Vendor won’t make a counter offer

[Firsttimebuyer91]

We saw a house we love on the market for £775,000. The house was initially on the market in January for £800,000 then came off the market and was put back up last week at £775k. The agent told us that the property had sold for £800k but had fallen through due to a change in the buyer’s circumstances.

It seems odd to put it back on the market for less than it had previously sold given it’s a much better market now (May rather than Jan) unless they’re in a rush to sell.

We made an offer of £745,000 yesterday which we thought was reasonable as a starting point for negotiations (3.5% below asking price). We agreed between us that we are willing to go up £765k but of course would like to pay less if we can!

This afternoon the agent came back and said the offer was far too low and so we went up to £755k. The agent came back again saying it was too low. I asked if the vendor had made a counter offer and she said no, they are willing to negotiate but won’t negotiate on £20k below asking price.

AIBU to now not want to go back with a higher offer? I think £755k on a £775k house is worthy of at least a counter offer to begin the negotiation process.

Any advice on what to do next?

Go and see the other house. Offer them £755k if you like it equally. If you dont put in a final offer on the one across the road. Look at other houses in case they still wont sell to you.

I think the op means it’s back on the market fo4 less than the original asking price, not what is sold for, she won’t know that,

I think some people are getting too fixated on what the house sold for last time.

The fact is, it is currently being marketed at 775k so forget 800k - the owners have made the decision to market it lower this time & they will have their reasons. Maybe they are hoping for a quick sale or maybe the valuation came in lower with the last sale.

It is on at 775k therefore 745k was a decent offer - of course you have to go on percentages not actual amounts otherwise people selling multi million pound houses could only drop by about 10k -20k according to some people on here which is nonsense. In reality, most sellers in a difficult market are willing to drop by about 5% after a few weeks/month so maybe the issue is more that @Firsttimebuyer91 offered too quickly for the sellers to accept their offer rather than that the amount was wrong.

It’s really not percentages. Anyone who has bought and sold knows this, it’s about the money .

Yes we are not sure whether to believe it sold for £800k, based on the general market here. I’d be surprised someone offered asking price when it’s generally a buyers maket and these properties are on for months.

Also, if it sold for £800k and they knew they could get that amount for it, I would have thought they’d relist at that price and not drop it immediately. I suspect it actually sold for £770k or £775k and that’s why they’ve relisted it for offers in the region of that price.

745k might be a decent offer, but as the property was remarketed at 775k only a week ago, the vendor might be hoping for better offers from other new viewers. If it had been on at 775k for 5 months, then an offer of 745k might be considered decent.

As it is early days at the newly marketed price, I think the vendor is probably right in being cautious about entering into negotiations at this level.

The agent told her the offer that fell through was 800k, I was being sarcastic 😂

Well, obviously. If you'd read my post, you'd have realised that I wasn't making any assumptions. However, my most recent point was that it is possible for houses to go above asking price in some locations, namely Cambridge, and possibly others.

Agreed. This almost exact same scenario happened to my MIL, unfortunately she fell for the agent's rubbish. House was up for 375, sold for unknown price but buyer pulled out. Relisted for 350 on Rightmove but guide price 350-375 on brochure. Agent told her it previously sold for 375 and had a lot of interest, despite it having been reduced for a month. She offered 375 🤦

But the money as a percentage of the cost of course, whether you want to think of it like that or not. 20k under asking price on a house marketed at £1m is totally different to 20k under asking on a 400k house, or a 150k house. In a sluggish market any agent worth their salt will tell owners what sort of percentage to expect to get.

Totally disagree and think anyone who has sold a high value house knows that 30k off a 775k house is not the same as 30k off a 300k house.

Well of course it isn’t, but you literally just agreed with me, as you moved to money.

no seller is sitting saying well it’s only 4 percent. They are sitting saying will they sell it for x amount.

But in their head they are thinking about the percentage reduction the potential buyer is asking for, if they are economically literate.

This is semantics because you mean the exact same thing. What is realistic to achieve from your asking price - obviously that figure will vary depending on how much you’ve put your house on for. The OP only mentioned percentages in the first place when people told her what a hugely low offer she’d made.

@Twiglets1's is correct.
The percentage is the relevant factor.
10k off a house worth approx 2 million is a totally different proposition compared to 10k off a 100k property.

Equally, if you were marketing a property at 2 million which wasn't selling, do you think a 10k reduction would make any difference at all? On these sort of high value properties, sellers are making significant reductions of at least 100k.

@CellophaneFlower totally agree with your cynicism about what agents tell you. Not the most honest bunch of people! What they have told @Firsttimebuyer91 doesn't fit with their actions.

@AnotherEmma I used to live in Cambridge and it has been super popular for ages. The sales price figures have come off a bit though, especially price per sqm for larger properties: https://otta.property/trends, unless they have taken off hugely again this Spring. I hope you find what you want soon.

£755k is in the region of £775k in my view so it’s not an unreasonable offer

This is where you are not listening. You don't think it is an unreasonable offer, that is not what they think.

I think it's the EA's terminology 'willing to negotiate' that's causing the confusion.

We've bought and sold a number of times and have always been 'willing to negotiate' - meaning we're willing to take a (small) drop in price. But it doesn't mean we're willing to give you a lowest offer we're prepared to take. That's almost handing the house out on a plate. If I were to say 'well, the house is on for £750,000 but we'd take £700,000' we'd be unlikely to be offered £720,000 wouldn't we? And I'd want more than £700,000 (but that's what I'd put up with to get a quick sale). I certainly wouldn't show my hand until you'd got much closer to what I want OR were saying final offer.

So I'd say 'we're willing to consider a price drop' - in other words we'd consider it alongside your ability to move fast or your 'stickability' based on what you've shown the EA by way of mortgage offer, solicitor ready and able to proceed etc.,

If you were a FTB or were in rented accommodation with the proceeds of a sale behind you and a mortgage agreed in principle then I may take £720,000 - you're a sure bet and I can get my money out of this house fast.

If I've got to wait for you to find a buyer then I'd want to see more on the table because my time is money with the next property I'm buying and there's more risk of the chain collapsing.

It's not really negotiating on their part, it's more a case of considering your offer based on what they know about your circumstances.

Listening to who exactly? It was a reasonable offer based on the asking price. The fact that they didn’t accept the offer doesn’t make it an unreasonable offer. It means they think they can get more for their property which is fair enough. It still doesn’t make it unreasonable.

Oh and I just re-read that the property has only been on a week. No viewings in a week isn't going to rush them into snapping your hand off unless you're offering full asking price. They've waited since January, been bitten once by a sale falling through so they're biding their time to get nearer the price they have in their heads.

They won't tell you that as that's putting all their cards on the table. But, if I were them, I'd want very, very much closer to the £775K mark than you're offering.

Because they've been looking at properties based on the original £800K not on something below £775K. They now want to test the market so see if they will get (in effect) a £25K reduction on that figure (i.e. the full £775K asking price) or will have to take a significant reduction on that figure (i.e. an offer on £775K).

My bet, unless I've missed it, is that the people who were buying in January came in with a near £775K offer - the vendors now have that in their heads and want very close to it.

We are first time buyers with an agreement in principle in place. I think because it was advertised as “offers in the region of”, not a fixed price or “offers over” and the EA had said they’re willing to negotiate on the price we assumed it would be ok to start with an offer of £745k leaving room to negotiate.

I wasn’t expecting them to come back with the lowest offer they’d accept as that’s not how negotiations work, but after us increasing our original offer by 10k I was hoping for some kind of counter offer rather than a blanket no. We’d then come up more and they might come down further. But apparently that’s not how it works!

It is an unreasonable offer to them. You keep going on about unreasonabless, but you are using your own standards / values as a baseline and not accepting that others don't share the same views.

No it’s not how it works so either make the offer you can afford or walk away and stop playing games.

Regardless of what percentage someone is reducing when making an offer, the house is worth what it's worth and a seller would be foolish to sell below asking price within the first few weeks.

£745k on a £775k property is the kind of offer I'd expect to be accepted after being on the market 6 months in this market, not 6 days.

It's a slow market, yes, but sellers aren't idiots and they still have bills to pay. The market will recover, so unless in a rush to sell, sellers shouldn't undervalue their property. It's about finding the actual value (eg what people are willing to pay), not taking an arbitrary percentage off the asking price, just... because.

I wasn’t expecting them to come back with the lowest offer they’d accept as that’s not how negotiations work, but after us increasing our original offer by 10k I was hoping for some kind of counter offer rather than a blanket no. We’d then come up more and they might come down further. But apparently that’s not how it works!

Yes, but in a vendor's eyes any reduction is the lowest offer. They want full asking price (you will too when you come to sell) so they're not going to encourage you to come in too low by giving any figure away. They may, when you get closer, say 'we'd look at nearer the £770K mark but they won't do that yet as you'd say £770K and they want the full price. They're hoping you'll go 'OK we'll offer £772K (or whatever)' and they've then got over the price in their head.