Putting a Offer in - Help Please

NathRSW

Hi There

I was just wondering if anyone could help me as I can not find any specific help on the internet.

Basically my partner and I have found the perfect house we want to buy. Our current house has just been listed for Sale in the last couple of days and we have been to see the house we want to buy on several occasions.

The house has been reduced recently and we want to get our offer in early. Our Estate agents are the same as the ones we want to buy off and they have informed us to put an offer in.

As this is my first house move I'm not really sure what I need to do. Do I need a solicitor to write a formal offer or can I write one myself? Also is it better to get a mortgage in principal before I submit my offer. So many questions so little time.

Note: Basically my current position is that I would need to sell my current property in order to get the 25% Deposit for my new mortgage. The House we want to buy is listed currently at £125,000 and we want to offer £120,000. My current House is listed at £70,000 and when we sell the house it will release about £30,000 in equity (25% of Mortage). We also have about 5k in savings to cover the valuations and solicitor fees.

Many Thanks

donna1975

my advice is do not look or offer on any house until you have sold yours, it will only lead to the disappointment if the house you fall in love with sells before you have chance to sell yours. Once you have sold yours and got your mortgage in place you will be in a much stronger position to haggle on asking prices.

Eccle_2

I'd agree it's better not to offer until you've got a sale agreed on your own house. Normally if you're not sold, then they will continue to market the house until you are, and you could still lose the house and are also in a weaker negotiating position as you're not ready to proceed.

When you have sold, you're best to have your mortgage offer in principal ready so that you're ready to proceed, and normally the offer is made verbally by you to the agents.

poppysarah

You'll have 30k equity leaving you a mortgage of 80k - can you get a mortgage for that much?

hethmar

Sorry to dampen the excitement, but how do you know you will get the asking price for your own property - it would be unlikely to do so in the current climate.

Bf109

NathRSW wrote: »

Our Estate agents are the same as the ones we want to buy off and they have informed us to put an offer in.

Oh. Really. What. A. Suprise.

The estate agent told you to put an offer in? Gadzooks man! next thing you know, the used car salesman will be telling you to buy one of his cars!

Who'da thunkit!

edit - proper good runner it is too, genuine low mileage!

megadishu

Sometimes it can help to put in an offer "in principle". As an initial step I would put in an offer about £30K below asking price. This will prepare the vendors that houses are going down in price. They may or may not agree a price. I would leave an offer in at least 20K before the asking price. Even if they do agree you can say you want to leave it there. It shows serious interest in the house.

If you are lucky enough - they are desperate to sell - and they agree to this much lower figure it also helps you to know how much you can reduce your price to. Still get at least 3 valuations on your house. Google house prices and in houseprices.net and another key one put your post in and check on actual sold prices in the road where you want to buy. These are not the figures the house was put on at but the actual amount of money paid.

The general asking prices are approximately at about prices 6-7 years ago!

I would talk to a financial advisor and check out mortgage options.

The offer should always go through the estate agent - it can help you to keep distance from the people selling which can be useful to keep objective.

Good luck.

PropertyPro

Wait until your property has gone 'under offer'.

You will then know exactly how much you can afford to offer and you'll be in a very good position.

There is no point in making an offer before then. The property will remain on the market because thechances are the sellers will be looking for somebody who is going to make a good offer and be able to proceed quickly.


Good luck.

NathRSW

Cheers people. well most of you apart from a few sarcy comments

Like I said I'm new to all of this, the property we want to buy has allready been reduced by 25k in three different stages since May 2008. Thanks Property Snake.

I dont really know what our house will sell for to be honest im hoping for near the asking price as we have listed the property to sell not for profit, I do know its actually the cheapest property available in our area at the moment so hopefully that will be a positive for any potential buyers. Even if someone offers 10% of the asking price, It will sell for 63k still leaving us nearly enough for a 75% mortage. I'm Sure we could cough up the difference in the mean time.

I have spoken to the estate agents and the propety we want to purchase is actually owned by a new build developer who brought the property through a part exchange. I have gathered that they probally just want to get the propety off their books hence the 17% reduction in less that 6 months.

Have a few people planning to look at our property this week so hopefully i will get some good feedback and maybee even an offer.

After reading peoples comments, Think we should leave the offer in the mean time and wait till we get some real interest in our current property.

Again Thanks for your help