Offer rejected on a house we love, should we increase?

[BrummyMummy26]

Our house offer has been rejected. Gutted. We’ve seen a lot of houses and this is the first house we’ve both loved, and thought could be a forever home. All other houses we would outgrow in 5/10 years but this one has so much potential. Ticks all our boxes, except the price.

It’s up for 475 and we offered 450. Our deposit is in LISAs so if we go over 450 we would lose 25% of our deposit.

EA said lots of other interest, but is from people who have houses to sell. We’re FTB. Got the impression from EA that vendors want a quick sale (house is currently vacant and chain free), so we thought us being able to move quickly would swing it.

Don’t know what to do. Should we stand strong on 450? If we really pushed we could get to 460, but would then be a smaller deposit and bigger mortgage so would be a stretch. Although worried about stretching ourselves given current cost of living / uncertainty etc. But we love the house! We’re so torn.

Any advice appreciated!

You can't offer more than 450, because it's not just costing you the extra 10k is also costing you the 25% of your deposit , you need to just be straight with the estate agent and keep looking, they'll either accept your offer or they won't

Do you have the extra 10k in cash? Could you order to buy some of the furniture separately for 10k

Estate agents always say there is a lot of interest. It’s a tough market to sell in and houses are currently going for deep discounts in a lot of areas. Don’t overpay.

I'd may be sit tight for a few weeks and see if it sells.

What is a stretch now may well not be in a year or two. It depends on how settled your jobs are and whether you have anything else to help you through a financial rough patch if one occurred.

As @MiceSpiders says.
Ensure the agent understands this and your full circumstances and then communicates this to the vendor.
You could even knock and the door and speak to them yourself. Or put a note through the door saying you understand they want to achieve more but... and your offer remains in place should they change their mind later.

I agree with this.

Tell the estate agent you’re very interested, and because of the LISA you can’t go over £450k, so you will keep looking but would like to leave the £450k offer on the table if the sellers change their minds. Highlight that you won’t have a chain.

This! It’s the only way round the situation if they’d be willing to consider it…

Get the agent on side and have a frank conversation with them about your predicament.

I’d hold your nerve. We rejected our FTB offer initially but then found a house we really wanted and went back to them.
It did appeal that they were FTB and the couple who owned the one we wanted were buying a new build. Short chain.
Wishing you luck.

Give it time...

I dont think its a low or cheeky offer. Estate agents are working for the seller, they just want as high a price as they can get and will tell you anything to get a sale, its a strange and difficult time at the moment. Tell them you are very interested in the property but that is your highest offer and would like to be kept in the loop re the sale. If there is no interest then there is a chance they may come back to you especially if they want a quick sale. Meanwhile keep looking, could be something else that ticks all your boxes on the market soon.

God please don’t knock on the door to plead your case in person to the vendor. How inappropriate!

Personally I wouldn’t go above your offer an extra 10k and the loss of 25% of your deposit would be madness IMO. Sit tight with the offer and keep looking.

Not necessarily. Estate agents are looking to move the house as quickly as possible off their books. If interest in the house is limited and no asking offers estate agents will push vendors towards a price reduction pretty quickly. Agents will push the offer that suits them best not necessarily the highest offer.

If the OP’s offer is a good one for the market the EA will push it to the vendor if there isn’t much other interest.

Don’t know what to do. Should we stand strong?
It's not just the LISA; this is also your one-time chance to use the FTB stamp duty reduction. Make sure that all the trade-offs are worth it.

I’d just tell them the offer stands, remind them you are first time buyers, no chain etc but you can’t go higher and will recommence your search and ask they let you know if anything changes.

We did this with our current house. Was still on the market 3 months later and I dropped an email to the estate agent and just said - offers still there. She bit our hand off.

Thank you all for the replies!

We have been honest with EA re the LISA.

House is currently vacant so even if we did put a note through the door the vendor wouldn’t get it anyway!

We’re expecting EA will call back at some point as they asked if we could increase. Will stand strong at 450 and emphasise our position as FTB

We did think about this but I really don’t think there’s £10k worth of furniture there

Ah this gives me hope! Fingers crossed they will come back to us

Houses aren’t selling. The house is likely overpriced in the current market. We offered £450k on a £470k house because we believed that was all it was worth. They rejected it. Didn’t sell until they ultimately reduced to…£450k! It has since fallen through which makes me think my suspicions about the house were correct (potential money pit hence lower offer).

We held our nerve, didn’t allow ourselves to be bullied into overpaying and have found another house that we love which we are hopefully moving into next month.

It’s a tricky market though - there’s a lot of crap out there and outside of these two houses I am talking about there I nothing else available in our budget that is at all inspiring.

Other posters are right though - increasing your offer will lower your equity, increase your mortgage payments and force you to have to find the cash for stamp duty where you wouldn’t before. That’s about £20k cash plus whatever more you will be paying on the mortgage - is it worth it?

You could offer to cover the estate agent fee yourselves if they accept the offer of 450. Means you don't cheat in terms of buying overpriced furniture or whatever which could invite scrutiny, but effectively gives them more money in their pocket without increasing the sale price.

That's the point, it's giving them the extra money without affecting your LISA

Oh interesting I didn’t even think about that! That could be a good option

The only side an estate agent is on is their own.
They are supposed to work for the vendor but work for themselves really.

They usually will want a sale at the highest price they can get.

Make sure it’s not covered in avoidance rules or something like that.

I would keep your offer as is but bear in mind £25k is a lot off a £475k house and they may well just refuse to reduce.

I suspect it’s so perfect because it’s just outside of your price range- they always are compared to the ones you can afford!