Making an offer on a repo - advice needed please

woody252506

Estate Agent have said that as we are making an offer on a reposession we need to go through a financial check with them.
We need to prove our income etc.

I have made an offer and they said they will put it forward once this check has been done and we provide the proof we have a mortgage.
Is this right?

Also my mortgage certificate says the amount we are allowed to borrow - is this normal practice? We are FTB!

Thanks

:cool:

GDB2222

The snag is that once they have seen your mortgage offer they know how much you can afford to pay. The agents are the sellers' agents, after all.

This is all nonsense really, because you may not want to borrow the maximum amount you are able to. Consequently, I would just give them the information that they want and make it quite clear that any offer that you make is not negotiable.

On the basic question of whether the information they are asking for is reasonable, I think it is becoming increasingly common for the vendors to want to know that the purchaser is in a position to proceed. Consequently, whether you like it or not, you're probably going to have to give this sort of information in other cases.

ScouseIrish

I had the same situation last week and was worried about showing the EA our mortgage promise. So we photocopied the mortgage promise and blacked out the amount we could go to. We added some tippex on top just to make sure and then gave the EA that copy as proof of mortgage promise. She hasn't mentioned anything about it to us yet so we assume she is okay with it...

woody252506

Thanks for your replies people.

The amount shown that we can borrow as a mortgage is less than the amount we have bid for the house anyway so with us it does not make such a big difference. The amount we can go to max allows for the deposit we have.

It turns out the proof of finances etc was an attempt to get us to consider there mortgage instead of the one we have. They are half a percent more expensive so no chance so they have the photocopy of our mortgage certificate in principal now and thats it.

Our offer of 95k was rejected too on the repo. A few days of thinking and waiting for them to chase me thinks

woody252506

Offer was rejected when i was in the branch and i walked away saying we would think about it.

Today they called me (1 day after our first rejected offer) asking if we wanted to up our offer! Is this normal or a good indication that we are close to meeting what they want and they are especially keen as we are FTB with a mortgage ready?

All new to me so any experienced ones of you giving advice would be appreciated

Doozergirl

They wouldn't call if you were far off. It's worth offering again - they will have a minimum price they can accept, it's just finding out what it is!

With any repossession you have to show that you have the finances in place - copies of bank statements for the deposit, everything. They cannot waste time, there is strict protocol to follow.

It isn't just a ruse to sell you products though they will do that anyway.

woody252506

Thanks for that doozergirl!

I said id let them know after more thought so we didnt appear too keen.;)

We'll offer again, we were thinking of another 1.5k on top of the original one and no more. Is that a reasonable raise from a first offer?

HeadInSand_2

Buyers' market, stick to your guns. Let them come back to you again, clearly they're keen - they'll probably accept the offer in a month's time. Obviously they may sell it to someone else, but if you can handle that then it's a gamble worth taking.

Doozergirl

If it's a repo I wouldn't feel guilty offering very small amounts - there's a set amount they will accept, you have to find it. Offering large amounts means you might pay more than you need.

It's taken two weeks to get an answer before.

des_cartes

woody252506 wrote: »

Thanks for that doozergirl!

I said id let them know after more thought so we didnt appear too keen.;)

We'll offer again, we were thinking of another 1.5k on top of the original one and no more. Is that a reasonable raise from a first offer?

Try to find out what it last sold for. This should give you an idea of what size of loan is outstanding. The bottom line for the mortgage company is that they can recover the outstanding loan+costs. If your offer is below this then you might need to up it if you want the house. How much above your first offer was it on for?

jamtart6

We had to prove ourselves to be finanically worthy when we bought our repo. It really annoyed me. Once they saw we had a huge deposit and were basing our mortgage on only one income I think they saw $$ signs. I do know the house was popular but I'm still not convinced BOTH of the 'other' two couples who offered were real. Anyway, we got it at a bargain price, and paid £2k more than our original offer and I'd have been gutted to lose it for the sake of £2k. Depends how much you want it. This was a 'once in a blue moon' buy, £40-50k cheaper than anywhere else in the area and exactly what we wanted.

I did feel that the estate agents mortgage advisor who was 'qualifying' our finances was basically saying "come with us for your mortgage or you won't get the house". I asked her straight out "are you saying that if we dont get our mortgage with you then we will lose the house??" she seemed horrified that I could suggest it and feverently denied it...but thats EXACTLY what she was implying! Don't be bullied!