What's more important to sellers?

[Earlydaysandnights]

A buyers position or how much money they can get?

As we have old houses with things likely to flag in surveys I would tend to vere away from FTB as they can often get nervous but it really depends and would prefer no chain over chain.

@iovebread , it certainly feels like a gamble, as you don't know if your buyers are going to turn out to be CF's.

When we sold (a couple of years ago when the market was really hot) we had 5 offers - we accepted the middle one. None of them were cash buyers so all were going to be applying for mortgages. The highest offer was decently over asking price but they were in a chain and needed to sell a shared ownership property, which all sounded like a pain and we were in a hurry.

Of the others (all FTBs) we picked the one with the highest deposit as they were most likely to get their mortgage approved

I would have done the same, it really is more nuanced than just accepting the highest offer.

When we sold my mums flat in London a few years ago it went to sealed bids. One person (a developer) tried to cheat the system by offering “2k over” any other bids. We didn’t accept their offer as we thought their tactic was unfair to the others. We accepted the highest offer from the people who had named an amount and were was also in s good position to proceed - they were FTBs.

When we moving from England to Wales in 2017/18 we were in a great position as we'd already accepted an offer under an auction contract on the house we were selling. This meant that the sale was (virtually) guaranteed to proceed, although in actual fact there was zero chance of it falling through because our buyers were desperate for our very unique property that they'd previously missed out on.

We viewed a house we loved and made an asking price offer same day. The house was a probate sale and was full of crap (hoarder's house) and we said we'd buy it as seen with all the stuff so the beneficiaries didn't have the hassle of clearing it.

In addition we informed the EA we wouldn't be conducting a survey - as we hadn't for our previous three house purchases. Within a couple of weeks we'd be cash buyers as our own sale would've gone through and we assumed all this would put us in a great position.

Instead of accepting our offer, the EA told us the six beneficiaries had decided to increase the asking price, which in all fairness had seemed very low. The price went up by £40k and we again offered asking price and for viewings to stop if accepted.

They took a week (contacting all six beneficiaries, one of whom lived in mainland Europe) to come back and say the viewings would continue whilst our offer was considered. A further week later we'd heard nothing so contacted the EA who said the house was now going to sealed bids.

Having submitted our (slightly higher, about £10k more than our last) offer, we waited - only to be told after the closing date we'd been unsuccessful.

We went on to buy a different house on which we completed within 28 days (repossession) and on which we didn't have a survey either.

Some time later I checked the land registry to see what had happened with the other house. Turned out not only had it taken six months to go through...but it had sold for considerably less than our sealed bid!

From what I later gathered speaking with someone who knew the buyer, it had been sold to them because they were local whereas we weren't, so price and timescales didn't come into it. Moreover, they'd insisted on the crap being removed too.

Doesn’t seem like they acted very logically @LibertyLily

Though I guess if they wanted local buyers they were entitled to make that heart over head decision. I suspect the people who ended up with the hassle of actually clearing the property (for less money) may have regretted the decision though!

It really depends on the situation.

Our last purchase, the seller pulled out after we had instructed solicitors due to a late bid from a first time buyer who previously looked. They offered quite a bit more despite the seller telling us the max they could accept was X to stop paying inheritance tax so we offered that figure. Then a house in the cul de sac behind came up that very night and the swines offered on that too and we had a bidding war. They won because DP refused to go to asking price and offered 1k less and were FTBs. The sellers were so kind and said if you can match, we will go with you but I couldn't get it signed off. We then got our original house but with a few K extra offered. Ultimately, the cash was the important thing despite needing to move quick in that case. Joke was, we completed a few weeks quicker despite our buyer pulling out on exchange day.

They live behind us and the stress and money they cost us, I regularly want to get revenge but they probably don't even care.

Indeedy!