Have you ever walked away from a property?

[Sunnydays45]

I'm viewing a house tomorrow which is in a sought after area and properties don't come up that often. Although it's a popular area, the house has been on the market for nearly a year which is unusual as houses normally sell quite quickly there. The only reason I can think of is the price. It's definitely overpriced, by around 15-20k imo. Bigger houses on the same street have sold for less within the last 6 months.

Anyway, I love the area and I think the house (even though it's on the smaller side) has a lot of potential and could be a really nice home with a bit of work. If all goes well tomorrow, I will definitely put an offer forward. However, I'm not comfortable paying the asking price. I appreciate the vendors can say no. I have a figure in my head and keep telling myself that I must stick to it, even it means walking away if they reject it. Technically I can afford the asking price but it's not worth that to me. I have a feeling they will say no, obviously they're not in a rush to sell as it's been empty/on the market since August last year.

Has anyone ever been in this position before? Even though you could afford the asking price, you didn't feel it was worth it so walked away - if so, did you regret it later or feel you made the right decision?

To some extent- a homes value is subjectively different to the particular needs and wants of the individual buyer. Also the same can be said for the sellers idea of its value. For nearly a year this home hasn't ticked enough boxes for anyone to purchase at, or near enough to, the sellers asking price. Eventually they will either capitulate to an offer, or change plans and withdraw it.
It could well be that your offer is the one they capitulate to - so just offer what it's comfortably worth to you and see what happens.
The decision for paying more than you want to is one for the future if you are rejected. I would personally start with an offer a little lower so that you have room to be seen to try and increase toward the sellers expectation.

Absolutely. Many times.

I bought a house that had been on the market for over a year. It was livable but needed a complete modernization overhaul and wasn't selling. I offered below asking and the vendor snapped my hand off. I guess they were tired of waiting for a higher price and just wanted to move on. The agent said not to expect them to accept the low offer but the agent was wrong.

My point is, there's no harm asking.

Of course you can do that. I would ask the estate agent all these questions
My bet is the vendors want a certain price for their next purchase, however, if it's been on a year the penny might have dropped.

Funnily enough that's exactly what happened with our house purchase. It had been on the market for over, way over priced. We came along and offered what we thought it was worth and the vendors sold to us.

Absolutely. Son offered on property and had offer accepted. Then took us along to view. We started asking some questions about various red flags and the seller promptly started pushing aggressively for early exchange. We funded a survey as son hadn't done so. Quote:- "The electrics must be regarded as unsafe." He walked.

Yes. Was gutted at the time but then found something else and mentally moved on. I think I would have regretted paying more for the other house in retrospect. In my experience all houses need work that you don’t expect as previous vendor has done some last minute “fixes” and surveyors can’t see everything. You need to keep a bit back for those and once you mentally factor then in they are less annoying.

Yes.

You said other houses have sold nearby in the past year. Others will come on the market.

If it was a bit over priced but I absolutely loved it and couldn't risk losing it I would offer full price. If it's more, as this one seems, not perfect but it would be OK probably and needs a lot of work to make it what I want, low offer and walk away if you can't get it for your price. There is always another house (except that absolutely perfect one).

Yes, of course. Some vendors set too high a price, if others wish to pay more that is up to them.

Yes, quite a few. I've also backed out of 2 purchases when the solicitors documents came back and either the sellers had lied about something I considered a deal breaker, or a different deal breaker came to light that we couldn't resolve. It's part of house buying

Found 1 offered asking price (after an earlier under asking price offer), asked to get into a bidding war and we walked. The under asking price offer was very reasonable so we were not going to pay £1 over the asking price which we already considered overpriced. The house had been for sale for 18 months with limited interest and no offers and the buyer got very lucky in having 2 interested parties at the same time (in COVID when everything was a bit crazy. I still think about the house but know that paying any more would have been silly

Yup! Our first house we offered significantly less than listed (as it needed a lot of work) pretty much laughed out of the estate agents and told we couldn't afford the area.. left it even though we could have gone higher and a few months later they phoned and asked us to put that same offer back on the table and all went through fine.

Yes, several times when people got greedy during the post-Covid madness in 2021-22. Lots of houses marketed as “offers over” and going to sealed bids/best and final offer. I walked away because although I could afford the extra, to me the house wasn’t worth the money and I knew there was a high chance that my lender would downvalue it, so I’d have to make up the difference.

I’ve also walked away after surveys revealed some horrors.

Yes. A couple of times. One I still regret 25 years on. However, we had our price limit and while we might have gone higher for something that was truly perfect, neither of them, while nice, were that nice.

Trust your own instinct and the figure in your head. Presumably others won’t be planning to bid the asking price either if it’s not sold in that length of time and needs tons of work doing.

I'd been looking for a house in a very specific area for nearly 2 years before securing the one we're in. We've viewed every house for sale on this street (in our spec and budget) over the past year, and offered on a different one in the autumn. Unfortunately it needed so much work just to make it safely liveable we had to back out. In the meantime the perfect house had sold before we were proceedable, and then came back on the market just as we were getting very cold feet after reading the electrician's report, etc. We had already viewed it before it had sold, were proceedable this time, so immediately rang up with our offer. It was less than the vendors wanted but not by much, and we weren't fully maxed to our borrowing capacity either, so we were happy. We've been in this house for only a few days and I walk past the other house regularly- it's still on the market with no reduction, despite the vendors knowing the issues that saw us off. It's a probate property, standing empty. Kind of sad really.

Yes. I wasn’t prepared to pay full asking price for a house that was already the most expensive house in the area by a country mile and backed onto a busy road. They asked what the most was we could go to and I said “that was it, we won’t be increasing” and I explained why that was what it was worth to me. They didn’t counter and I didn’t care enough to back down. I think they thought I was bluffing because they kept saying “well, if you change your mind…”

A week later I discovered that on the other side of the road to the one that backs onto the property there are 2k more houses due to be built over the next few decades.

Good luck getting your buyers to agree to continue once their conveyancer finds that; she was not forthcoming.

It has since been reduced and is now a sponsored ad on Rightmove.

You seem to have invented a scenario in your head where this is an unusual thing to do? Only you can decide how much you want this house, or how likely it is something comparable will come on the market — as a pp said, if you absolutely cannot lose it, you should be prepared to raise your initial offer if it’s refused. If not, obviously don’t. But I wouldn’t feel limited by an arbitrary ‘price in my head’. There’s no such thing as a house’s ’objective worth’, only it’s worth to you.

But they’re clearly not in a hurry, or, as can happen with a probate property, there are several siblings who need to agree on price reductions etc, often scattered across the world. Someone will come along who wants it, or they’ll reduce the price, or decide to take it off the market and relist after some work…

Yes because the survey was dodgy and builder friend confirmed just how much it would cost to put right eventually. It had cost us a thousand in solicitors fees and for a survey so far. Surveyor recommended a further very in depth survey so we walked away. Thirteen years on that house has had major scaffolding up twice.

Yes, we put an offer on an overpriced house that had been on the market in for quite a few months. It wasn't perfect for us, lovely inside and great location, but the garden was a lot smaller than we wanted. Vendor took ages to think about it and then rejected us. We didn't offer more because it wasn't worth more. I did feel quite smug a few months later (when we'd had an offer accepted on another place) when the price dropped to what we'd offered!

Yes, of course it's common place to walk away as a buyer in this situation.
You would regret over paying considerably more than walking away and for a very long time. Stick to your guns and don't get draw into over paying.
You never know, they may finally be at the point where the penny has dropped that they will not achieve their inflated asking price. If not, they are unlikely to sell in a hurry!

Just be aware that if it's sitting at a price higher than others on the street and hasn't had a price reduction in 6 months, there's a high chance that the owners are fixated on that price and aren't accepting offers.

I’ve just remembered one place where I offered under the [overinflated] asking price during the post-pandemic madness. The agent rather snottily said that the vendors were expecting above asking - this was a probate sale, the place needed work and the garden and parking weren’t great. I declined to increase my offer. Anyway, it didn’t sell and eventually they reduced it twice - to what I’d offered. Whether they even got that in the end I’ve no idea as it’s not on RM sold prices.