Estate agent woes. Should we offer more?

[Greenlife1]

To cut a long story short. Finally found a house we love. On at 400. Offered 385 in cash chain-free and ready to rock ;)
Our offer was not put to the seller when it was made because they said they were waiting for all booked potential buyers to view and possibly offer. Ok...

Fast forward 3 days. EA tells us an offer was made and rejected straight away (although ours wasn't even put forward) as too low but no other offers.

Hubby pops into the EA shop as he happened to be in the area only to overhear an EA tell a colleague she would "try to squeeze a bit more out of X" Hubby doesn't think (all though couldn't say for certain) they were referring to us, but, of course, eyebrows raise at the living-up-to-stereotype cliched EA behaviour. Anyway. Still no other offers.

No more than an hour passes and the same EA calls to tell us someone has, in actual fact made an offer. The offer is "a tiny bit" higher and they are also cash buyers. We are told in order to make things fair and to prevent a bidding war we have 24 hours to submit our best and finals.

WWYD?!

Maybe just up your offer to £487k and see what happens. I agree with the previous posters, nothing wrong with the EA trying to get as much money as possible - that's what the vendor is paying them to do.

Our mortgage broker told me last week he’s seen more down valuations in the last 6 months than in his whole career. The lenders are being a lot more cautious about everything. Worth bearing mind if you need a mortgage to buy - how much you want to offer and if you are willing to bridge the gap if the lender valuation doesn’t meet the agreed purchase price.

This is my big worry at the moment. We've found a lovely property but it's unique so difficult to compare to anything within 30 miles. We have no idea what a lender is going to say about it.

Assuming you can afford it, I would offer 390k plus a letter stressing how you are in a good position and ready to go. Would be sad to lose a house you love over a few thousand

If I was a cash buyer I wouldn’t buy any house right now unless I had no choice. Wait and watch the market and you will likely get more for your money. Definitely don’t get involved in any bidding war in these times.

We viewed a house we really liked, a probate sale and the agent was keen to stress how the vendors were sentimental wanted it to be sold on to a local family and not a developer (house needed work but amazing plot with great potential) . Our offer, amongst others was declined as the vendors went with a cash buyer developer who wanted to complete in 4 weeks without a survey. 🙄. The the purchase fell through and the house was back on the market 2 weeks later.