Stupidly low offer

[Indablungerlow]

Selling house. Only been on the market a week or so. Received an offer of 50 - yes 50k below asking price. Really pissed off someone could be that cheeky. Anyone else received cheeky offers lately?

This.

If you show this much emotion to potential buyers or your estate agent you will look very stupid.

It's a business deal. Offering under the asking price is completely normal. You don't have to accept it nor should you view it as a personal attack.

Also in my area lots of houses have reduced on them. And still not selling.

The offer you have received sounds very realistic to me.

Parents bought a house in the 90s and bid half the asking price.. it was accepted. It’s increasingly becoming a buyers market. Maybe your initial ask was cheeky. 7% really doesn’t sound that cheeky

I think you are right it could collapse very quickly, sentiment is a key driver of property prices as well as cheap debt.

I live in London, that’s not an excessive price for where I am. But the offer is valid and it’s reasonable. I don’t think you’re understanding how much the market has changed in just a brief few months. And less than 10%? That’s not cheeky at all.

It's only worth what someone will pay for it at that particular point in time.

My ex landlord thought he could get an extra £250 a month on an already overpriced house - guess what- it didn't rent for 3 months- even a lovely house in what is considered a posh area

Its only 7ish % less i think thats a fairly normal negotiating price. Id always start with a 6-10% less offer and then increase til about 5% of the price if i saw a house that price. its a Haggling game and either you play or you dont but i dont think its cheeky.

You take the offer you want, but I think you’re barking. People often offer 10% below and in the current market people are expecting to negotiate and good price. You should’ve priced higher.

It's a perfectly good offer in any circumstances, OP, but especially at the moment. As PP have said it isn't even 10% below asking .

This is not a stupid offer. It's a sensible opening gambit. If you are confident just turn it down.

I live in an expensive area of Manchester and prices are still high here but I'd still offer under.

I live in your area OP. The Bath housing market has been ridiculously overinflated for some time.

The higher they go, the further they are likely to fall.

You don't have to accept the offer OP but you need to be realistic about the state of the economy at the moment and predictions for the housing market. You are not selling at a good time.

I think most estate agents tell sellers to put their property on the market slightly over market value so that they achieve market value with a “cheeky offer”, so buyers think they have a bargain but it’s still market value. 15% is the usual “cheeky offer”. If you don’t get any offers at your asking price then lower it a bit. It’s not always about whether or not it’s “affordable”. I would happily compromise on room sizes for the right price, so perhaps wouldn’t pay full asking price for small box rooms, even if I could afford the property, ...but if the seller would take it down £50K then maybe I would buy it at that price.
Is this your first time trying to sell property?

Counter offer and work them up to a price you find acceptable. If they don’t engage then they’re not serious. Ignore and move on.

Buyers typically offer what the house is worth to them, or a bit under expecting to negotiate and meet near the middle. So just bide your time and wait for someone to come along who agrees with you. I don't see the big deal?

They know you won’t accept it, it’s a starting point. You turn around and say ‘fuck off’ they come back and say 25k under, you say fuck off again and in the end they might pay 5k under asking price. Have you not bought and sold houses before? I wouldn’t stress about it. And I certainly wouldn’t cut your nose off to spite your face and refuse to sell it to them. It’s precarious times.

DBs house is on sale for 2.2 million. He had an offer for 1.9, which he didn't think was enough. So guess what? He turned it down. He did not take it as a personal slight. He has now had one for just over 2 million which he is accepting. Happy days. This is how it's meant to work op

About 90% of asking price is considered reasonable as a first offer in a harder market.

What happened in August happened in August.
There is a general ebbing of confidence in the housing market, interest rates may well rise & possibly sharply, & the Covid WFH premium is fading.

Potential buyers are far more wary than a few months ago.

Was the offer backed by chain-free ready cash?
Take care not to look a gift-buyer in the mouth.

They maybe can afford it, but they don’t think it’s worth it.

Those asking why people are looking at properties around Bath, OP said upthread that's where she was. I presume it's not exactly there, but a quick look at houses in and around Bath around 700k shows quite a few reductions and other houses that have been on a while. Not many of those marked Sold or Under Offer went on the market after October. It's very obvious the market is not crazy there. It's worth considering too that a lot of the heat in the SW came from people moving there from other parts of the UK, and a lot of those people have now bought somewhere. The exodus from cities has slowed right down.

We have just offered on a house near us - another area which went stratospheric over the last year or two but is now also showing little movement and reductions. We offered asking on a house that had been on since August, and had only had one offer, rejected for being 'too low'. We were prepared to pay that because we adored the house, and still do, but are having some concerns about our sellers. We have started conveyancing, commissioned searches and had a full survey done. Our sellers on the other hand have done nothing. They almost refused our offer as the house was marked 'offers in excess' and, despite having already moved out and living in a rented house in a new location, they insist on finding a house for their adult children to move into before selling, and haven't done much to sort that out. They haven't sent our solicitor the sellers' information pack.

We are chain free buyers living locally in rented accommodation (we are probably similar to your prospective buyers), who have shown commitment and have offered probably over the odds, and they are going to lose us if they don't sort themselves out. They don't get how lucky they've been, although the agents clearly do, and must be really frustrated. If things don't change we'll need to start looking again, but we'll be paying less than we currently are, as prices are falling around us, and the agents know that - but the buyers seem to be living in a bit of a dream world. If they lose us, they won't get the same price for their house again - I think they have a similar attitude to OP.

We need it to up size

If someone else offers you more it's job done, but if they don't then simply offer 10% less on whatever you're aiming for ... since 10% of a higher priced house would be more you'd still be quids in

As PPs have said though, it's a transaction not something personal, so taking the emotion out of it might be better

When you get your estimate from the estate agent, they usually give you 2 figures. The price they suggest “asking”, and a realistic estimate that you can expect to achieve. It’s not unusual to expect to drop 5-10%, and that’s how negotiations work. You ask for £600k, they offer £550, abd you’re likely to agree on £580 or thereabouts.

@Indablungerlow this is just the art of negotiation. It doesn't matter what you or the market or anyone else thinks the value is - the but it's testing your financial position and looking to exploit out to their own advantage - it could be that you have debts, or are scruff and need to sell quickly - examples of any number of situations where you are under pressure to sell - obviously you don't reveal this to the buyer, certainly not to the estate agent - they definitely can't be trusted - X do, if you are in a position where you can turn down the offer, turn it down - no need for a song and dance about it, no need for any explanations to anyone - just turn it down and restate what you are prepared to sell it for. You do have to have a finger on the local market - the situation is changing. I previously told my EA I would not entertain any further offers from a buyer who put in a "cheeky" low cash offer because I could afford to do that and because what I knew of the buyer put me off wanting to deal with them for the rest of the process.

That’s a recent headline. Obviously some areas are more protected than others and Bath will always be popular but this does show a drop in demand.

It’s a first offer, it may not be the purchasers final offer. Hopefully you can meet somewhere, if not just decline. Not worth taking it personally, given how the market is now. If you really want to move, you may have to readjust your expectation.

I'd negotiate with them a little higher but it's great for you if they're renting with a mortgage in place because no chain to delay things.

But you are mad if you think you'll get offers above what you're asking. Our neighbours are trying to sell a bungalow which in previous years would have been quickly snapped up because nice bungalows are in short supply but they've had to reduce and still only a couple of viewings in the last month or so.