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

The sellers would have to be insane to accept such a low offer from someone who isn’t even in a position to proceed

You have absolutely nothing to loose by offering The house is clearly overpriced as it hasnt sold in 18 months It needs a lot of work and all that work is expensive Good Luck Op

I would laugh and tell you to bog off with a very low offer from a non proceedable position.

Tell them you are interested and put yours on the market with the same agent.

Be guided by the agent - if they are telling you to pop an offer over then do so. They’ve been at this for 18 months so they may be keen to have your offer

We’re not using their agent as they are dreadfully understaffed- there’s only about two of them and it’s a nightmare sorting viewings!

We made the offer and they’re going to think about it and let us know on Monday. There is apparently disagreement with one party thinking the market will be extremely buoyant in January post budget and another wanting the sale agreed asap.

I suspect they will decline but I also doubt having hung around it will go before new year, they have not had a single other offer in 18 months.

There's no harm in making an offer, they can either say yes or no, you could state that to bring it up to the level of the one that sold will cost X amount and you've taken that in to consideration for your offer, get yours on the market and see what happens.
Or, if you are mortgage free would you be able to take a mortgage out to buy it, get some work done then sell yours after and move in then and use the money from the sale of your current house to pay off a chunk or all of the mortgage depending on the values. We did this a few years ago, meant we got the messy work done before we moved in. We bought a probate house that sounds similar to this one, but there were 3 people after it, the fact we could buy with no chain gave us the upper hand.

@badinfo I have considered this- did you get utterly hammered with ERC for the mortgage though?

No, we paid the maximum repayment over 2 years I think, I think it reset in the January and the way it fell we paid some in Dec and again in January so were lucky there, that used the balance of what we had, we also used some of it for more upgrades. I guess you'd need to look into that and see what it might cost.

The only sensible way (from experience) to make an offer on a house is to have accepted an offer on yours.

You have absolutely no idea how long it will take to sell yours or how much you will be offered for it, and that impacts how much you’ll be able to offer on a new property. When I moved in about 2019 the house I was selling sold in less than 2 weeks and others in the street had already sold in about that time (only small, starter homes on the estate) so I had a good guestimate and the house I was buying wouldn’t even accept viewings from people if they weren’t proceed-able.

I think if they accept for significantly lower than asking price you will run a much higher risk of gazumping up until exchange. I was a conveyancer for 10 years and saw this happen a fair few times. Basically, if they accept the offer, you want to move as fast as possible to secure it. And maybe don’t set your heart on getting it in any event.

Our agent has advised us to stick to plan A even if they turn our offer down and list in January. We’ve given it a shot and we’ll see what they say. I’ll look at if we could mortgage though- that’s a good shout, the repayments are as much as an Airbnb while we did the work are. We have a BTL so unsure if they’d lend us more but I suppose not impossible.

Yeah I think even if it’s accepted I won’t be relaxing over Christmas about it. The standard way might be the best…

In my opinion yes that is a bad idea.

Any offers they get the EA will just use as a tool to get someone else more interested or feel like they have to offer more money. I'm afraid the EA is manipulating you on behalf of their client, which is what they do.

You aren't in a position to offer anyway as your own house isn't even on the market. I would get your own house on the market with the same EA if they seem any good - or another EA if they don't. The house was very overpriced to begin with so I would be asking them who suggested that price - them or the vendor? If it was them I would choose a different EA.

Tell the EA that you will consider making an offer once you have an offer on your own house but not before. Don't let them tell you what to do because they aren't being neutral - they work for the seller.

We were in a similar position as sellers earlier this year. We had someone offer full asking price on our house, and they wanted us to cease viewings... BUT they weren't proceedable. They hadn't put their house on the market. We had multi estate agents telling us it was a terrible deal and not to accept it, although we wanted to: we just had no idea what chain might come with them once they did find a buyer.

Luckily for us, they were still interested once they'd found a buyer for their house. But as they'd tried to get a quick sale, they had accepted a lower offer on their house... and could no longer afford to offer us full asking price on ours! We did begrudgingly accept a lower offer as a result, but it did leave a slightly sour note given they'd offered us more originally.

I don’t think you stand a chance unfortunately. They’re clearly not in a rush to sell as they’re not after somewhere else. You’re asking for a HUGE reduction and you aren’t even in a state to proceed.

Lol

do I get that right?
you want to make an offer of £525 from a listing price of £590 which has already dropped £100!! But that is not all…you also are NOT in a position to buy so you want them to wait for you to be??

please, someone tell me I am wrong.

They would have been in a rush even if you had taken the deal at first…

well done on knowing your goal and sticking with it!

No point offering until you have sold in reality x

You may have spoken to your builder but you need a really good house survey by an experienced qualified surveyor

One that covers foundations, possible damp etc My friend got caught out on this years ago

And ended up sueing her building society surveyor for a major problem that was missed
And was very costly to fix

BUYER BEWARE

My sister is an estate agent and so many people refuse 2nd viewings when people make silly offers. You're at risk of insulting them with 525.

They've declined but asked us to come back when we’re proceedable, and indicated they’ll accept around 550. So we will crack on and try and sell ours…

Fortunately the sellers sound sensible and not prone to getting affronted by offers, especailly as this is the only offer in 18 months!

Good luck with getting your house sold @Pusstachio

In the meantime, the Estate Agent is now likely to tell every potential buyer that regardless or the advertised price, they are looking for £550k.

If you want the house and don’t have the funds due to your house not being sold, I would just get a short term mortgage and proceed with the purchase that way.

Why rush into it and take on debt unecessarily? This house has been on the market for 18 months so they haven't exactly had a flood of potential buyers. Not one other offer, she says. Even if someone comes along on Monday, there will be plenty of other houses listed in Spring for the OP to choose from.

This is exactly how we feel.