Offer dilemma

[Onlinetherapist]

We put our house on the market at Christmas time after seeing the perfect home for us had been reduced.

The new house is empty after the owner died and has been in the market for several years.

We needed to sell and buy at around the same price really, as not in a position to take on a larger mortgage due to our time of life and amount of work need in our new (old!) home.

We are currently negotiating with a cash buyer who is keen to move quickly. Our asking price is 550k. They have offered 525k but are coming for a second viewing with a view to increasing this offer as we have said it is a little low for us. The property that we want to buy now has a reduced asking price of 575k. They have recently changed agents and have received an offer of full asking price through the new agents. (We are negotiating through the previous agents).

The owners of the house we want to buy are 3 siblings, so proceeds to be split 3 ways (if that makes any difference).

If we can accept our buyers cash offer we will be immediately proceedable, wheras the potential buyers who have offered full asking price have to sell their current home first.

My question is, what offer would you consider if in the position of the owners of the property we would like to buy? Ie what would you accept for a quick sale? Rather than waiting for a property to sell to get the full asking price? They have previously said they would accept 550k, and were considering our offer of 535k, but that was before they were offered full asking price!

There are no other suitable properties on the market, so if we don’t get this one, we will probably come off the market.

Any advice welcome!

Then start negotiating and ask them what their time scale is, they might not have one, they might prefer to sell at a higher price and wait -

You still aren’t in a position to move and you don’t know the position of the other buyers:

@Scarletttulips We are hoping to receive a slightly higher cash offer after tomorrow’s second viewing. The other potential buyers of the property we had hoped to buy have to sell their property first.

I wouldn't accept 535 if I had been offered 575. I would be prepared to wait, or continue looking for a buyer.

@MadeForThis they are now really keen to sell though after it hanging around on the market for so long. How much less would you accept for a very swift transaction? Bearing in mind that proceeds will be split 3 ways? So for example, if they had accepted 535k rather than the asking price of 575k each party would be accepting around 13k less than they’d hope for. So a little different than someone taking a 40k hit. They had said they would accept 530k but this was before they were offered full asking price.

If they have waited this long they are probably going to take the full price offer imo.
However it's impossible to say what dynamics may be going on - so you can only do your best and cross your fingers. Good luck

@DrySherry thank you! I’ve never heard of anyone making an offer without having sold before! It would never have occurred to me to do so. If I were in that position of having to wait for my buyer to sell, that would me make me nervous, especially in the current market.

People make offers before they’ve sold all the time. They don’t tend to be accepted immediately, but they are jolly useful in terms of showing other buyers that there is interest and establishing a benchmark.

I would suggest that a low offer from you will not be accepted, even if you are proceedable. There is an asking price offer on the table, they do not need to rush to sell, and all three of the beneficiaries have to agree to take a financial hit. When I was taking the lead in selling my late parents’ house, my siblings and I agreed between us the lowest offer that I could accept without having to talk to them. If your vendors do the same thing I’d imagine their minimum will be £550k. That might be a good price at which to compromise for a quick sale, but any lower and one or more will be saying, ‘but we’ve got an offer of £575k…’

How sure are you that their asking price offer is real and not an agent ploy to raise your offer?

We were in this situation a few years ago, as the people offering higher on an inherited house but with a house to sell. The owners took an offer £20k lower than ours from people who were procedable.

We were told if the offer from the other people had been any lower, they would have waited for us.

So all depends on the seller, really.

I would probably take my time in their position and hold out for the higher offer. As the saying goes, you can only sell a house once. And they are all managing ok without the money at the moment so waiting a little longer for an extra £13K (which is still a lot of money - could be the equivalent of a few really nice holidays or a change of car)….why wouldn’t they?

If you had no chain, you would be in a much better position to negotiate

As it is, you have a chain, so if I was the I would now be looking for full asking, assuming they really do have an offer at that price

You could ask what they would accept

I lost out to a cash buyer even though my offer was higher. And I've sold to a proceedable buyer over a considerably higher offer from someone yet to sell (both offers above asking).
But in your sellers case I wouldn't accept less than £550.

We had our offer of 550k accepted/our buyer raised their offer which we also accepted. So all good so far!

That seems like a good enough result. Hope it proceeds smoothly.