Hoorah, finally an offer!!! for very impatient newbie!

QTPie

Davesnave wrote: »

A week is a long time in politics, and six months is an eternity when your house is losing £2k in each one that passes!

This is very true. Our house went under offer to a cash/mortgage buyer (no chain) in earlish December. That offer was 10% below the asking price and our house is quite a lot more expensive than yours. They insisted on completion by 5th Feb (fine with us - caused us hassle to arrange, but ok). So everything raced along (despite Christmas/New Year in there) towards exchange. Four weeks after the offer (and three weeks before they wanted to complete), the buyers stalled the valuation and gazundered us (demanding a further 10% price reduction on the offer that we had accepted!). We declined, sale fell through.

All of that was within 4 weeks: we went from having a reasonable offer (although £10k below what we were initially prepared to accept) from "good" buyers, having a nice rental house lined up, the removals all provisionally booked.... back to square one again!

And we didn't even hang around...

QT

kunekune

If I was your buyer, I would not be happy. It is a reasonable offer, even given the original asking price (also, as a buyer I would interpret the very rapid drop in price as suggesting it had never been worth the higher price, so I'd ignore that completely).

We've recently had the experience of sellers simply turning down an offer and not coming back with a counter-offer and it is extremely annoying. In the first case, the asking price was 199, and we offered 170. Cheeky but not that cheeky given prevous selling prices. Out and out refusal to consider, together with the advice that the same reaction had been given to a 175 offer. No counter offer. So we b*ggered off, the vendor, despite impending reposession, clearly won't negotiate (it's empty, only paid 162 for it 2 years ago, could have mewed of course). Second one, the asking price was originally 199, we offered 170 last may. Out and out rejection, again no attempt to negotiate. We just left it. The price then came down to 189 and then to 175. We put in a new offer of 164. THat was again rejected. The vendor STILL made no counter-offer. I eventually pressured the agent, pointing out that this was making negotiation impossible, and was told that 170 was the absolute minimum! We are not bothering with another offer. And yes, these sellers are turning down buyers with finance organised and nothing to sell.

Please, if you want your buyer to have any idea whether they can reach agreement with you, indicate a figure you WOULD take. Then, be prepared for them to come back again. If someone doesn't, my conclusion is they don't really want to sell. I won't up the offer.

sarah_elton

3LITTLESTARS wrote: »

The EA did say to them we were probably looking for more as we were not in a rush, so we are hoping he will negotiate for us. Are we being a bit slow here?

If you're not comfortable actually going back with a counter offer, you should at least be honest with your EA about what you're trying to get and then ask him to negotiate on your behalf.

If you just say no, he doesn't know what you're thinking. He might think you won't take anything under asking price!

This whole part is a game you have to play. Expect a few rounds of offer, counter-offer, counter-counter-offer, then you agree. Seller feels happy because they got the offer up a bit, buyer feels happy because they got the asking price and first counter-offer down. Everyone's happy.

Austin_Allegro

Please keep us informed.

If you look at properties with Property Bee, the 'Sold STR' and 'Available' signs are going on and off like a bride's nightie, so I don't think offers mean a great deal in the current climate.

Sir_Humphrey

To be frank, if I were the buyer I would tell you to go forth and multiply. But you may be lucky and have a stupid buyer.

CLS26

Thank you for that excellent expression Austin - I plan to use it in a sentence this week!!!

Incidentally I only discovered property bee last week and it is actually the best thing since The Wheel

CLS

QTPie

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

If you look at properties with Property Bee, the 'Sold STR' and 'Available' signs are going on and off like a bride's nightie, so I don't think offers mean a great deal in the current climate.

You are completely right... I think that in a few months we may well see quite a few dis-enchanted sellers removing their properties from the market (unless they are completely desperate to sell). To get an offer, you generally have to under-cut the market significantly (difficult with it constantly falling and buyer's expectations constantly rising). Even then, if you get an offer, the chances of it being realised are not brilliant.

If you are serious about selling and get a good offer from someone who can proceed, then snap their hand off. That offer will not be back on the table in a month or two's time....

If you are not serious about selling, then get out of the property market - you are not doing yourself - or anyone else - any favours by being there at the moment. You are just wasting everyone's time.

QT