About to make an offer, start at asking price minus 10% ?

getmore4less

Fatboy40 wrote: »

I wonder what others opinions are on the situation below ?...

We made the offer of 190, which was refused. Wednesday am last week we increased it to 198 and stated that this was our final offer, which was neither refused or accepted but the EA stated that they are thinking about it and will get back to us.

Since then we've been made aware that the vendor is viewing various bungalows, some of which are second viewings, so they're seeing what they can get with our offer of 198 before choosing to accept or decline it.

Personaly I feel this is unfair, we've made a very reasonable offer on a property that has been on the market for a VERY long time with three different EA's, and we know that they have no other offers on the table and will probably not get any other than ours any time soon unless they change their attitude. The EA we're dealing with is getting fed up of them and just wants the house to be sold and off their books.

My wife mentioned to the EA this week that we need a decision by the end of today, I feel a week and a half is more than enough time to come to a decision.

So, I get the feeling we're going to have to call the EA today and force the issue as I just know we won't hear back from them (due to the vendor). We'll be telling them that we've had enough of waiting, will start viewing other properties, but should we leave the offer open or tell them if we don't hear back by the end of play today we're withdrawing the offer ?.

Very sensible,

No point accepting an offer if it means they can't move to something they want.


You should have been looking all along never stop till exchange.

andy69_2

Its a good thing that their trying to find somewhere for that price... I would ring them and just ask how their getting on with finding a property as you have a buyer and you don't want to keep them waiting. Then see what they say, don't say your going to withdraw the offer or anything just don't mention it, if they do just say the offer is still open, if they come back saying they want an extra 500 hundred or something just say I will need to talk to my partner. Then ring them back and say we have had another look and we can manage an extra 500 but thats it, if not then I will have to find somewhere else....hope this helps!

princeofpounds

the agent cant ever refuse to pass the offer to the vendor.

The law is that they can't refuse to pass on an offer made in writing unless the vendor has instructed them to not pass on offers below a certain price.

It's a bit late for my opinion, but really you have to get the whole idea of asking prices out of your head when you buy property. Google around for the behavioural psychology on 'anchoring' as to why - it's an arbitrary number, not chosen by you, and it's only real use in negotiations is that it gives you an idea of where the vendors might have their expectations.

Much better to try to develop a proper relative or absolute valuation of the property concerned - find transactional data for similar properties, use indices to help you to adjust up or down for the passage of time, use rental yields etc. and in the end figure out what the property is worth to you.

Then make your offer, with perhaps room for one hike just so the vendor feels they are getting something out of the process. If you get the place, great. If not, then there was never a deal to be had in the first place as your bid price and the seller's ask price do not coincide to make a transaction possible.

Finally, don't pay any attention to EAs who talk about other offers or viewings, at least initially. It's really not relevant to you making the right decision for yourself, and a lot of the time they are fictional as it's another well-established sales technique that depends upon psychological responses we tend to have. Something becomes more valuable if we are competing to have it.

This sort of information is only really relevant if you have established a transaction is possible at your price, and someone then comes along to gazump it. It then becomes a cost/benefit question of upping your bid to match/beat the gazumper vs. the cost involved in a new search.

Such discipline can be difficult, and buying is really an emotional process for so many people, so what really matters is that in the end you were comfortable with the result.