Asked to give a best final offer, is this common?

[Specksofwhiteallaround]

DH and I are first time buyers nd have just started looking and viewing homes in the past two weeks. We viewed a house that was asking £325k on Friday, the photos were a bit misleading and the house needs a lot of decorating (door frames were peeling, they’d plastered over what look like a couple of large holes in a couple of rooms and not painted over them, bit of damp in a cupboard and the stair carpet had been shredded by their cat, that sort of thing.), and it needs two new doors, a single plus french doors, plus some windows replacing. The house is very over priced, no other house on the street has gone for more than £280k and some were bigger and done up to a higher standard. We decided that it would suit our family but it wasn’t worth the asking price so offered £285 thinking that if they negotiated up to £300 that would be acceptable, we wouldn’t be upset if we didn’t get it.

We got a message from the agent the next day saying that they had passed on our offer but let us know that another offer had been made. Thirty minutes later we got another email saying that due to the interest they want us to give our best and last offer on the property by midday on Wednesday. I was a bit surprised by this, I had assumed if more than one offer was made they would decline or negotiate each offer, this sort of feels like they’re using the power of FOMO to get us to over offer on what it’s worth.

Is this a common thing for sellers/agents to do? Has anyone had any experience of this?

Their cunning plan to generate a bidding war didn't work. Perhaps they will regret not taking a reasonable offer in another 6 months.

I’d be surprised if there was another offer, and they weren’t just trying to panic you up.

I offered on a house 2 years ago, put in an offer, got a really snotty, that’s nowhere near (485000 on a property 500,000), put forward your best and final. I said that was it and walked away. A year later it was still on the market, reduced, at 475000.

Some people can’t accept that their houses are just not worth what they would like to get for them. This is especially true for properties needing a lot of work. Last year we looked at a house that was on the market for £610K that needed a ton of work. It had come down in price from £650K. When the agent asked us we said we could potentially go up to 530K at a push, but that was that. They said no and we moved on. The house is still on the market currently reduced to £500K and nobody is buying it. Ours is a hot area and houses usually go within 2-3 weeks, we are doing well even in the current climate. Maybe they don’t really want to sell, who knows.

Maybe it had been kicked in? That would really worry me as could indicate some local crime problem or even a violent stalker. The fact they hadn’t had it replaced could mean it happens often and they can’t get insurance for criminal damage any more. We had this exact scenario with our last house. Crazy guy with a vendetta against previous owners who refused to believe they had moved.

We were told they have a house they are interested in so maybe there’s an element of they need as close to the asking as possible to achieve that which is fine, I just wish they’d said that instead of the whole best and final offers thing.

Hardly any houses have sold since we’ve been looking but a lot have been reduced so I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly hot market, but obviously I’m not an expert. It will be interesting to see if they do get the 315k they’d apparently be willing to accept.

I’d hope it wasn’t, it wasn’t very easy access to the back so it’d be a bit of a worry how determined someone was. They clearly had at least two older kids so I assumed they were the culprit and they either didn’t have time or didn’t want to replace the door knowing they were hoping to move. Considering it was the only way out the house at the back what with all the bulky storage units in front of the French doors it was surprisingly bad. We did wonder why they hadn’t included the utility room in the photos, the agent said it was because it was too cluttered but in hindsight they probably didn’t want the dodgy door in photos online.

If I was you I would ask the estate agents a direct question about what happened to the door. Don’t worry about being cheeky, they want you to buy this house so you have a right to get all the information you need.

I wish I’d asked, we had to go through the door to look out the back and she just said 'Oh that’s not good, obviously that’ll need replacing.' Then strode off before we could say anything. By the time we came back in the kitchen we were discussing the fact both back doors and all the windows on the back side of the house were going to need replacing so we didn’t get into details.
I did look at the kitchen and think why did you pay for an expensive kitchen with integrated wine fridge but not replace your knackered back door 😅

Was going to say this. It happened to us. Estate agent kept trying to put us off, pointing out flaws etc. We found out later that the house had sold for significantly less than our highest offer. EA was definitely in bed with the other bidder.

I think with us the estate agent was just trying to create fear of missing out and hoping one of the offers would go high enough that the seller would accept one. She made very sure that the two people viewing that day saw each other.

As far as pointing out all the flaws I got the impression it was stuff that was being mentioned at ever viewing or with each offer so maybe she was just getting a head of that so she could point out the rest of features that were desirable. They estate agents must be sick of people pointing out all the work needed then offering low, I wonder if they’re hoping the sellers see sense and accept a lower offer.