened.

It's made me think I need to over offer just to get the house.

My mother had a vendor offer asking price a few years ago, then just before exchange reduced their offer by £20,k She declined and refused to negotiate any further with them. And put house back on market.

The cheeky vendor kept calling the ea, but my mum told the ea not to bother calling with messages/,offers from them and to continue with viewings, the ea had increased the original price from first sell by 10k.

Eventually the woman from.the couple came round to my mums, apologised for the cheap tactic and said it was her husbands idea and they really wanted the house.

Mum said they should then submit the NEW asking price offer to the ea and inform then she has spoken to her. They did and mum accepted., and completed.

Cost them £10k more than they originally agreed for trying it on....

Why are you calling the buyers 'vendors'...?
Also it's a really stupid idea to do that if the house is well priced and likely to sell fast

My bad lol, meant buyers. Been a long day already.

Yes it was a very stupid, sly and costly idea, even more so as they knew full well my mum wasn't in a hurry to sell as she already had another home she spent most of her time in and was going to retire too.

Thank you. Thats exactly the point i was making. In order for you to get a chance, you have to be in some way snide about offering more even though you sound like you are totally genuine. Sellers AND buyers are as bad as each other. Such a shame on both sides of the argument

Thats brilliant.

Exactly!
Added to that agents are all odd. Some overprice, some underprice, some put ‘offers over’, some put nothing at all. As PP have said there’s also been the invention of fake buyers with ‘higher offers’. There’s no way of finding out what something sold for either because the actual sold price details lag.

Of course The only way to find out a to offer on multiple properties as a practice but can’t do that!

The only thing we can do that’s in keeping with principes is to be honest with the vendor - say this is X price, take it or leave it. We won’t negotiate down at the last minute etc unless the survey turns up something undisclosed, we will have spent a lot of money, time and effort in getting searches done etc so pulling out would be bad for us too.

Asking price is what the EA price and they just want the most they can get. Many houses are over valued initially by EA so do your research and offer what you think its worth.

The house we are currently buying was on for 315, we offered 295 and the estate agents admitted they had valued it at 300 but the vendor wanted more. We met them at 300 which seemed fair, we wouldn't have paid them anymore and they chased us for the decision we left the first offer floating for a week.

The market in our area at the moment is on absolute fire.

2 bed flats in our town are going for waaay over asking price e.g. DS put offers of asking price, rejected, upped it and was rejected again because someone had offered more, on two different flats.

He is in the middle of purchasing a flat in the neighbouring town where prices are generally slightly lower and went straight in with £11k over asking and secured it. We were nervous about the valuation being down-valued but it came back absolutely fine. It’s also a MUCH nicer flat with a garage in a decent area so fingers crossed he’s actually got a bargain in the end.