Should we accept the offer??

[LavenderLxx]

I’d like to pick your brains and see what you all think…

My brother and I are selling my late fathers house. It’s been on the market for 4 weeks at £800,000.

We’ve had 6 viewings and had the first offer a few days ago. The first offer was for £750,000 which we rejected. They have just come back with a second offer of £760,000.

They have sold their house and their buyer is in a rented place. My brother and I are in no mad rush to sell but the estate agent has said how slow the market currently is and how they’ve had some houses that have sat there for ages and then the price has had to be lowered to less than the original offers.

Just wondered if anyone had any words of wisdom? Should we push for a bit more? Hold out at £800,000? Accept their offer?!

I would accept it - as the saying goes a trout on the plate is better than a salmon in the sea. As people say by time sort fees out etc you are not much better off by trying to hold off for more money. Plus it will be all sorted before xmas before winter and bad weather with storms etc. Agree and move on

Personally, I would accept.
Do you have inheritance tax to pay? If so, by the time you've paid that and split the difference you're splitting hairs over less than £20k each.
In the meantime, an empty property has to be insured as such, you're going into the winter so there's risk of pipe freezes, leaks etc etc. You'll have to heat it during that time. It sounds like the buyer is ready to move quickly - all being well you could close before Christmas.
There's also been a lot in the market about lenders valuations being marked lower than expected too.

I've not heard that one 😂

my husband says it all the time. 🤣 we had similar when selling our house always think what if could we get more ???

That's a good idea. Or you could even flip it and tell the brother you only want £380K. Good on him if he wants to pay the ongoing maintenance costs and secure a higher offer. But if he sells for less than £760K you still want your £380K! That should focus his attention.

That’s a good tactic! I might try that!

Completing in 8 weeks in the UK is unlikely. I really wouldn't alienate your buyers. I'd say you'd like to complete as soon as possible so you can move on which sounds softer.

The home I have now was a probate sale with no chain either side and it still took 12 weeks

Agree. I would be happy with the offer that you’ve got and be flexible to keep them onside.

In current climate, a lot of sellers would bite your buyers hand off for offer like this. My friends were in similar situation, and they refused anything above 760k that their sellers counteroffered. You can try of course, but they might move on to something else. It is a buyers market right now.

I eventually convinced my brother that we should accept the offer - I phoned the estate agent only to find out that they’ve put an offer in on another house!!! 😩

ah no flipping way. just shows can't hang around

You snooze, you lose!

Oh no, sorry to hear that.

They could still come back to you. Don’t give up hope.

It’s 5% below asking price isn’t it? I would snap their hand off.

Read OPs update.

Oh yeah, bit gutting for them. It’s hard to know what to do when it’s a lot of money but 5% feels like a reasonable reduction for everyone involved. Hopefully they come back to them.

What a shame @LavenderLxx. I assume you mean that their other offer has actually been accepted? If not, there is a good chance that they might come back to you. If not, hopefully you will have some more interest soon and your brother won't delay in accepting the next offer!

They may do if the other house purchase falls through.

They’ve not yet heard back is their other offer has been accepted so it’s not a definite no just yet! Fingers crossed that they don’t think we’ve been messing them around!

@LavenderLxx In that case, there's still a chance you hear from them again! Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed for you. I still regret turning down an offer than ended up being 15k higher than what we eventually sold for, on our agent’s advice.

5% below asking was a good offer.

I hope they come back to you.

It makes no sense to quibble about low % of the price when the property costs you to keep, and you could be earning £3k a month on the interest on £760k in a savings account.

Let's hope that they were just using that as a negotiating tactic to put the pressure on you before you decided to accept.

Unlikely seeing as @LavenderLxx was only informed of this by the EA when she phoned them to accept the 760k offer.