Too cheeky offering 15% under asking

[Banks26zilla]

We have found our dream property, which is above our budget.

The house has been on sale since Aug last year and has only been reduced once in Dec by 10k.

The house is on for 365k but we are looking to offer 15% under asking. The house is in major need to modernisation and appears to have or had someone elderly living there as there is a chair lift and bed in the dining room downstairs.

Do you think it is unrealistic to offer 310k? The agent will not tell me what the lowest offer the seller will accept so we are in a tough position.

Interested to know people's thoughts.

It's not cheeky, really depends on whether the property is overpriced to begin with. If there are similar properties on the market at the price you are offering then fair enough, and you can use that to the agent to demonstrate you have not just picked the price out of nowhere (and they can use that to talk to the seller and justify the discount).

However if I was a seller I would probably want to either negiotiate up, or remarket at a price higher than that discount.

No one on here can second guess a sellers mind though, just as no one can tell whether a buyer is really at the limit of their budget.

You can never tell when a vendor may have just had enough and be willing to deal. So long as you are happy to be rejected.

I got 20% off a US transaction last year and got them to pay all my costs. I really wasn't worried about whether or not my bid succeeded, but I obviously pitched just at the right moment.

I agree about finding out why it hasn't sold.. not movement in price? Structural issues? Etc

I think people can over obsess about cheeky offers without considering if it’s in the context of an unrealistic asking price.

If as you describe OP a similar property sold for what you are prepared to offer then it’s not a cheeky offer - it’s a realistic one and your EA should be aware of this even if the vendors are not.

This is where a good EA earns their money in explaining the market to the buyers and encouraging them to accept reasonable offers.

However this is often very difficult in probate sales where there are multiple parties involved all keen to get the best price, but in no massive hurry to sell.

So I would go and view and see what you think as a start point. You might not like it as much as you think on viewing.

But if you do like it, put in an offer you can evidence as reasonable. Say you are offering X because based on recent equivalent sales (list them) this is what the property is worth.

Remember if you need a mortgage, if a property is significantly over-inflated you are likely to be pushed back.

Nope. View it first, you don't know how you will feel until you see it. You may not want to offer at all. Perhaps it actually is not your dream house. Maybe seeing the work needing doing will make it out of your reach, but you don't know until you see it.

When we were house hunting, viewing our dream house put us off it immediately. It just felt wrong. We moved to the same village, but to a different house and I made friends with the woman who bought it. So I am in it sometimes now and it is all done up etc, but I know how much work that took and am never sorry we didn't go for it.

You can ask, but I really wouldn’t expect them to go for it. You’d have to find sellers who were absolutely desperate to sell. We’re on in a similar price bracket and won’t really go below about 4% under asking. If someone offered us £55k less we’d turn them down flat and probably not accept another offer not because we’d be “offended” but just because I couldn’t trust someone who did that not to try and keep knocking the price down further in the process.

We’re looking at a much more expensive property and would like £40k off that, which feels very cheeky. You’re proportionally asking for 2.5 times that.

I wouldn't entertain such an offer. And I wouldn't consider engaging with anyone after making such an offensive offer, even if you doubled the asking price.

I've viewed houses like this (and in fact there is one for sale over the road from me which has been for sale just as long). The problem is usually the vendor with unrealistic expectations who won't listen to feedback about the price from the estate agent.

But if it's priced so high everyone else has probably been put off offering as they think it will be unsuccessful. You may get lucky and they accept but you'd need to be in a good proceedable position

In the area I've been researching there are two.houses originally up for nearly 300 that are both now under 240 having dropped in stages and one still for sale. It's rare but happens. I suspect both have good reasons that you cant see from the photos. From.the photos and floorplans I'd have said £280 and £260.

Quite whether they would have entertained the 240 level at an earlier date, I don't know.

Depends where but isn’t the property market super sluggish at the moment? Looking on the sales sites and many properties are tracking as they are losing money?

Good posts from @stolenlullabies and @Feelingstrange2
People seem to forget that the asking price is just one person's opinion, which may well have been inflated because they want to win the instruction or have been influenced by the seller's unrealistic desired figure.
You don't need to rise to meet a seller's unrealistic expectation. You just offer what it is worth to you with reference to the local market and your budget.
A lot of current asking prices are very 'cheeky' at present, hence the huge numbers of reductions online. Whether the seller will decide to accept a fair offer of 300k or so is another matter. The chance is low here as they have only reduced by a tiny amount despite being on the market a long time. However, as @XVGN says, there is always a chance that they decide that they really do want to sell for whatever reason and come back and accept, even down the line.
Having said that, you haven't even seen the property yet @Banks26zilla and may not like it at all!

If I were the seller I’d say no straight away. But someone else might say yes. But it’s all moot if you’ve not even viewed it. You might not like it.

Yes you need to view first and then decide the next step.

I still don’t think it’s cheeky to make an offer on a house that’s been for sale for 7 months. In my area I worked out that 40% of all properties on Rightmove, across all price levels, have had a price reduction. It wasn’t that long ago houses here were selling on day one and going to best and final offers over asking price. The market changes. Offer what you think it’s worth to you and if they don’t accept, simply move on.