Making an offer on a house

[Pusstachio]

Our house has been prepared to go on the market, we were waiting to list until January. Two similar homes in our development have sold, listed at our price point within 3 weeks recently.

We’ve just seen a house we like, has been on the market 18 months and has come down in price £100k from £690k in that time.

It’s still pretty overpriced, smallest house on the street and 3 bed in need of complete modernisation. A recent 4 bed in turn key condition sold for £725 which I think is why they priced it where they did.

We want to offer £525k, immediately list our house and ask they give us until mid Jan to sell ours. We were also considering offering to do the survey up front to evidence commitment to buy….

Is this a bad idea? We’re complete house buying novices having only bought our original home as FTBs a loooong time ago

You can try but it seems quite a drop from what they were/are hoping for and sometimes that can antagonise the situation.

Given you haven’t sold your house either, the best you can probably hope for is that they will continue viewings until someone else offers more or you get a buyer.

I’d go for it if it’s what you want. Have you budgeted for the cost of “fully modernising”? How old is it? Listed? Conservation area? All these aspects add a significant amount of cost.
if it’s old get a heritage survey not a standard RICS one, or don’t bother at all.

Have you viewed the house yet. If not get on and organise a viewing explaining to the agent you want them to value yours. They will be hoping to secure your instruction as well and then have better control of the chain.

Then when you make your rather cheeky offer they should push harder to manage the other vendors expectations as to price.

You can ask. But if I was selling, I wouldn’t agree to take my house off the market in that situation.

Thanks all. We’ve viewed it, the agent did suggest they’d go to 550k but didn’t want to go below do we’re not miles off but aware they’ve dropped significantly already.

We’ve had a chat with the builder that renovated ours to fully assess the likely costs we know- it’s a 30’s semi which hasn’t been on the market since the 80’s and has the kitchen and bathroom to prove it so doesn’t need fundamental plumbing etc but I suspect could well need a rewire and there’s none of the current kitchen or bathroom we’d salvage. Plus popcorn walls & ceilings throughout.

But a beautiful spot and on a good plot.

Sorry should say, it’s all those things to do with the renovation that have depressed our offer and it currently isn’t worth any more than £550k regardless, compared to similar things on the market.

Are you in rented or under offer? Mortgage free? You need to be a great buyer to be accepted I think. They might wait for more viewers now the budget is known.

We don’t have a mortgage on our house but would need to sell it to get this one- I didn’t think they’d be interested in that though?

Best decision we ever made was offering the asking price on our house 25 years ago.

Sometimes you just have to go for it.

We can’t afford the asking price and bring it to a liveable standard unfortunately otherwise we would.

I suppose I’ll just have to ask and see what they say, can always ask again once we’ve got a buyer

Urgh- I wish we’d listed our house when we started thinking about this in October!

They will reject your offer IMHO. It’s significantly below asking price for them and you’re not proceedable. Go under offer first and then you’ll be in a much stronger position to offer 525k. At the moment they would have no incentive to accept the offer - it’s been on the market for a long time and they’ll now be lulled into a false sense of security that in the post-Budget / new year things will pick up. Stale for 18 months + overpriced equals to stubborn seller to me (even though they’ve reduced 100k so hats off to them for this). Best of luck and I hope the transaction is as easy as possible 🍀🍀🍀🍀

The agent suggested we could put forward a note of interest (I think it was called) where they’d agree a price we could pay when we had sold our house. I just don’t want them using that as a sales tactic to drum up more offers and gazumph us

You won’t be taken seriously unless you’ve accepted an offer on your house. You will be seen as not proceedable

They’re.not going to accept and give you until January to sell your house. They’ll say, thanks for the offer, come back once you’ve sold and we’ll consider it.

If they get a decent proceedable offer in the meantime, then they’ll accept that instead.

It depends how long it's been on the market, also why they are selling. If they are moving to a new home they will be less likely to move on price. If they have inherited is and just want to get rid of it they might be more flexible.

I would check how active the housing market is in your area. Where we live it's as dead as a dodo atm, so that might put a halt on the whole proceedings.

It’s been on the market since May 2024 and is being sold as the father died and the mother has moved into care. Their daughter is selling it.

Just get your house on the market at a realistic price @Pusstachio, get it sold and then make what you think is a fair offer. As you say, the other house is very likely to be very over priced as it hasn't sold in 18+ months. I don't think there is any point in offering now and, indeed, it puts the seller in a position of power over you.

You can try but I would laugh at you if it was my house. You want £165k off, thats 23.9% off, nearly a QUARTER of the price. Its rare to get a house that reduced unless its derelict and your argument is just because you want to 'do it up to look like a turn key' (it will already be priced for that at, it was price 5% under turnkey and has been reduced a whopping 14.5% already) and are not even proceedable, nope.

I renoed the 4 bed doer up I bought for under £25k just 2 months ago which include fixing roof, replacing 2 extension roofs, back to brick in extension, rewire and new user board, kitchen refit, new bathroom, new sub flooring, new ceilings, partial re-plastering, redecorating, new carpets etc... Reductions for 'doer ups' is not so you can make your 'expensive dream house with extensions and conversion and luxury designs' its just to allow for the needed jobs to be back to a normal decent standard.

People who haven't sold in 18 months don't NEED to move, you aren't doing them a favor by taking their house off them cheaply, they have what you want.

There are two types of sellers 'motivated' (need/strongly want to move, these people will sell fast as they are open to offers and realistically priced. They don't sit on the market for 18 months) and 'unmovitavted' (lets list the house and SEE if we can get a good price, it costs us nothing to stay here indefinitely). Unmotivated sellers are usually only interested in money, they may sell only if they get the amount they want.

You can of course 'try' as a non proceedable buyer (which already makes you highly unlikely to be accepted) want to low ball their already reduced price... high chance of offending them honestly and that will mean they won't take you seriously in future so it depends if you actually love and want the house of not.

Well then they will need to raise a certain amount to cover costs and fees, they literally need money for her ongoing care.

Selling house cheaply when their is care fees could even incur the wrath of the tax man.

give it a try but if its on for £590, they wont accept £525 from someone who isnt even proceed-able

Thanks all, we’re going back today so I’ll see what the agent says- I completely see we should just sell our house first. The agent hinted they would be open to an offer and open minded about our situation hence my question but I can see the agent is motivated to do that (they have something to bring the seller) and I suspect the offer she was alluding to was at least £30k higher than the one we might open with

On the contrary, there are plenty of houses that have been reduced by huge amounts in the past couple of years. I've even seen new builds in Sandbanks, Poole, a very desirable area, reduced by 20-25% before they sold. The sellers pricing at 30% over market value are certainly having a laugh!
Your renovation prices sound very far off what would be quoted in most areas. Any sensible buyer will be aware that the cost of work has doubled in the last few years and will make their offer accordingly.
It does actually sound as if these sellers need to sell but are not in a hurry to do so. The fact that they have reduced by 100k would suggest this.
I do agree that making an offer as a non proceedable buyer would be a mistake. The OP should wait until she has sold and then send them her offer if she hasn't seen anything better in the meantime. Bear in mind that lots of properties come to market from February-August so there is no reason for her to hurry either.

I honestly wouldn't follow what the seller's agent says.
The best realistic scenario is that they provisionally accept your offer but say that they will keep it on the market and take any better offers in the meantime. They would then, as I said, be in a stronger position to negotiate if anyone else was interested. They could even invent another interested party.
Once you are under offer, you would have a definite answer one way or the other within a day or two, without other potential buyers muddying the water. If the answer is 'no', you can move on to look at all the other properties that will be coming to market in the Spring.

Put your house on the market with the agent selling theres. It might help speed things up. If you are under offer soon then give it a try