The EA knows how much we can spend

alexlyne

Well after forgetting to check on this thread this morning, put an offer in at 158. I am expecting that if they do reject it, then I'll hopefully find that 160 is OK for them - halfway between what they want and our first offer. The EA knows we wont go over 160 - we honestly can't go an extra bit higher unfortunately. We are happy to pay 160 for it too.

It seems that regional variations play a big part in everyones opinions here. I have been dipping in and out of this forum for the last few months, and it seems that a lot of people are having luck getting a huge chunk of asking prices, with a default 'start at 20% under asking' or whatever. I wish I could say the same for the houses we are looking at. Examples:
House 1: 150. Offered 142, rejected. Found that another buyer had offered 146. Countered with 146.5, the other bidder got it for 148.
House 2: 164. Didn't get to placing an offer on this one, but sold to a cash buyer for something over 160. (asking price was set in Jan09)
House 3: 160. The EA told us the vendor would accept 155. We didn't like this house so much as it was too small.

In the area we are looking in, prices have dropped around 12-15% from peak, a lot less than in other areas. In the last 6 months, prices haven't dropped by much at all.. We don't want to hang around too long on this one as it's in a justifiably 'nice' area and chances are we could be outbid again

Running_Horse

The EA may know what income multiple someone is willing to lend you, but that is somewhat different to how much we can spend. Or at least it should be. It is not compulsory to borrow the maximum offered.

alexlyne

Way ahead of you Mr Horse!
The bank will lend us 200k+, the 160 is our own estimation of what we can afford. It's already gone up from 150K in the last 4 months.. I doubt we'll be dinky's for the next 25 years!