Buyer put in an offer and has now gone quiet

[Poppsidoppsi]

I’ve been on the market since end of July and I’ve reduced the asking price from £315k to £308k in that time. We’ve had a good amount of viewing; feedback has been very positive but usually it’s a case of the viewers saying “we are seeing other properties / we need to sell our property first” so we’ve had no other formal offers.

Last week, someone came to view the house and, last night, they put an offer in of £290k. DH said to our agent that we would like £300k as this will affect our onward purchase. We told the agent this and she said she would speak with the buyer and get back to us (she intimated that she would tell the buyer to have a think overnight about a counter offer).

The buyer is a FTB and has 10% deposit. This is the first time DH and I have sold a property (it was a new build when we bought it a decade ago) and I’m absolutely panicking that they have decided not to proceed. I want to call the agent to check everything is ok but DH said not to. I could literally weep!!

Any advice? Our agent said that we should get closer to the £300k mark (ours is a one of a kind in a good area) but I’m worried that with the state of the housing market, we may have lost our only potential buyer.

You can't control the buyer, you can only control your own moves. If going through that process has made you realise you're willing to accept £290k, go back and accept their offer.

First of all, the potential buyer:s deposit - is it 10% of £290k or of £300k? Then what mortgage can they get? Can they scrounge any other money? Though you:d expect that to already be included in the deposit.

If £290k is all the potential buyer can raise in deposit + mortgage, you either sell for that price or wait for another potential buyer.

Everyone's expecting price falls and a FTB with 10% is at high risk of negative equity. They have probably gone away to see if they can justify the extra risk.

Personally, I would be seeing if I can get 10k off my onwards purchase to complete the chain rather than getting it from FTBs who are both taking far more of a risk and have less money available to them.

I am afraid that in today's terms, they have you a very respectable offer. You should take that as a sign that they are serious buyers who are unlikely to mess you around. Do anything you can to keep them.

I buckled and called the agent. She said she has emailed the buyer as he said he wanted to talk to his wife and is hoping to hear back today

They made you an offer at 290k and you responded with a perfectly reasonable counter offer at 300k.

That is completely normal practice and there is no reason to think they would get cold feet over you asking for 300k. They may come back and agree to pay it or they may make another counter offer to you of 295k or similar, or they may stick to their guns & say they can't afford to pay over 290k.

Whatever response they come back with, I would accept it to get the deal done.

They made an offer last night? No need to panic less than 24 hours later. Obviously they will have to ponder the situation before coming back to you.

The agent works for you, so you shouldn't be afraid to call them for updates. However, it's also possible this buyer is not going to respond.

As an aside, what made you drop the price by only £7k (2%)? Such a small reduction didn't even put the house into a cheaper price bracket for RightMove searches.

And I agree with PP that an offer of 6% under asking is very good in the current climate.

If your situation is such that accepting this offer means you can't afford your next house, then I'd consider whether selling now is really necessary.

Do you want to lose your next house over 10k? I wouldn’t be expecting them to come back to be honest, it’s buyers market currently so it depends how much they want your house I guess.

Idk what OP's motivation was, but 2% is the exact reduction you need to trigger getting back to 'newest listed' on Rightmove.

It also gets you a fresh email in people's inboxes. Anything below 2% will not.

It's bloody stupid that it gives it new listing status when it's a reduction.