Accept offer or wait for a higher offer on property?

[CantStartaFireWithoutaSpark]

Hi, I put my flat up for sale 2 weeks ago as I’m moving back to my home country.
I have offers on the table, but it’s for less than I was willing to accept (30/40k less).
We are not in a rush to sell, but with the issues in interest rates the way they are, I don’t know what to do.
The property is only up 2 weeks, lots of offers (below asking) and one ok offer at almost asking.

Do I wait for a higher offer? Or due to the state of the market, take the offer and cut my losses?
If I wait, will my chance of a future sale diminish?

For context, I bought 5 years ago and the offer on the table is barely breaking even. The flat is in London.

I think that flat prices in London are due to come down, not necessarily a huge amount, but they will decrease. If I were you I would either accept the offer now or take your flat off the market for the foreseeable future.

Of course it is all guesswork!

Accept the ok offer or stay offers will likely get lower if you don't move soon. I don't think the mad bidding wars will be happening anytime soon.

I'd take the closest one.

Bite their hand off...

I’d accept and try to get it through before mortgage rates go even higher or loans get hard to get at all because of affordability problems. It’s nasty when that happens, we had a house which sold for less than we bought it for although we’d invested quite a bit. We evened out with a couple of ok sales before and after but still not nice.

Right now I'd accept the highest offer. I can only imagine people will start to offer less. I'm also about to sell a London property and it's very much on my mind but we need to buy a larger place.

A lot of the lower offers have come from cash buyers!! We wouldn’t entertain them as they were so low. The agent said the expect preferential treatment because it’s cash!
This has irked me.

It has very quickly turned into a buyers market. Take the best offer now or accept 10% less next month.

Most of the forecasts seem to be that house prices are going to drop now, so if you’ve had an almost asking price offer, I’d be inclined to accept it. Breaking even is better than a loss. I know this is hard to accept because we’ve been conditioned into expecting to make substantial profits from property purchases, but there’s a strong possibility that that gravy train is about to hit the buffers.

It’ll probably bounce back eventually, but unless you’re willing to sit tight for a number of years, you need to be pragmatic.

looks like we had better accept the offer then.

we really got unlucky with our timing. I’m pretty frustrated

If you're losing less on the sale than you would have paid in rent in that time to live in a similar property then you have not really lsit anything. You had a secure home for 5 years.

*lost

I agree with taking the almost offer, but stand firm if they start trying to negotiate money off further down the line.

Prices for flats in London have been stagnating for a while (people want outdoor space, more people are working from home and moving out of London, the cladding/fire safety scandal made people worry about buying flats).

With the current mortgage/cost of living crisis prices are likely to go down for the next few months rather than up until things hopefully stabilise.

So If I were you I would accept the offer closest to your asking price.

A friend of mine has been trying to sell a lovely 2 bed flat in a nice part of London for more than a year and her sale has collapsed 3 times already. The most recent one was because the buyer had to withdraw after the recent mortgage rate increases.

So if you find a serious buyer count yourself lucky...

Your other option might be to keep the flat and rent it out until things settle but that would mean depending on an estate agent to manage it if you are leaving the country.

What does your agent advise?

Cash buyers occasionally turn out not to have the cash quite to hand.

I think a bit fancier flats might struggle to sell, people will prefer to get more basic qualities for their money.
Will you have extra expenses in case of not selling? E.g. council tax, insurance, travel later to sell. They might be less than price difference but still very significant.

Agent advises to take the offer but while the buyers go through the paperwork, mortgage etc, he will keep it advertised, as that offer can quickly fall through. Particularly in this climate.

In terms of expenses, yes absolutely.
Even with renting it out, we would need to back it quite a lot with more money.
on the other hand; we do have to pay early repayment fee, which is roughly 6k no now. But the cost of keeping it and renting it out would still be more.

The prospective buyer won’t be happy with the periphery still being marketed as available whilst they proceed.

So they don’t already have a mortgage in principle?

@Doingprettywellthanks yes I didn’t know that was a thing either if I’m honest.

They do have mortgage in principle yes. That’s all I know to
be honest.

It’s not a “thing”.

If I was the buyer, I had my offer accepted, I had a MIP, but the vendor was still going to market it as for sale whilst I began to incur costs… I would withdraw

It’s only used where the buyer hasn’t got anything lined up at all and agent doubts they’re serious

Do they have a property to sell?

Good point, there is no law that says you make a profit on property when you sell. Don`t delay though or you will be chasing the market down and losing a lot more money.

No the couple who have offered are chain free. They only got mortgage in principle last week, so I guess there is a degree of uncertainty. They can let us down, as much as we could let them down. It’s mutual.
it’s a perspective never considered before. I’m learning fast!