Had an offer....what is this a joke?!!

QTPie

I completely agree - I think you have to: too many people take buying a house as a light decision.

There should always be a lot of heart in buying a home (well one you want to stick with for 30 years), but there should also be an awful lot of head in that decision too. I agree: research, research and research some more - HUGE decision and HUGE amount of money. Time well spent - to get it right.

QT

the_flying_pig wrote: »

well, you've got to try.

if you can bear it i'd try to regularly speak to as many EAs as you can to understand as much as you can about conditions in your local sub-market.

i'm planning to really, really, shop around this time. looking at the net house prices etc sites i reckoned that the £250k i paid for my current place in 2002 was at least £15k over the top. I wouldn't be all that surprised to see prices dip down below what I paid for it probably sometime in 2010. which is galling.

i'm not generally all that much of a haggler or a shopper-around but for your home you're talking huge sums of money, need to get it right if you can. assuming you're not too busy - i anticipate probably putting in at least a couple of hundred hours into searching, viewing, putting in offers, negotiating, etc next time.

Steve57

We put our place up for sale last year in March, within 2 weeks we had an offer for 205K against our asking price of 215K, without us knowing it, our agent rejected it out of hand, they then sent around other viewers but no more offers, I complained about rejecting the offer we should have recieved but too late, the agent was then in the buisness of closing down. We found another agent who after a month or so found us another offer, this time at 195K which we took. The buyer messed us around for 4 months with one thing or another, then renegotiated down to 185K as the bad news continued in the media. They then pulled out at the last minute. In September we recieved another offer for 175k after another month of failed viewings and this time they followed through and we exchanged in mid November. We sold at 2003 prices for our street in NW London, we also had done the place up over many years. This is the reality and prices will not return to 2007 levels, the economy and banking system is broken and will be for a very long time.

des_cartes

suckers2008 wrote: »

Hi All

My flat has ben on the market for nearly 3 weeks and we got or first offer yesterday.....for £40K under the asking price!!! What are these FTB's on???!!

You bought in 2006 around the time I sold up. I am now considering getting back into the market as the interest on savings is negligible now. Depending on asking prices, I will offer between 15 and 25% below. I figure with these offers that I will lose out in the longer term as prices still have around 30% further to fall to match availability of credit but I can't hang about for another 2-3 years to wait for prices to bottom out. If I were you, I would grab the offer of 40k below as it is unlikely that there will be another sucker as generous along any time soon.

Miss_Madam

vlad_the_impaler wrote: »

Yup, prices on property have always gone up for you, through your entire adult life; just the same for me.

You need to come to terms with the fact that it was a bubble. House prices have never done this before, and they were always going to correct. You will probably not make money on your next purchase. This is the norm; making money from constant market rises is not the norm, even though to you (and a great many others) this is hard to accept. The economy simply cannot support prices rises going on and on. It had to stop, and now it has.

Be happy that you are getting viewings and offers, but don't follow the market down by letting your previous experiences of property prices cloud your judgement. We are getting back to normal after 12 years of non-normality. The market will drop by at least another 15%, time is an issue with this, so don't hold out for too long. The buyers have all the cards now.

Good luck with the sale. :beer:

Well said Vlad! Sucker, you have only experienced the upslope of the housing market and using attitudes forged during that time will be of no use to you in this new stage in the economic cycle. So you always made money on past sales - good for you - celebrate that, but don't you have the slightest suspicion that you are pushing your luck - or not to put too fine a point on it, shoot yourself in your foot with your own greed.

Clearly you feel that it is your inalienable human right to make money on property transactions (where you are the vendor...I'm guessing when you bought places in the past you didn't add in a bit on top of your offer so the vendor got some profit), this point of view is outmoded and useless to you now that the property ladder has turned into a snake. Yes you want to sell to rent before the market plummits - that relies on finding a greater fool and it may be that time has passed. Change your expectations quickly and get with the new programme and you will be less hurt by this new paradigm.

As for expecting profit from your sale, ummmm with a house bought for 180k and a mortgage for 210k - you have clearly already had that 'profit' (for a fee) by MEWing equity out of your house and thus you have spent it. Regardless of the fact that spending paper profits could be seen as rather foolish thing to do, to expect sympathy from anyone on this forum for it is deluded - it just sounds grasping. I'm sorry. You took the money, you assumed that house prices were going to keep on rising (although there was lots of evidence to the contrary) you spent it, no one put a gun to your head. If you get into negative equity by blowing money on gadgets and 'wants not needs' - then I'm struggling to see why I should empathise with you. Plus you turned a 2 bed property into a 1 bed - of course you are going to sell for less, this was a mistake that in a rising market would be hidden by general house price inflation you might have scraped a couple of k profit for making this mistake - in a falling market, well the tide has gone out and you are clearly naked. As you are discovering in your own situation, fewer people want a 1 bedder than a 2 bed...

I am glad to hear you have got lots of viewings, try not to have such an attitude of 'how dare they' when people make realistic offers (they are simply factoring in falling prices and trying to keep themselves out of negative equity - and negative equity without blowing the money on MEWing is a lot less fun) - in any business transaction it is so much easier to shaft someone who is haughty rather than someone who is nice, and you might find you get a better response from potential buyers by losing the attitude. Otherwise you might just find folk play hardball with you.

The slew of viewers you are expecting this weekend may be due to the fact that the estate agent mentioned the words pregnant and redundant and you are viewed as a forced seller by these buyers, and as a result they are only interested because they expect you to be realistic. They may only want to see houses being sold by 'motivated' sellers and in many EAs eyes - being pregnant and redundant should make you motivated. It may not be true but that could be how they have represented your situation to these viewers.

carolt

suckers2008 wrote: »

gee thanks everyone
I hope you all live happy and prosperous lives

Thanks.

Just one question - why do you regard it as your 'right' to make money by buying and selling property?

Had you not noticed, but property prices are FALLING. Very quickly. And have been doing so for some time.

That means, logically, that anyone buying now expects their property to be worth less, not more, in a few months, and anyone selling knows their property is already worth less than it was last year. In fact, the statistics show that on average, we're back to 2004 prices.

Why do you think you're so special and different?

A house is NOT a cashpoint - something, by reason of your youth, you seem to be unaware of.

A house is a home. If you want a secure return on your money, put it in a bank - or several banks, as Martin will tell you. If you want a home, buy one - but don't expect it to be a perpetual money-machine as well.

hounslow_boy

suckers2008 wrote: »

Hi All

My flat has ben on the market for nearly 3 weeks and we got or first offer yesterday.....for £40K under the asking price!!! What are these FTB's on???!!

I mean no disrespect suckers2008, I hope things work out for you, but you have to understand...

... we are at the beginnings of a depression that will make the 'Great Depression' look like a minor disturbance. With $685 trillion of toxic worthless OTC derivatives (> 10x world GDP), mountains of national and personal debt, the entire banking system is INSOLVENT. It cannot be fixed.

Does this put your flat's selling price conundrum in a different perspective?

Best wishes (seriously)

edit:sp

suckers2008

Well had a chat with hubby last night and we are going to keep the flat on the market but re-jig the flat around - it wont cost much to put up a stud wall in the living room and make a second bedroom and take out the massive two wardrobes in the bedroom and use that space to put the cot and baby stuff - am wondering how much it would be to put in velux windows into the roof and make it a useable room without spending £25K

BettiePage

Miss_Madam wrote: »

As for expecting profit from your sale, ummmm with a house bought for 180k and a mortgage for 210k - you have clearly already had that 'profit' (for a fee) by MEWing equity out of your house and thus you have spent it.

Didn't they say they had a large deposit too?

Welcome to the board by the way and to Vlad also.

Robert_Sterling_3

sarah_elton wrote: »

Depends - what's it on the market for? £40k off £400k would be different to £40k off £80k...

Very true. 10% off would be more than reasonable whereas 50% off would be pushing it a bit. :eek:

Robert_Sterling_3

suckers2008 wrote: »

I also have planning permission for a loft conversion

How much did it cost to get planning permission. Is it outline or full planning permission. Either way it does not add a lot to the value. For example evidently you have not taken advantage of the opportunity to use the permission.

Any way an offer of £210,000 is an offer. A starting point for negotiation. The person making the offer might aim at getting you down to £230,000. You might be willing to accept £240,00. We are nearly there now.