First Offer?

Mike10

Evening All.

Me and my partner are on the verge of making a first offer on a house we like. My question is how do we put the offer to the EA? Would we give them a call stating the price we would like to offer or would it be best sending a letter/email detailing the price and the conditions the offer is subject to?

Any advice is appreciated

Thanks

underthematress

Hi,
How exciting for you. I just bought my first house before Christmas.

Firstly check you have the best value estate agent (we use solicitors up here in Scotland) I nearly put an offer in and then shopped around solicitors saving us £400! In the end I negotiated the fees as there were many looking for business in these quiet times.

The house was fixed price at 169k... I decided in my head it was really worth £165k max..that was what I was willing to pay for it in this climate. I considered that most people I knew who had sold their house recently had lost around £10k on it so we decided to star our price at £160k..the solicitor said that this was not a good idea but to start at 165... but i thought what have we got to loose.

I told the solicitor to put it like this.

We are 2 forst time buyers (no chain) and are interested in the property. We have a morgage in principle agreed from our lender and would liek to put an offer of 160k for th property...

I told them to emphasise the first time buyer part and importantly the mortgage in principle bit due to the credit crunch.

eventually we agreed and got the house at 165!!

Good luck and the hardest part was not getting emotional about it-just keep thinking, there will be another house available if you dont get this one...

Also this was so hard but we waited a week between the frst offer and 2 days betweent he next as the house had been on the market 6mnths

underthematress

p.s we also told them our move in date and what furniture we wanted included. I was at work and foundtalking on the phone easier but I don't see why you couldn't email

johnson293

When I bought our house last year (a repo), we viewed it twice, mulled it over the weekend, and then on the monday I simply rang the selling EA, told them who I was, and that we'd viewed and wanted to make an offer - which I then put to them verbally, and they forwarded onto the Mortgage company.

The house was marketed at £109,950, having gone up originally at £119,950, then down to £114,950.

My first two offers were refused (£95,000, then £98,000), but our 3rd final offer of £100,000 was accepted, after the mortgage company came back and asked if we would meet them half way at £105,000, which we couldn't afford.

We had already accepted an offer on the house we were selling, so I made the EA aware of this before I made the first offer.

But I didn't have to put the offers in writing, though all of the offers I made (declined and accepted) were confirmed in writing to me, byt the EA.

Hope this helps.

MJ

pyueck

To answer your question of whether to make the offer by phone, e-mail or letter.

The thing is that even if your offer is accepted, unfortunatley offers for property are not legally binding until contracts exchanged. Therefore if by sending the offer by letter or e-mail you are looking for a legal document that you can rely on if the vendor ever disputes the amount you offered, unfortunately it will offer you no protection. The vendor and seller are fully entitled to raise, reduce or pull out of a deal right up until the contracts are signed. Hence, the reason why buying a house is second in stress only to divorce in life's challenges.