First time buyer, did I screw up this negotiation? 😅

[Punkindrublic]

Hello everybody I could do with your reassurance! Im a first time buyer and found a house I really loved. The issue was it was overpriced. This was a 2 bed, and the for the price they were asking, we are in 3 bed territory where I am. Its very cute, but I was worried that when it comes time for the valuation, it would come up as overvalued.
I started low and negotiated up, I then offer 10K less and stood firm on that when the agent came back to me and said could I just go a tiny bit further up. I get thw impression the agent was a bit surprised when I said no.
Now the agent has come back to me and said the sellers thank me for my offer, they can't accept but will keep it on the table.
Did I screw this up? Because now im thinking maybe if I had offered just 1k more it would have passed. Im totally new to all this. What does keeping it on the table mean? Do I just need to forget about it now?

The estate agent doesn’t think you’re a dick. Instead, with a property which has been sat for a month without an offer and a keen FTB, he might be slow to respond as he is hoping you will increase your original offer and that property is then sold and these two, new properties can then be shown to fresh buyers

The EA won't think you're a dick at all OP. They may have gone back to the original seller and said that the person making the offer wants to view other properties, with a view to encouraging them to accept the offer. I'd give them a call about viewing the other properties. Be pleasant but assertive. Don't rely on email as it will slow things down. Most certainly don't worry what their opinion is of you. Once you've either purchased through them or moved on, you'll never have to have anything to do with them again.

So the estate agent has come back tk me saying the buyers have reflected and they would like to accept. I have revised my offer down 20K

So your original offer has been accepted?

so now you have reduced it by another 20k?

Why would you do that? Don’t you want the house?

The agent might think you're a tiny bit of a dick now 😬...

What, you now want it £20K cheaper than your previous offer that was already £10K lower than the asking price?! That is insane, you are sure to lose it unless you quickly go back to the original offer. Why are you making it so hard? It's a house you want to buy, not a game.

Yes you have done the right thing.
Walk away.

If you behaved like that with me I wouldn’t sell it to you if you came back and offered asking. What an arse.

So now you are being a dick!

If you really want it, go back to the agent and up your offer (if you can afford to). It's 'on the table' which means you've still got time to act. Ask the agent if s/he can give you a figure the buyer would accept. Don't lose it if it's your dream home.

Seriously? That is a total dick move and if I were the seller I wouldn’t accept any offer from you now.
House buying is (unfortunately) almost entirely based on trust and that’s the sort of behaviour that would make me very nervous (and that you’d try a last minute drop again before exchange).

If you did this to me I’d make an absolute point of not selling to you.

Ultimately the house is worth what you are willing to pay for it. Regardless of whether you think it’s overpriced or not, are you willing/able to pay more than you have currently offered? If you offer more and it’s accepted, will you be happy to have the house or will it leave a bitter taste that you have paid over the odds? If you stick with your offer and you miss out, will you regret that you didn’t offer higher, or will you accept that it wasn’t the one for you?

With that in mind, your updated revision of offer was a really bad move. You put an offer on the table, negotiated and ended up with a figure that you were willing to pay. To go back and say “oh actually I think it’s worth less now” is just messing everyone around and I definitely wouldn’t sell to you now.

The thing is though since I made my offer I have seen a few more places and now definitely think it was very overpriced, plus I'm less attached than I was when I originally viewed it

Ok, then you have lost interest in it. Move on and offer on something else.

Hopefully you don't see anything you like that's on with the same estate agent. They will have you marked as a mind-changing timewaster who probably doesn't have the funds to buy.

Walk away, you've clearly changed your mind about this property. You're showing yourself to be untrustworthy and, if you're not careful, estate agents will refuse to deal with you in the future. If it was my house I wouldn't sell to you now anyway.

You are under no obligation to stick with your original offer (as you know). You might have pissed them off but if your appreciation of what the house is worth has evolved then it's fair game really.

When I have made offers recently I had to prove I had the funds to buy.

Yikes dropping your offer by 20k (!) after they accepted your offer is awful. You’ve now gone past pissing them off to them actively hating you and not selling to you if you were the only purchaser left in the entire world.

Then you should just say that instead of going down another 20k. You’re really risking being blacklisted by that estate agents; they won’t show you other properties.

You should have said, “After looking around, I’ve realised just how overpriced that property is so I’m stepping away at this price. I’d rather view and offer on X property you have listed.”

Don’t play silly games. Just move on.

You have lost credibility now, if you offer on anything else with the same agent they will feel duty bound to tell their Vendors about how you’ve behaved.

Like PPs have said, I would not consider selling to you now. I’d worry that the day before exchange, you’d pull a last minute drop in offer.

I would go back to the EA and start looking at other houses in a similar price bracket, it might focus the sellers minds if they know you are looking at other houses.

its all mind games unfortunately.