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!

@Backedoffhackedoff Yes I suspect you’re right!

I’m not sure HMRC would be happy with this 😅

We’ve seen a lot of houses and this is the first house we’ve both loved ... forever home ... Ticks all our boxes, except the price ....worried about stretching ourselves given current cost of living / uncertainty etc.
If I'm being mean, I could say that it sounds like you want the moon on a stick: you want your first home to be your forever home but you don't want to pay the price for it.
Are you being realistic in your house search?

@senua in all honesty we weren’t looking for our forever home, but this one has the potential to be. Realistically in our search we are looking for a home for the next 5 years or so, however when this one came up we thought it was worth a look even though a little over budget. We just didn’t expect to love it as much as we did!

But there doesn’t have to be. It can be sold as one sofa for £10k.

Make sure you know the market.

I did the same. Made an offer, sat right ( nerves frayed) but got the house.

Good luck

Before we brought our current house we put an offer in on another, which was rejected.
We found another and put an offer in which was accepted and not long after the estate agents of the original house rang us and advised they would take our offer.
We advised that we were no longer interested and moving ahead with another property.
They had to drop the sale price of the 1st house and in the end they sold it for less then we had offered, which made us laugh a little because they had been greedy and it had back fired.
it was a similar market to how things are now, nothing is really shifting unless it’s been accurately priced. Hold firm and don’t overpay, you’ll either find another one that will be in budget or they will accept the offer in the end. EA always say they have a lot of interest to bump up the price.

Head over heart.
Do what will maximise your finances in the short term i.e. find a house that is affordable, preferably one that you can also add value to. Then, as per original schedule, go for the forever house in 5~10 years when your finances are stronger.

If the house is vacant and they’ve got lots of interest, then I think they’re going to hold out for the full price.

I don’t know anything about LISA’s but I wouldn’t push myself to go out of my depth financially.

You could ask if they would accept £460 and then decide but if they’ve got so much interest then I can’t see them coming down that much.

You’re a FTB which is a very good position to be in to with a vacant house. No one right now is paying the full price there is constant renegotiations whether it be due to survey or to move the chain quicker. Just highlight how you’re able to move quickly. If you have your offer in principle make that clear too.
Don’t trust the agent they just make matters worse and their role is to get the highest price as it can be tied to their commission.
Wishing you the best!

Again agent isn’t always that bothered about the highest price (although you’re right not to trust!) commission at asking at about 1.5% is £7050 commission on the offer of £450k is £6750 which is negligible to the estate agent. They’re not going to hold out on shifting a house on their books for £300. The individual agents commission overall will only be around £200 so they sure as shit won’t care!

The OP says the house is vacant, so no point knocking on the door. Also this really isn't an appropriate thing to do. This is a business transaction and should be conducted that way. Fair enough to make contact if you are interested in a house that isn't actually up for sale (an 'if you ever want to sell...' note). But never during the formalities of purchasing something costing hundreds of thousands.

Leave your offer on the table OP, they may well come back to you.

To add to all the good practical advice you have had. Its a house. Its a thing. Its not likely to be unique and as someone upthread has wisely said, could there be a halo around it because its out of your price range?
Personally i am a bit dubious about the "forever house" thing because life is so rarely like that. Shit happens. Good stuff happens. People choose to move or need to move for many many reasons. You have no idea now what your forever looks like, if such a thing even exists.
TLDR. Don't risk your financial future for a thing.

The last two houses we bought, our initial offer was rejected because of 'lots of interest'. We didn't increase, but left our original offer on the table. Our offers were accepted both times.

The house before - we didn't increase our offer. Found somewhere else and had an offer accepted, then had our offer 'accepted' on the original house (which we obviously didn't buy, because we were no longer interested).

This. You could offer to buy extras eg fridges and furniture for cash if you wanted but let them know you can move tomorrow if needed and likewise if they wanted longer you would hang on. Most FTB are a pain in the arse so make sure they understand you are not.

We weren't FTB but in a v gd position (1 below us). V similar price wise and we increased to 455, said final offer and accepted. All went through in 8 weeks 😀

when we bought our previous house to avoid going over the stamp duty threshold we bought the garage separately for £10k.

At the time I posted OP had not stated the property was empty.
Our vendor tracked us down to come and negotiate with us, which is far more random than the buyer taking this approach.
If the agent is being flakey why would OP risk loosing this. Surely any action that secures it is better than none and regretting not being more proactive?

Thank you all so much for all the good advice! Really good to hear other’s experience of offers being rejected then accepted too 🤞🏻

We’re going to stick at 450 and emphasise our position and that we’re serious buyers who won’t mess around!

Will keep this thread updated!

You've made the right decision. We bought our house as first time buyers and had two offers turned down, the latter of which we kept on the table. A few days later they came back to us and accepted. I'm not sure what £450k represents in your part of the country but in mine it would be very unlikely to see a FTB go for a house in that bracket, so a FTB is more likely to be given additional weight.

Them wanting £475k isn’t the same as it being worth £475k. If your mortgage valuation comes back as less, then you can only borrow x% of whatever the bank value it at. Personally I wouldn’t increase your offer, just leave it on the table. Their position may change.

Sit tight, OP. I've just let my house go for 5% under the asking price. Why? They are decent, organised people. They have the mortgage agreement in place, a reputable local solicitor, and they've been polite and reasonable throughout - no silly offers, demands, drip-feed questions, etc., just easy to deal with.

So, the moral here is just show that you can be trusted, act professionally and courteously, and the seller and their estate agent will notice. And, yes, I did choose my buyers over a higher offer as I preferred these buyers and not the one who was filming the house and making Tik Tok videos.

Good luck x

FTB isn’t the plus people think it is. The lack of chain is a plus, the inexperience is a minus. Much more inclined to panic.

Do this

@Ansjovis that’s really positive to hear! Sounds similar to our area, there’s not many other FTB in this price bracket