Best & Final Offers

[Stephisaur]

I'm bored, and hot, and frustrated so I thought I'd get a discussion going.

Those who have sold/bought through best & final offers - how did the sold price compare to asking price?

We went to Best & Final in January and accepted £13k over asking. Unfortunately, that fell through. We remarketed and achieved a similar price.

Lost one house on B&F which went for over asking. Submitted another B&F today on another house, where we've gone £10k over.

So... just curious - what did you accept or have accepted if you were the buyer?

:)

Need to know the asking price for this to make sense.
A friend's daughter (first time buyer, good deposit) just successfully bid on a London flat last week - ask was £565k she got it for £590k. No outside space and third best and final she'd been in and all went over asking.
About nine years ago I sold to best and final. My ask was £945k, got bids of £935k (rejected), £975k (accepted as was under offer on sale thru same agents) and £1.05m (rejected as hadn't sold their house).
I actually wanted to put it on at £975k in the first place!
As a caveat, I bought my SW terrace last summer and got it under offer, and had two other below ask offers accepted on two other houses (sellers both pulled out for different reasons and removed houses from the market).

I went over by 18k to get mine. I wasnt the highest either!!! But was in a better position

We offered between 8-15% over. Obviously only one of those was successful so no idea what the winning offer was. We were chain free and very proceedable, so I assume they must have been higher. For our house, we offered £820k and guide price was £750k, so that’s just under 10%.

I think it very much depends on the market locally. We were buying a rural property with land in the South West just as everyone from London decided they would move down here and wfh forever. So it was a very competitive market.

@easyday for context, we have sold for £340k(£10k over original asking) and have put an offer in on a property valued at £700k which is in need of work.

Jumping from a 3 Bed terraced to a 4+ Bed Detached, both in "good" areas.

I'm told by the EA that all those offering are in a similar position (houses to sell, no cash buyers) so we'll have to wait and see.

Probably be unlucky again, but for now I can only wait 😂

I’m amazed by the flat in Brixton that went to best and finals. Flats are selling here but not that quickly.

Our successful best and final offer was on a house priced at 550, we offered 635.

We had lost many many before that though, either to higher offers or chain free buyers.

The one we were particularly gutted about was an offer of 605 on a property priced at 525.

How on earth are you getting these past mortgage companies? Surely the valuers can't always agree that the property was worth 10-20% more than it was marketed for?

@Summerhillsquare you just build it into your house buying. I.e. make sure you have enough deposit to cover the extra and look for houses which are being marketed a bit cheaper than your total budget so you can bid up to what you can afford.

I meant when you get a survey, they value the property as part of the lender's due diligence.

@Summerhillsquare i think it depends on your LTV. Our mortgage offer has been issued despite the amount being over their valuation.

We’ve just been successful ( on our third attempt ) at best and final offers. Guide price £525,000 and our bid won at circa £540,000. I expect it will be downvalued but that doesn’t matter to us as we are only porting a small mortgage.

@Summerhillsquare yep that's what I meant. E.g you have a £80,000 deposit and based on your earnings can borrow £160,000 on a mortgage with an 80% loan to value ratio. So you look for houses that are on the market for around £200,000 and bid up to £235,000. The bank downvalues it to £200,000 so will only lend you £160,000 but you still have enough sayings to get 80% loan to value and pay the extra money for the house.

We had our house in York on at £450k and had 5 best and final offers of £475, £470, £467, £465 and £460. We took the £467 as they were just about to exchange and they were such a lovely couple. 16 weeks later they still haven't exchanged as the bottom of their chain fell through. Its back on now but only 5 weeks into new chain. They also aren't as 'nice' as we thought.

Our house was on for 1.7 million, we have accepted 1.8. We had several offers at a similar level. SW London.