Offer advice

[Mover2024]

Looking for some advice please. Our situation is that we have sold to a FTB and we've now found somewhere that we like.

It's up for guide price of £725k. Our absolute max budget is £720k. Having researched, guide price is openly inviting people to negotiate on that figure. Do you think a starting offer of £690k would be acceptable? There is also another very interested party that will offer once they've sold which they apparently think will be soon.

Our first time buying a non new build so would love some advice please!

If you want to do via phone so you can advise of your position, eg FTB, they will ask you to send an email to confirm the offer.

I’ve always just phoned up with an offer @Mover2024 so I would do that in the morning & if the EA wants an email they can ask for one.

Or just send an email to keep your husband happy, it can’t hurt.

Your agent will advise - usually they will ask for the offer to be sent in writing too. When I bought last month, I spoke to the agent first but then needed to submit the details behind my offer via email.

They’re usually keen to understand your position as part of the offer - it’s not just about the value, but also about whether you’re in a chain, are cash or needing a mortgage, how much equity, do you have an AIP, etc.

Thank you! @ibelieveinmirrorballs @Twiglets1 @ByNewSnake

An update for all those interested: we made the offer of £690k this morning. I asked about the proceedability of the other interested viewers. They wouldn't give an answer, just lots of faff about needing to check notes.

To put our offer to the vendors they wanted our sales agreement and MIP, which is completely fair enough as if our EAs did that, it would have saved us a LOT of wasted time. So we've now provided that by email.

Took everyone's advice here and also made the offer contingent on marketing and viewings ceasing.

The EA will call the vendors this afternoon and get back to us when he can. When I asked about proceedability again, he said he hasn't been able to get through to most of the other viewers as yet and those who he has, haven't offered. Also that he "thinks a few of the viewers are proceedable". If this was the case I think they would be much more concrete about it. Will keep you all updated!

Also - our MIP states we can borrow around £720k. The limiting factor for us is our deposit, which is £70k, could probably scrape together a bit more but not much. We obviously don't want to be in an LTV bracket lower than 90/10, so that is naturally our limit.

If the EA sees our MIP, do you think they will think we can go much higher? Or shall we explain the limitation if negotiations commence? We also don't want to be paying too much a month with interests rates at above 5%

oh this is an interesting question. I have an issue with EA who is working for the vendors seeing full picture of your borrowing ability. To me this is completely different to seeing if you can borrow enough to meet your price.

Fingers crossed for you!

when we bought our house the estate agent wanted an email from our or their mortgage guy to say that we were proceedable with our offer, but the actual amount was confidential.

they’ll always try and push you for a higher offer regardless of this though.

Well exactly! It makes me uncomfortable because they will be thinking we can definitely go much higher, when in reality, we cannot

Thank you! Yes, we're expecting them to push so we've started lower than we are happy to go, but we can't go up massively but I don't think our MIP supports that!

Great thread.
i'd prob have gone in differently but the market is v different to when i bought so 🤷🏻‍♀️
keen to see how it goes / if you get it!

As a side note: If you can borrow 720k you must earn well / surely can find a few grand to top the deposit up to 10%?

We had 000s spare each month when earning these levels (but we were childless) but i think even now we could prob "find" a few K if we needed to.

Have to have a max in your head before walking away. You can do it!

I guess they’ll say it’s too low/is there a way for a bit more/‘token’ amount etc then say your max is X amount and reaffirm how good your position is etc

I think it’s fine for the EA to see your MIP @Mover2024 if anything it may work in your favour that you are not stretched to the maximum. Just because you could borrow more doesn’t mean you are willing to and the EA will understand that. You have good reasons for not wanting to borrow too much to do with the LTV.

I agree it doesn’t sound like they have any other serious offers. If they did the EA would be pitching you against each other and asking for best & final offers.

@GreatGateauxsby how would you have gone in?

We could get more together but we have to consider other things we need to pay for and we also don't want our mortgage to be a massive chunk every month! It's hard balancing it all when you love a property

@Peoniesandcats that's essentially what happened with us and our buyer! So it definitely does work. Fingers crossed 🤞🏽

@Twiglets1 that's so true, didn't think of that actually.

Yes I agree, they would have told us if there were people who were in a position to offer who are very interested and the fact they haven't is quite telling

preface: I hate the English buying system so try to circumvent where I can.

Unique long term property (15 years+)
Build rapport with EA and go in with my best and final (so £720? in your case). qualified the offer with my position, the fact I’m serious and won’t mess around with another 3 viewings and multiple surveys, nor would I try and renegotiate before exchange.
basically get it off the market asap and don’t mess about to try and save 10k…

long term home of “standard” stock….
go in with a fair price that reflects market value of the property, dont move on the price and renegotiate if surveys flag anything.

This was what we did with our current house. There were about 7-8 similar-ish ones for sale in varying conditions.
we told the EAs upfront we were looking to buy asap and were putting offers in on 5 houses on the Monday and would buy whichever one we agreed a sale with first.

In reality we put in offers on 3 house but only would have bought 2…
EA 1 we put in a good offer on house 1 and a low offer on house B (needed a tonne of work).
EA2 we put in a good offer on house 3.

1 and 3 both accepted us, we turned down 3 due to proceeding with 1.

shorter term or stepping stone home….
Our previous property requirement was a 2 bed flat within a mile of a particular tube) so we just made multiple concurrent “cheeky” offers until we found a motivated seller.

@GreatGateauxsby interesting. So this will be a medium term home for us. We'd want to move in no more than 7/8 years time so don't want to be maxing out budget as we'd want money to make changes and also to live comfortably

We made the offer at lunchtime yesterday. Would you say to chase if nothing heard by COB today?

We haven't even had confirmation that the offer has gone to the seller...

@Mover2024 yes I would chase, before COB actually. It's the EA you are putting pressure on. Even if they haven't been able to get hold of vendor or vendor is still thinking about it, EA should update you really. I'd ring them late morning, give them time to ask you to wait but still get an update back to you today.
Good luck!

I think you have done exactly the right thing. The EA is acting for the seller, remember, so whilst they are LEGALLY obliged to put your offer to the seller they can advise the seller to play a waiting game.

I would definitely be calling the agent probably twice a day to ask for updates. They are all sharks, they lie constantly and often unnecessarily. I would be very clear and politely say “what exactly did the seller say in response to my offer? we are in love with the house - it’s absolutely ideal for us and we don’t want to miss out, but we will start considering other properties if we don’t get an offer by ddmmyy, because our very short chain won’t wait indefinitely.”

also have you organised a second viewing of the house? If you haven’t you definitely should and really consider the state of the property, the roof, the drive, age of the boiler, etc. to help decide if you’re willing to push to 700k or above. If you’re lucky the owners will show you round and you can negotiate direct and show how keen you are to make the sale happen.

Thanks. Going to ring!

@UndecidedAboutEverything this is so helpful, thank you!

Going to also book a second viewing when I call

I actually wouldn’t sound too keen as it’s not a good negotiating position.

Interested in buying it but not too keen - it’s a difficult line to walk.

Yes exactly this. You gotta push but not sound desperate, and also make it clear you're willing to walk away at the drop of a hat.
No wonder it's such a stressful process, requires all one's Machiavellian skills!

So our offer was rejected. The seller said they are really grateful for our offer but the EA thinks another offer will be coming in from the weekend viewings shortly also. They will of course let us know if they do receive the other offer.

I just said we really do like the property and want to proceed but we need to consider mortgage payments etc so will discuss with my husband and consider as we cannot go to guide price.

I've booked a second viewing and the EA said to let him know if we would like to put in a higher offer.

My view is to wait to see if another offer comes in and if it does we can then go to our best and final and reiterate our strong position with a short chain etc. Then it will just be up to the sellers really