What is worng with sellers!?!?! ARGHHH

[navyeyelasH]

am a First Time buyer with mortgage agreed and 40% deposit. Have offered on a house that has been for sale for 1 year, is currently empty and "sold" for £180,000 3 months ago but the buyer did a bunk. It's ont the market for £185,000

Have put in three offers, the highest being £165,000. All rejected.

Why oh why! The headline of the property on rightmove is something like "quick sale needed, all genuine offers considered" etc. Second house we have offered on now, the first was a very cheeky offer (although house still on market about 8 weeks after made offer).

What is it with people who want to sell houses but don't actually want to face up to the fact that the market sucks in most areas right now!

AIBU?

I think it depends on how competitively priced the house is i.e have they dropped the house price significantly from it's starting point 13 months ago? If they have, then £185K might really be what it's worth at this point in time.

We viewed a great house today that has just gone on the market, and I have to say that they're asking a fair price for it. I really can't imagine us being able to knock a huge amount off the asking price. Likewise, we've just put our house on the market at 25% less than what it was worth at the peak - for the moment that seems very fair so I really wouldn't accept another 10% off - that would suggest that the market has dropped 35%, which it hasn't. Yet (!).

Hope you manage to get one of the two houses - good luck

As a seller (whose chain has fallen through 3 times now due to buyers pissing about) it definitely works both ways - got plenty to say about greedy ignorant buyers too

The guy you're trying to buy from is only greedy, in your opinion. If he's decided he doesn't want to drop his price below a certain level, then that's totally up to him - he might take longer to sell but that's his choice too. Maybe he doesn't see why he should drop more than 10%? Just shrug your shoulders and move on, surely? Plenty more houses about?

I want to sell my house, and quickly, and in fact have, 3 times, but I'd turn your offer down too!

He's considered your offer, and turned it down. Move on the the next one! YABU.

Perhaps he can't afford to drop that far below the asking price, just as you can't afford to offer it.

Minty - I didn't offer £165 because the house we offered on a while ao we went in with our best offer in the interest of not pissing around and it was rejected. The EA later told me that he believed I would go up "as everyone negotiates and you didn't offer even an olive branch".

Going in at £155 was my way of 'breaking it easy' so to speak. I'm not cut out for this psychological warfare.

The house had dropped from £260,000 to £185,000 so I think that a % drop of approx 30%? But the original value of £260 is insane given a)the state of the house b)the highest sale price on the street to date. I think 13 months ago it was worth £220,000 at best.

wiltedrose I have never said the vendor is greedy. I said putting on your house with the highest valuing estate agent is misguided and you have no one but yourself to blame when the house fails to sell. You can't be in the fame of "well I have lost £75,000 already" because the fact that the house didn't sell in the first place is a clear indication that it was on for too much so the vendor should adjust their expectations accordingly.

The vendor is not in a chain and the house wasn't bought within the last 10 years so I'd assume (possibly incorrectly as all circs are different) negative equity is not an issue. I am buying the house from a company if that makes any difference.

BTW totally agree the are probably hoardes of buyers trying it on at the mo - trying not to be horribly stereotypical but this house buying milarkey is a PITA!

I think EA's just complicate things. Wouldn't it be a lot nice if people put their houses on for the price they wanted to sell them for with none of this second guessing crap?

Thanks for all the good luck and good luck to everyone trying to sell. Coincidentally the second house is priced accurately (IMO of course) and we will be offering the asking price tomorrow! I wonder if the bank will kick themselves though and just up the asking price (?).

ARGH!

But they aren't trying it on are they, the buyers are offering what they consider to be a fair price given the market conditions. Any more than the sellers trying it on when they added 10/20/30 oh and 100% to what they paid for houses when the prices were rising

'If you were prepared to offer £165,000 max on a house on the market for £185,000 why did you offer, twice, at a lot lower than that?'

It's the way it works! Both parties are trying to arrive at a price acceptable to them. It's ridiculous to get 'offended' or 'insulted' about offers on a house. They're not offering money for your firstborn child or rating your sexual attractiveness. Perhaps if the vendor had designed and built the thing brick by brick with their own hands it would be more understandable.

If you don't want to accept the offer, you say no. If you think you can get more, you say yes. You're either wrong or right, depending on what happens next!

IMO some sellers are greedy. Some buyers are greedy. Most people are just trying to do the best for their family and some are a bit crap at it. It just gets heated when in a situation like this where no one is getting what they want and there's stalemate.

Not in a buyers market, Jimmy, when sellers have already pared their prices to the very minimum.

Its just counterproductive.

I bought my house for £360,000 in 2004. At the peak it was worth £550,000. If I had to sell now I would now put it on the market at £400,000. If someone started mucking around with offers of £350,000 or so I'd just not take them seriously. I would view them as a chancer who was only interested in screwing me for every penny available and would therefore extremely reluctant to do business with them.

I do agree that the Estate Agent in navyeyelash's case should get that line about "offers considered" taken off the advertising though.

The problem is Minty too many are still on at £550k and considering offers below £545k to be an insult.
Reality checks required asap.

Sellers already pared their prices to the minimum? Nope, not according to estate agents, who are saying that offers accepted atm are usually way below asking.

Getting outraged at offers is a waste of time. If you get more than a few like that it's time to start asking yourself why no one is prepared to pay more.

That's not my experience where I live Sorrento.

And its not the same in navy's case. House was on market at £260 (may have been overpriced) asking now £180. Seems reasonable drop to me.

I think she should go back with an offer of £175, placing particular emphasis on the stamp duty issue.

But hopefully she'll like the repossession she's off to see tomorrow.

I wouldn't have thought £350k was an extraordinarily unreasonable offer on a house on for £400k - it's only a little over 10 per cent (too tired to do proper maths in my head).

Ugh I would hate to buy a repo. Which is daft of me I spose. I'd have to get a witch in to burn sage or say a spell or something

Edam - do you think house prices have dropped to January 2004 prices?

Too be fair, I would expect house prices to rise at 5% per year so from 2004 to date £400k is not too bad.
However the problem will be that people with equity are loosing it daily and not many have the required 10-20% deposit so I can honestly see a return to 3 times the national average salary in place as it was in 2000 in some areas 2002 in others.

no idea, but if I was selling I certainly wouldn't be throwing my toys out of the pram if someone offered 12 to 15 per cent less than the asking price.

I might say no if I didn't want to sell for that amount, but I wouldn't be getting worked up about it and assuming the offer was from a 'chancer' who was out to do me down.

Well, they're still living in 2007.

That's why I'll pursue living in market rent housing association accommodation till kingdom come because I really can't be arsed with greedy fools living in la-la land.

Not my problem, not my lookout, you gotta house to sell

I have other problems.

Boohoo.

Want to sell your house, get real. Otherwise, bye bye!

where we are (East Midlands) sellers of detached houses are very greedy, they want the money to fund their pension so if a four bed semi goes for 200-250, the detached ones go for 300-400+, while three/four bed terraces are 150-180. Who is going to afford these houses? Many people have lost their jobs around here and salaries are low. The gap between a terrace and a detached is awfully high. And these detached houses need complete refurbishment as fixtures are like 10-20 years old. I'm so disgusted I'm moving out of here as soon as I can.

Golden Peach I nearly exploded once looking around one house, the couple were 15 years older than us but their child was at school with ours, 5 years older though and they'd clearly got lucky and bought at the right time.
Well she pipes up as we're leaving obviously we need every penny of the asking price, it's for (her DD's name) future.
Well I turned around and said and what about my children's future you're happy enough for us to mortgage our lives away, to borrow 4 times our joint salaries in order to give to you ?
She's reduced the asking price by £100k now, still not sold, makes me smile everytime I see the for sale board.

It was around a £200k gap between three/four beds round here at the peak. Madness.

Went to see another detached one on the market for 400, lovely Victorian but north facing small garden and needing renovation, bang in town centre so a bit noisy. The agent was very honest and said they wuold take 350. I was really annoyed because I dislike these kind of games. We sold our house for a reasonable price and got near asking price bar for 2k, why do people like playing this silly games. It really put me off even considering it.

I just cheese away at these people.

Hey ho, if you have the wherewithal to hang onto it till the end of time, thinking it's all going to rise again like Japan - hhaahaaahaaa - more power to ya.

Otherwise, keep holding out.

Someone with the cash will be there to buy it when it's at auction after the foreclosure.

Not my problem, not my lookout. And as I have other problems and lookouts, I don't much care about those of greedy sellers.

As my father always says, 'I may have been born yesterday, but I've been up all night.'

I am neither buying nor selling, but it's interesting how they're all greedy sellers and not greedy buyers taking the piss. I guess it depends on your perspective.

There are lots of houses out there, if they don't want to sell to you, find someone who does. No need for anyone to take it personally.

Lalalonglegs that's exactly what we are doing. We will be offering on another house tomorrow so will see what comes of that. Such a pity though, I don't think it's necessarily a case of vendors Vs buyers - I think EA just complicate the matter. It would be so much easier if people put the house on for what they wanted and we did away with the negotiating business. Why is negotiating acceptable anyway, what is the benefit? [confused face here please]