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?

I already said I did not give exact details because I knew people would look it up.

Please come back to the thread to update when you do sell OP.

You are coming across as really quite dim and surely you want to prove that impression wrong with an above asking price sale.

I reckon if you need to sell you'll end up accepting a lower offer than that if you keep waiting

Sorry OP but a lot of people who bought Covid bolt holes out of London are now selling up and there is a glut of property for sale now in the SW. More people want to sell than buy and prices are dropping.

Once you have that situation people hold off buying because they think prices will fall more. Then, on top of that, you have the whole financial uncertainty.

As PPs have said, offering low at the outset is absolutely standard, but you are taking it very personally and look frankly batshit a bit ridiculous.

Simply refuse the offer and see if they come back with a higher one, there's no need to throw all your toys out of the pram, especially as the potential buyers are not in a chain which will be a huge benefit I you want to move quickly.

OMG aren't we snippy?!!!!

It's an offer, not a personal insult FFS. Your house is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. Did you not try to secure your next house for as little as you could - or did you walk straight in there and offer in excess of the asking price?

Just do a thought experiment, OP. Imagine your buyer was buying with 10% down, with a 25 year mortgage.

If you had sold last winter, when the average mortgage was at around 2.5%, their payment would have been roughly £2800/month.

Now, at 5.5% mortgage, the same payment is £3870/month.

Even if they had the same exact deposit saved (£79k), then to get the same mortgage of £2800/month, the price of the house would have to be £540,000.

That's what the difference in the mortgage rates does. It makes a person who could afford a £700,000 house last January be able only to afford a £540,000 house in December.

So:

a) the idea that you think this wouldn't affect the housing market is batshit.

b) the idea that a reasonable offer, of less than 10% off asking, is an insult, is even worse.

c) and the idea that you're taking house selling personally, rather than as a business transaction, means that you're going to have a miserable experience.

She never said what condition she bought the house in, to be fair, and 10 years is a long time. Whatever house she's buying will cost a lot more than it would have 10 years ago too.

Of course the housing market won't crashon

It might not crash, but prices in my area are definitely sliding downwards. And with interest rate rises and inflation at >10%, I can't see the slide slowing any time soon.

(70k not 79k: typo)

Thanks for doing the maths.

This is very illuminating...

Erm, I got that? I didn’t reply to this because Angela was in Bath, but because she’s pretty much the only person to agree with OP so far. So you can keep your CAPS thanks 😉

This was just sent to me by Rightmove www.rightmove.co.uk/news/content/uploads/2022/12/HPI_Regional-Map-scaled.jpg

Ha ha ha. You obviously aren't very old. Because I can think of three housing market crashes in my lifetime. But then if you don't like the offer, why waste the energy posting when a simple refusal will do the job?

Lots of house prices being reduced in my area fairly near you. I want to buy but will be waiting so that (for example) I don't get caught buying a "£700k" house which will only be worth 600k next year and I find myself in negative equity.

Why is it cheeky to offer below? It's a hagglers market, there is no price per unit of house. Were you cheeky to offer less than £700k 10 years ago?

You are acting as if they have put in an offer on your son not your house.

I just got a dressing down by an agent bc I offered 15% below asking price but the asking price was set at a really high price (apparently a price agreed about 8 months ago with a foreign buyer who pulled out before exchange)
But after the reprimand I was wondering about the state we are in London...this flat is 900k in a good location (not like Kensington or somewhere really expensive but zone 2) but only has two bedrooms and doesn't have a garden (a small patio only) that's why we think the flat will lose value over time bc what FTB can afford this in this environemtn, and what family would want to live in an upper ground flat with no garden?? also the vendor bought it for like 200k 10 years ago....
(Hence my rationale for offering 15% below + I don't have a family and I like the flat to pay enormous amount for it)

I was not trying to take advantage of the environment, while I can 'afford' the increased mortgage rates and is a high income earner, I do need to be more cautious now with the recessionary outlook...who knows might lose job and then what...also the agent called me three times to see it even though we told him it is like 100k plus above our budget so I thought I could get it lower :(

It's become such a heated, overprice housing market in the past two years that most 2 bed flats I have been looking in zone 2-3 with some sort of outside spaces are all over 800k and I've been looking for a while and now depressed and thinking it is almost impossible for younger professionals to buy something in London...I work really hard but just paying high rent right now

Sorry just ranting as this post triggered something in me...

Yes, but she did say that she could afford the new house.
She might have done loads of work but it could be argued that pushing for the maximum you can get when you don’t need to is greedy.
I’m not saying that I wouldn’t do the same but I wouldn’t get the hump with someone else and call them greedy for trying to get the best deal they could too.

House prices have gone up over 20% because of covid, some £100ks in value, no body wants to be caught in negative equity in a few years time and also interest rates have gone up loads so nobody can borrow what everyone else could during covid, prices are coming down alot in my area, every other new listing is a reduced one and others are "unexpectedly back on the market again" in the words of estate agents, home buyers expecting others to take on £100ks more debt for than what they previously paid for there house are in lala land

Not these days it isn't. Our friends got 90k over asking price in March this year.

March was a lifetime ago in economic terms. We still had low interest rates and Kwarteng hadn't chucked sterling down the shitter. And inflation wasn't running at 10%.

This is not a stupidly low offer. Not sure who would not go in slightly under when buying a house, unless you have millions to spare and really want the house. Our house was priced over a million and we were able to negotiate 50k off and make a FAST purchase....literally, all the paperwork etc and completion within 1.5 months.

Seems acceptable- not sure why you are having such a huff over it - just say no if you think it’s too low

You’ll find that the 650k offer was probably a starting offer and they work their way up to what they’re willing to pay. It’s good to get a bargain.
You can usually get the vibe from the EA as to what their max budget is. If you know you’re not going to get any/many offers then negotiate with them. If you know, you’ll get plenty of offers then decline it.
I would bear in mind that although they may work their way up to the asking price or nearer to it, there’s a good chance they’ll knock you back down when it comes to exchanging or after surveys are done.
I would also bear in mind that the fact we are in a recession, it isn’t the best time to be buying/selling homes with lenders not giving great mortgage terms.

It's not a ridiculous offer at all in normal times, let alone currently.

Stop getting emotional about it. It's a business transaction. If you don't want to accept it, then don't. Go back to them with what you would accept rather than throwing the baby out and refusing to talk to them.

House sellers who have seen massive gains also need some perspective - they haven't earned that money e.g. an extra £300k over 10 years. I get that many people need it, and everyone wants it, but it's not being stolen from you by anyone except the economy and those who tinker with it extensively.

It's not a stupidly low offer, just an offer. You don't have to take it. It's not personal.

I also agree that prices are going down - projections by most economists recently are saying by 10-20% over the next couple of years - and you may regret rejecting an offer without any reasonable negotiation.

So 7% below asking price? That’s a perfectly sensible and reasonable offer.