So, what do you offer?

[Mybloodycat]

Post divorce I need to buy a house. I will be a full cash buyer (money is ready and waiting) and I’m in rented so can complete as quickly as it can be done.

The issue is I didn’t get as much as I would like, meaning I am priced out of the houses I would potentially like and where we are is expensive (no option to relocate and I do not want a mortgage for various reasons) I have seen one house that has “offers over” but is about 30k outside of what I am able to spend.

Whats the norm for making offers? I know that the housing market has really slowed down and that as a cash buyer i’m in a good position, but “offers over” implies they aren’t thinking of “offers under”

Generally how much under is considered ok as opposed to taking the piss?

Many of the houses I’ve thought were ok have sat above my budget for months and months and not dropped down at all, and I don’t want to waste anyone’s time viewing and offering and offering too low.

This is all the money I will have, so I need to be sensible with what I get. We will be here for the foreseeable.

So, do you want the admiration and approval of these people selling their houses, or do you want to get the right house for you no matter what, or do you want to feel like you've driven a hard bargain and got a great deal? Them's your options.

Personally, I'd say who gives a stuff about whether your initial offers meets with someone's approval. It's not like you are chasing likes on Instagram. No one cares. The EA will huff and puff, but it's an act. Bottom line is, if they have better offers they won't think about your, your offer, or your circumstances ever again. If they don't have better offers ... well then you're clearly their best option if they want to sell. They may not ... but you always have the option of increasing your offer and their EA will 'help' you do so if there's scope for agreement.

If it's a perfect house, then it's a different story. A 'forever home' only comes up for sale extremely rarely, and I'd not want to jeopardise my chances of acquiring somewhere that'd make me happy just to gain the satisfaction of driving a hard bargain. Save that dopamine hit for a nice pair of shoes in the January sales.

There has always been the third option. There will occasionally be people who absolutely need to sell - usually due to some personal misfortune or trauma. As an unencumbered cash buyer, you'd actually be in a pretty strong position to profit from their misfortune. There's plenty on here who think that's fair enough, and there's also some who claim that the numbers of people in this position will increase as the economy contracts and the cost of living crisis bites deeper. If getting a bargain is your motivation, I'm sure there will always be houses and sellers that can provide you with opportunities to hone your bargaining tactics.

Personally, I'd not spend all that money on a house that wasn't my dream home just in the hope of profiting from a deep discount at the expense of a desperate seller who is down in their luck. If, coincidentally, that same house did happen to be my dream home, I'd rather go with strategy 2 above anyway - just out of fear that someone else wants it as much as I do. In that scenario, you're not really negotiating with the seller though - you are competing with the next-most-motivated buyer, whose offers will be relayed to you by the Estate Agent, who has no incentive to be truthful with you about the size of those other bids. But, if it's my dream home ... I'd want to be in control of the transaction, and you gain control by being the highest bidder, not by driving the hardest bargain.

How much is 30k in terms of %? 30k off a 300k house is 10% so that's not terrible. But 30k off a 100k house probably no chance. 30k of 900k house chances are fairly high.

For context our offer got accepted in May, we're in a market which is in it's own microclimate and never seems to slow down (Cambridgeshire) and our offer got accepted at 8% below, we did have a 30% deposit though which helped.

It would work out to about 60k off, however I could add 10-20k extra onto that to make it to about 560k. They want offers over 600k but have already dropped it down (I suspect it was on a 625k but I don’t look at houses at that price as I can’t afford them!

Sorry I typed that badly.
10% under would be 540k
30k under would be 570k
I’d prefer to pay 560k

I’d go for it - what have you got to lose?! Go in with your best and You either get told ‘no’ or it works out for you and you get the house! I think the issue lies when you are desperate for the house and you offer too low and then keep bumping it up by small amounts, I feel that messes people about more and I’d be more inclined to decline offers from someone like that.

There’s a good Google chrome plug in that logs all the price history for houses so you can see how much it’s been reduced by, if it’s been delisted after a sale fell through, etc. I think it’s called property log?

If you think it’s worth less it’s always best to offer under, regardless of what the advert says. The worst they can say is no!

Honestly? You just need to offer what the house is worth to you and see what happens. We got our current house significantly under asking price (2019). We offered a price that we thought was fair for the condition, but actually we couldn’t have gone higher even if we had wanted to. We were amazed that it was accepted but it was. We were in a strong position which helped, but ultimately offer what you reasonably can and wait and see.

I will have a look on Property log.

Im hoping the fact I can buy 100% cash and could feasibly do it in 6 weeks will give me the edge over someone who might offer more

We bought our current house at market peak, it had just been reduced by 40k, and was offers over we got it 10k below that and that was a much cheaper house (300ish k at the time worth around 450k now). We were willing to work to seller's time frame. If you're all cash and rolling to work to their timeline, offer 560, if they don't accept offer 570 and be honest it's your absolute best and final. What is there to lose?

What happened OP? We’re in the buying market at the mo for first time and finding all the negotiating etc a wild experience!
hope you got it 🤞

You can offer what you like and they’re at liberty to say no.

I recently loved a house but didn’t offer as it as listed as “offers above x” - then I found out they’d got “close to asking price”! I.e UNDER the asking
So go for it!

As I said to my sister in a similar position the worst they can say is no. You loose nothing by asking.
The high end of the market is funny some houses get snapped up others sit for ages, if it's been on for a while the vendors maybe getting desperate.
As an agent said to me only offer what you think if you got the house would make you feel good every night when you came home.