ftb offer help

columbo360

Good evening,

I hope you can offer me some advice. Me and my partner are first time buyers and we recently viewed a property valued at £189k. The house was empty of furniture and the owner told us that he did have a buyer but the deal fell through. In the mean time he shipped all his furniture off to australia as he is emigrating this week (flew out today).

With this in mind we thought he might be willing to take a lower value on the pretense that we are ftb's and so could complete quickly. We put an offer in of £150k (too low?) this morning. The estate agent got back to us this afternoon and informed us that the offer had been refused.

My question is when should we come back with another offer and how much should we increase it by?

Any views would be appreciated,

Matt.

Lindy_Loo_3

Depends on just how desperate he is to sell and are there any other interested parties?

We recently lost the chance to get our dream house which was bang on our budget because we went in at a mere 5% under asking and didn't want to seem too eager but offering the full amount straight after rejection. Within hours someone else offered the full asking price and it was taken off the market.

Ask the agent if they have an idea of how low the seller will accept, some will tell you some won't. If it's your perfect home I'd offer what I really believe the property is worth be it £160k or £189k.

Good Luck

ler01kjh

Have a look at zoopla.com - what were the most local recent sold prices? At £189k I could see a good deal at £175k - but it depends how reasonable the price is already. Some people say to always reduce by 10%, and definitely do if they have priced in the expected negotiation. Occasionally prices are fairly prices in the first place which reflect the vendor's position, so the only way really is to see what people have paid for equivilant properties recently.

Cannon_Fodder

under stamp duty must surely be expected, with the asking price being set where it is ?

columbo360

Thanks for the replies. Hadn't considered the stamp duty, cheers for that. The thing i want to avoid is coming back with an offer of say 169k as this may give the impression that my offer will go up and up.

I had a look on zoopla and houses on that road sold for around 150k about 3-4 years ago. Any idea of what would be an appropriate second offer?

Fire_Fox

Make another low offer, say £160K. I would do this in writing clearly stating your position - FTBs, funds in place, wanting quick sale, state of the market, sale prices of similar houses (use the Nationwide calculator).

If it's refused calmly inform the Estate Agent that the offer remains on the table and give them a week to stew. Chances are they will come back to you with a counter offer. DO NOT ask the agent what the vendor will accept now, they work on commission!

ler01kjh

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Make another low offer, say £160K. I would do this in writing clearly stating your position - FTBs, funds in place, wanting quick sale, state of the market, sale prices of similar houses (use the Nationwide calculator).

If it's refused calmly inform the Estate Agent that the offer remains on the table and give them a week to stew. Chances are they will come back to you with a counter offer. DO NOT ask the agent what the vendor will accept now, they work on commission!

All well and good BUT also how much you want the place, and if there are similar properties regularly turning over or not should also form part of your strategy. Nose face etc/.

mike5678

The flat I'm buying was priced at £198k, my first offer of £175k was rejected, second offer of £178k rejected, third offer of £180k was accepted.

£18k off asking price I thought was not bad. Hard to judge as the street I'm buying in has not had any similar properties sell for a long time, because there aren't many similar properties!

Georgie4

columbo360 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. Hadn't considered the stamp duty, cheers for that. The thing i want to avoid is coming back with an offer of say 169k as this may give the impression that my offer will go up and up.

I had a look on zoopla and houses on that road sold for around 150k about 3-4 years ago. Any idea of what would be an appropriate second offer?

You need to give the estate agent clear reasons as to why you are offering what you are - personally I would think £165k as an offer - it depends how much you actually want this house and whether you are prepared to walk away if necessary