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?

@ReneBumsWombats I do get where you're coming from. It would be interesting to know if the EA had raised OP's expectations by giving her an altogether unrealistic idea of what the house was worth to start with. As you know this isn't unusual.

It’s never real unless you’re selling without buying another property or downsizing dramatically. If your house is worth less, the one you buy will be too. Unless you’re exiting the market completely it’s all fairy money.

How much did the house cost last time base rate was 3.5%? Has there been anything done to it to increase it`s value since then?

100%... Property (particularly the roof over your head) isn't a way to create wealth. It is a liability. But it is a liability that is easily justifiable since we all need somewhere to live and if you are a wage earner, location does play a big part in how much you earn i.e..salaries in SE/London are higher. Whether you rent or own is personal preference; whether you prize flexibility or stability.

Op, interest rates have doubled, you will not get the same range of potential buyers interested in your place. We got turned down on a house that was advertised for 450. Two weekly later came back on the market with an asking price of 470. It is still in the market now with the same price, 4 months later. It looks to me that someone was greedy in our case.

My auntie who was 76 at the time, found a small ground floor flat.

it had everything she wanted, southfacing garden, large garage, parking space, bedroom, bathroom and living room with a kitchen area.

The place was really really grubby and sticky, needed new kitchen and bathroom, and the lease to be extended.

Her argument was to the estate agent who told her she was being unreasonable offering half - yes half the price was, get the place cleaned and renovated, top the lease up and I won’t have to spend any money.

They we’re saying, that the price reflects this, which she was replying, why is it not sold then?

they eventually settled on 45% off the listed price.

Something is only worth what someone wants to pay.

By the way, she is 83 now, the place is beautiful and the lease still needs renewing!

I briefly worked for an estate agency years ago. They had a meeting each morning and we’re discussing the offers for each property deciding who the property should go to. I had nothing to do with selling or letting but they soon tried to train me on how to lie to their customers.

EAs are obligated to pass on all offers. You must have worked for an exceptionally dodgy one, even by EA standards.

What?

@PyjamaFan yes, no joke.
I know that not all EAs are like that, however, having looked for properties and made offers actively for a year before we actually got accepted, we came to find out some of the EAs lies. For instance, we put a 1st offer on a place little below the asking price. We were told that it was between us and another couple, bothe in same position, same offers, 1st time buyers, only our deposit was 25% as opposed to their 10%. The EA pushed for the asking price making us believe the house was ours. Next day we get a phone call to say we were rejected and the other couple unexpectedly offered a few good thousands over the asking price. They could do nothing about it since it wasn’t a few hundreds. The house sale has now appeared on the land registry and surprise surprise, it only went for £500 over the asking price. Yes, 5 hundred pounds. You draw your own conclusions.

@MissTangerine

That's awful!!

Next day we get a phone call to say we were rejected and the other couple unexpectedly offered a few good thousands over the asking price. They could do nothing about it since it wasn’t a few hundreds. The house sale has now appeared on the land registry and surprise surprise, it only went for £500 over the asking price. Yes, 5 hundred pounds. You draw your own conclusions

You can either go down the conspiracy theory line, or you can assume that the price changed during the sale process. There might have been something come up on the survey so they dropped the price. Back in the day you bought houses more or less as seen, but nowadays people seem to make their sellers do stuff to the houses before completion, eg our neighbours had to repair fences. If the seller refuses, I suppose they might drop the price a bit instead. Or it might be something that the buyer would rather do themselves, but want a price reduction.

They could do nothing about it since it wasn’t a few hundreds. The house sale has now appeared on the land registry and surprise surprise, it only went for £500 over the asking price. Yes, 5 hundred pounds. You draw your own conclusions

Perhaps the buyer found issues on the survey
Perhaps the buyer reduced the offer before exchange or completion
Perhaps the seller decided the others seemed easier to deal with

Tbh, a £650k offer on a £700k house is very reasonable in the current environment.
When was the £700k valuation made? A lot has happened in the last 2 months. If it was before then, I'd honestly bite their hand off at £650.

I could afford to pay £20 for a Mars bar. It doesn't mean I'd be sensible to pay that. People are not under any obligation to pay as much as they can possibly afford for something. 😕

This is the flip side of people worrying about "showing their hand" by revealing their income and/or savings details when buying a property. Nobody can make anyone pay more than they think is the right price for anything. It's a negotiation, and both parties can just walk away.

Hopefully soon they will be discussing who gets to eat the last pot noodle in the staff food cupboard.

Slight tangent ... in this current climate what would people offer on a £155k house?

Probably 140k-143k

Agreed.

Thank you x

Impossible to say without more information. Is it under priced? In which case snap it up at asking price before someone else does. Is it overpriced? If so how much over priced is it, and knock that amount off. What’s it worth to you, how much do you want it etc etc.

The OP's house is quite low priced for the nice bits of Bath, so maybe it isn't one of the 'nicer' houses that will hold their value a bit more. 😉

It’s not in Bath though. OP said Bath as a red herring so that MN didn’t boost their Rightmove stats.

80k.

You believe the house is worth 700, they believe it’s worth 650. It’s not cheeky, you just need to negotiate ir decline. It’s a business transaction so you don’t need to take it personally.