House buying advice needed

(I'll probably post a lot of these threads over the next few months).

We've (hubby and I) have been to view a house this afternoon that we want to put an offer in for. The problem is it's at the very top end of our budget and so we'd obviously like to pay less. I'm not sure how little to offer without sounding cheeky. The house is £230k. I know it's hard to say without you having seen it and I know the less we offer the more chance we have for someone to outbid us (although we would then hopefully have the chance to increase our offer). Is £210k too low and insulting or should we start with that with the option to go higher? We wouldn't really like to offer more than £220k but we could go up to the full asking if needed.

 

I always thought the general rule was to start with an offer of 10% less than the actual price it was up for.

 

£210 is fine for a house of that value. What helps is if you put some reasoning behind your lower than asking price bid. Things like it needs a new kitchen, windows, carpets etc.....

 

seriously

offer them 200k to start... how long has it been on the market... and do you know what age the sellers are?

 

They can only say no and I don't think £210k is insulting. I've always started at 10% below market price.

 

Re: seriously

Make a lower offer through the estate agent. They are used to handling situations like that. And don't forget that when the surveyor for the building society looks at it he'll probably value it less anyway.

 

Re: seriously

I offered 190k for a house that was up for 220k, 6 months later when it hadn't sold we bought it for 150k

Go in as low as u want, they can only say no and if they do say yes it's a bonus

 

Well it depends where you are buying and what percentage of the asking price properties are going for on average in that area.

For example, I went to see a property a few months ago at 295,000 - put in an offer over the asking price - but still lost out.
That's because on the same day another 27 couples went to see the property in a one hour slot.

There is no rule, it depends on the market and competition.

 

Re: seriously

It only went up on Friday. They had a viewing before us and they have one booked in for tomorrow. It was the owners showing us around. I reckon they are late 30s/early 40s? They had 2 kids around 11 and 6.

 

This is quite a popular area but still some of the houses are up around a year and some sell within a week. This house seems very reasonable for the area, infact quite cheap! It looks to be in perfect condition and they've just had need wiring and boiler and two extensions (planning permission there, I checked online) in the last 5 years.

 

Like FWF says, it is completely dependant on the market and markets are VERY local. I live in south elmsall and the house pricè bubble has passed us by. Quite often you see houses put on the market for a price that its clear they will never achieve and in many cases it is because it is up with an agent from outside our area. The buyer has had two or three valuations done, some wet behind the ears valuer from Whitegates in Wakefield comes along, tells them their house is worth 230k when any local will tell you it will fetch 170k if youre lucky. The buyer sees pound signs, puts it up with Whitegates and sure enough, a year later its still on the market.

If houses are moving fast in your area then the only danger with offering less than the asking price is that someone else will come along and offer it. Its a risk I would take though because in my experience, houses are generally put on the market with a buffer built into the price on the basis that the offer that will come in will be for less. At the end of the day it boils down to how much you want it.

 

I should have also said it said 'offers in the region of'.

 

thats an open invitation to offer less in my book.

 

my guess is that as it's only just been put on the market the sellers will wait to see if they can get the asking price or above.
Had it been on the market for a long time your offer would be accepted.

 

So what though?

I remember when my wife and I were looking for a property, the price stated was x, and my wife started arguing with the estate agent that the price should be y, because work was required in the bedroom, bathroom, etc, and that another similar house had also gone for y.

I tried to tell her that it really didn't matter at all. Why debate with the estate agent? If another couple came along and offered x, what does it matter what the fair value is?

In fact, that is what happened. We eventually bought a house, but not the one we really wanted, which was this one, because a guy came along who was able to buy the whole thing at the asking price with cash....while my wife argued that the asking price was unfair.

You might ponder what the correct value to offer is but if someone else comes along with deeper pockets who wants it more and maybe is a cash buyer, then there is no point intellectualising it. But as I mentioned before, you probably need to look at the market in your area and consider whether this is likely to happen and the relative urgency with which you should make an offer.

 

They will definitely wait to see if other bids come in from the other viewers. But there is no hard and fast rule, it will depend on how desperate they are to sell. At a guess, given the age profile of the sellers, they will be trading up or relocating, so I suspect they will have a house they also have a bid accepted on - that is generally the trigger for putting your house on the market. It is well known that the most interest you get in a house will be in the first two weeks it is on the market because potential buyers are checking for new houses all the time and many people will for example search rightmove for houses listed in the last x days. So if you have no firm interest after 2 or 3 weeks then it can become clear that you might have a long wait. If they have one offer on the table, no others come in, and they are desperate to move and not lose their own dream next move, then they will often take a low offer quickly.

 

One major factor is if you are not in a chain or have already sold your house...

If you have no house to sell it can make a massive difference to an offer being accepted. Personally I would (and have) accepted a lower offer from someone who has no property to sell and is therefore not stuck in a chain. £190k to 200k may be a good starting point. Agents like Haybrook tell the seller what they want to hear i.e. high value to get them on their books

 

They are trading up but unfortunately they are searching for a house right now too.

 

I guess if you've already seen (say) 10 properties in your price range you know what is good and what isn't for your area...

If for this one you think 'wow - I can't see anything wrong with this' then someone else will surely think similarly. In my opinion, good properties priced sensibly don't hang around.

 

Boils down to one simple truth - it doesnt matter what the valuer says, a house is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it.

When we were looking to move 2 years ago we had an offer accepted of 192k on a house listed at 230k. It was another one of these houses in our area that was well over priced and we offered what we thought it was worth. The seller accepted but it was clear she wanted more and sure enough two weeks later she rang us and told us someone had knocked on her door and offered 220k, but she was willing to stick with us if we could get to 210k. It was clear that this mystery buyer was made up and apart from the fact that we were not going to offer 210k because the house wasnt worth that much, we also decided that we were not going to deal with someone who operated with no integrity, so we pulled out. She came back pleading with us to just go up to 196 but we told her to shove it, even though we had already started paying out for valuations etc. It cost us about £700 to pull out but it was worth it because we quickly found a better house that we ended up buying. The seller didnt shift her house for another 9 months and it eventually sold for 185k. Oh how we laughed.