Recent best and final offers - what did you offer versus asking price

[Firsttimetrier]

We viewed a house on Saturday that needs a full renovation, but the space, location, nearby schools and the potential is an opportunity we can’t miss.

There was apparently 22 viewings and it’s gone to best and final offers which have to be submitted by 9am.

We have accepted an offer on our flat from a FTB and they’ve started the mortgage application and have the homebuyers booked in for next week.

We’ve submitted our offer on the house over the asking price which is £600-£625k.

If you’ve had your offer accepted at best and final offers, what did you offer versus asking price and what was your position?

We didn’t win but house on for £525k. 2 days of viewings and 6 offers. We offered £528,500 as our best and final having sold our house to cash buyers and apparently we were way off. I think we didn’t really expect to get it but knew we didn’t want to stretch too far and would go with something else we’d seen if we lost out. Don’t know what it went for but the agent sounded surprised it had gone so high. This isn’t really happening that much now compared to last year.

Ah good luck! I got offer accepted in Feb. I went £5k over but on a £275k house (so different kind of market I guess - FTB and rental sector) and was aware it was just me and another person doing best and finals. I had up to 300 but was prepared to lose it and was slightly cautious the market was turning. If I hadn't been prepared to lose it I would have gone higher. I figured it's about what it's worth to me.

This is in contrast to last year where the 'dream' house for me was on at 260-270 last August, and I went absolutely all in for 300 and it went for 315. At that point I wasn't holding anything back - I wanted that house and couldn't forgive myself if I missed out by playing the numbers game.

Good luck - keep us posted!

Unfortunately we have bid on many of these over the years sometimes what happens is everyone bids silly and then people start dropping out because they realise the house was not worth the cost. Also sometimes it will be who is in the best position not necessarily the highest. So afraid we tend to walk away

@EstherHazy although the house needs to a full renovation, it definitely is the dream house and we can see us being there forever, so we’ve gone all for it, leaving some money for essential works that will need to be done straight away.

We think we may have gone too high, but it is £200k cheaper than a fully renovated, loft extended house a few doors down and currently up for sale, so think our offer is fair.
Also wanted to go higher than we probably would normally as we aren’t FTB and relying on the sale of our flat, but will be 50% LTV, so hoping all these things put us in a good position.

Feeling very anxious and we’re both frantically cleaning our flat to calm our nerves 😂

I would say that yare unlikely get it as buyers in a newly formed chain. I hope I am wrong.

@Sprig1 this is our worry, hence why we’ve offered quite high.

How far into a chain would you consider an offer over a FTB?

Feel like we will always be worse off than FTB, so not sure what we can do to improve that as moving into a rental isn’t really an option.

I would say to bear in mind that just because there's a house for sale for a certain price, doesn't mean it will sell for that.

It's rare these days to find a doer upper that's priced low enough that the work needed will bring it to the similar price as a renovated one. Don't underestimate how much work is costing at the moment!

Have you got your mortgage in principle? As that will make it clear you are in a position to proceed rather than just wasting time. We put our house on for £240K and it’s sold for £260K with 4 viewings and 3 offers. The mortgage valuation also wanted to know how many viewings we had and how many offers to gauge the interest but I think if all 22 people who viewed it have put an offer in then there will be some stupid offers. The mortgage valuation won’t hold up if it’s stupid high though and will be knocked down. We accepted someone who had sold to a first time buyer and so weren’t bothered about having a chain behind us, I don’t know if many first time buyers would be going for a £625K house so everyone should have a chain behind them and yours is as good as it can be. Good luck!

@PurpleBananaSmoothie yep, have our mortgage in principle and looped our broker and solicitor into our offer email.

EA have confirmed that they’ve had 8 offers in total and asking again for best and final offers… we will then find out at 10am on Wednesday. Horrible process that makes you question everything!

@Firsttimetrier Did you get it?

We think we may have gone too high, but it is £200k cheaper than a fully renovated, loft extended house a few doors down and currently up for sale, so think our offer is fair.

Won't it cost 200k to do all that now plus the hassle?

Last yr we went to 630k on a house on for 580k. We didn't get it & it went for 640k. It was lovely but in hindsight i'm happy as it needed a lot of work.

House we did buy was 610k vs asking of 575k. We were chain free which helped.

A little while ago now but my currently house I went 17k over and did get it but wasn’t the highest by any stretch, however owners didn’t want to get tied into a 749174 house long chain and I was a cash buyer

We lost out on a house that was on for 800. We bid 860, it went for 885!
Looked at a house a few weeks ago that already had offers of 100k over asking before the best and final process. It seems like prices are definitely not going down everywhere.

That's outrageous, aren't you all sort of glad that you didn't go over by that?

Surely they can’t do best and final twice 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Ccvyvyan we did get it, but sadly the vendor pulled out when we tried to negotiate the offer after issues came up on the survey. We weren’t the highest bidder, but in hindsight we’re glad it’s not gone through as we think it would have been too much work with a 1 year old!

So, so still searching and hoping the perfect house comes up soon as we missed out on another property, even though we were the highest bidders but they went with someone chain free.