Offer accepted but have I been stupid here?

Tassotti

I can understand the Ops reasoning. They wan't to get on the ladder and have been outbidded by many other parties.

However, the only place in UK I know this to be happening right now is Stratford (due to Olympics)

Why in Sheffield? I don't know why it should be crazy up there. This is probably one of the only times I will agree with Meanmachine, but it is crazy.

I will say, however, that your home is NOT an investment and an extra 10 grand will cost about an extra £80 per month (WOW)

Property is only an investment if you are an investor. If you are a homeowner, it makes no difference if your property rises 30% in value (unless you downsize).

When you move up, every other property will have risen by the same amount.
What I will say to the OP is don't judge your actions on a few posts by people on a forum.

It is good to get both sides of the argument, but in the end gut feeling has a lot to do with it.

If you are happy with your decision, gor for it. If not, reconsider, look at neighbouring areas to Sheffield and check out the prices there. You may find a bargain (without entering a bidding war)

Best of luck. Let us know how you get on

Tass

sambessey

It's not like this all over Sheffield as far as I am aware. Like I say though, S11 is the nicest part of the city and a desireable spot to live in. This obviously bodes well from a resale Point of View but not from a buyer's.

I don't think I have ever been 100% happy with the offer myself (or I would not have posted here) I think it is a bit high. What do you think would happen if I went back to the EA and said I was reducing my offer by 5K? Is it likely the buyer would refuse my reduction and put the house back on the market?

meanmachine_2

Look, it's better to stick with the offer you've made, then wait for the survey and negotiate downwards.

That's better than messing people about and withdrawing offers out of the blue.

That's likely to p*ss everybody off.

I honestly don't know the area, but have had a quick look on rightmove and, guess what, it looks no different to any other.

This is a decision best made by you, with advice from friends and family. You're the one who'll be paying the mortgage, not us.

Tassotti

meanmachine wrote:

Look, it's better to stick with the offer you've made, then wait for the survey and negotiate downwards.

That's better than messing people about and withdrawing offers out of the blue.

WOW twice I've agreed with MM

However, if the survey does not bring up anything you cannot renegotiate on, do NOT wait until a day before exchange, then re-offer.

This is a horrible trick and people who do it should be stoned on the street (like our teenage kids)

sambessey

Well surely if I am paying too much the survey will give a valuation and I can say "Well it's only valued at X and as a result I am going to have to lower my offer to Y."

Tassotti

Misconception

Unless you get an independent survey on the property (without them knowing the asking price or offer price), surveyors will only tell the mortgage company if it is 'worth the risk'.

Compare the properties with other sold prices on nethouseprices.co.uk or similar

Valuers generally have no idea about the value of a property and will phone EAs to ask for similar properties in the area.

If there are no comparables, pie in the sky.

v0n

The process of fixing prices and bouncing bids off empty walls isn't very difficult to arrange. It is neccessary that all other Estate Agents in area play along though. All they need is at least one sure buyer with offer close to face value. This is their fallback. Priority always goes to buyers who arrange mortgage via the Estate Agent, as they get extra money from passing a client to mortgage company. Once they have sure buyer Estate Agent will then tell the other interested party that there is number of bids for the property and some made up bidding war going on. If the second buyers withdraw their interest and don’t want to join bidding war the property will be sold at face value to the original, priority buyer. However, if the second buyer offers more, the Estate Agent will spin it further and take it as high as possible. It's relatively low risk operation. First thing you ask buyer on the phone is how much they have to spend. If then you mark buyers who still have money or mortgage to offer on a given property. Then you make them desperate until they start offering over the face value. If they do – it’s your commission. Push it too far, you still have original buyer.
They have some tricks to help them achieve the goal too - Estate Agents can create a crowd, they can scheduled viewings one after another, so you stumble upon other viewers in the doors, you have to wait few minutes, you’ll see other viewers waiting outside by the time you finish. If you look like you're interested, by the time your time is up the Estate Agent will have a mysterious phone call from some pretend viewer who is "ready to make an offer", or perhaps another agent will come around with viewers “coming back because they wanted to take pictures, so they can show it to parents. If you want this property John, you have to hurry up cause by the evening this house is as good as sold" and so on so forth.

Agents will do many strange things to sell a property. What they will never do, however, is set their prices too low.

Realistically, if there were really bidding wars going on and clients queue on door steps you would have asking prices on crazy levels after third or fourth property sold over value. The only reason why Estate Agent would ever set price too low is if they have no luck in selling property for months and they just want to draw new customers to the area or if property is bad news - as in - survey reveals serious issues and they know there is no mortgage company in the country to lend for this property and price is set attract cash buyer/property developer. This is not likely to be the case for so many properties in your area, so it has to be Estate Agents playing dirty.

Remember that the agent usually takes 1% -1.5% of sale value, so for property worth 200,000 is worth only 2-3 grand in agents books. If they spin the buyer to offer 10% over face value it’s £200-300 extra. Try and see what happens if you hint to an agent that you’d be happy to part with a £600 petite cash towards phone bill and personal costs of someone who would be willing to find and secure you a property you like by the end of the summer… Payable after contract exchange of course.

sambessey

v0n wrote:

<snip>

Houses on roads nearby are popping up for £195, and 200K.

Anyway I'm still not 100% happy with my offer. I've thought about it all week and decided I'm going to ring on Monday and reduce my offer to £185K. If they don't accept, I'm going to pull out and not buy a house at all. I've been looking for a while now and got to the point where I seriously don't care any more.

I've been involved in too many nerve- wracking moments with the houses I lost and can't be bothered to spend every weekend going up and down there to look at houses that are either no good, or really nice but going to need a bidding war to buy.

I'm not going to do a survey before I reduce my offer because they'll probably say no to my reduction and that'll be £600 wasted.

£10,000 over is stupid and it can't be worth paying. I reckon I'll rent for a couple more years or something.

v0n

I know exactly how you feel. I started looking for a place to buy in October 2003, stopped looking in July 2004. During that time I saw over 120 properties, was week after week outpriced from entire areas, gone through tiresome fights with agents pulling out properties from the market just because they knew they would fetch 5,10 grand more a week later, had my offers accepted, rejected, re-accepted and thrown back in my face in matter of the same weekend. I would like to believe I've seen every single dirty trick and douchebaggery Estate Agents have up their sleeves but I know the supply is simply endless. It was most tiresome experience in my life requiring my full time availability and response times of emergency services proportions. I invested in GPS systems, multiple phone numbers, I had phones at work and home on permanent forward to my mobiles and paid unbelievable amount of parking fines in the areas of which names I don't even remember now. I had dream properties slip out of my reach, saw agents accept lower offers than mine for cash in sealed envelopes, I was even played once by an agent as a "this guy is about to make an offer" token against another buyer just to force decision out of him. Nearly punched an agent to the ground. Nearly written off my car in the process of rushing from one place to another on short whistle and a cap of bad coffee. Nearly lost my hope.

But none of this prepared me for 5 month complition from hell with greedy seller pulling out multiple times, making up all kinds of issues, delaying complition herself just to discover house prices going up and trying to ask for more money, attempting to drop her agents in the process because of empty promise from another agent in town. A week before complition, we had our stuff already packed in brown boxes, she sent me an SMS (!!!) at 22:00 that she wants to pull out of the deal for, I think, like 15th time and I had to spend better part of the night trying to calm her down and convince her once again to sell the house to me. I don't know how many times I just wanted to give up and tell all these people what I really think of them. I didn't. I got through. And in the end....
.. it was all worth it.

Don't give up. Good things come to those who wait. You just have to stop getting attached to places you look at, you have to build up a resistance to the estate agent virus and you'll be fine.
If I had one advise to give it would be - start keeping records. I had database of every house on the market cross referenced to estate agents and names and phones of agents. I knew when deals would fall through, when houses would re-appear on the market, kept track of newspaper adds and internet printouts to be able to say how long the house was on the market and didn't sell and use it as leverage. After few months I knew how different agents played their politics and how some of the chains would know if you called same agent in different town about a different property after viewing and wouldn't treat you as serious buyer, so I had to use different phone and my girlfriends name to schedule viewing and so on, so forth. Long story. Don't give up. It's worth it and it's easy only in movies.

suffolkb

3 years ago,I nearly bought one of the new houses at Norfolk Park,but had heard bad things about the area.Obviously,the house builders told me that all that was in the past etc etc.In the end,I bought a much smaller house in a Suffolk village instead.
I am very happy here and will probably stay for 3 years until youngest daughter goes to uni.But,were my instincts right - does anyone have an opinion about Norfolk Park?