Any sellers tips on haggling?

paul1964_2

gemmas5677 wrote: »

We are first time buyers in the process of buying our first house (cross your fingers for me)!

...

We saw it was originally put on Market In March for 160,000 but was brought down to 150,000 a month later. Our first offer of 145,000 was rejected but we knew they were desperate to sell & we really wanted it the house so we let them sweat a few days - even the estate agent rang us to ask if we'd thought anymore about i so we offered 146,370 & they accepted. Hope that helps.

I am guessing that the EA and vendors did more smiling than sweating.

You appear to have been in a much stronger position than you realised. FTBs are in short supply and the vendor is desperate to sell, yet you have offered nearly 98% of the current asking price!

I have only one piece of advice for you. If your surveyor/valuer comes in with a lower valuation, do not pay a penny more than this amount.

I hope your house purchase goes smoothly and wish you good luck in your new home.

googler

Since no-one seems to have addressed the original question....

Why do you need to ask? Aren't Housenetwork being paid to do the haggling for you?

jockosjungle

There is no secret to this, you know how much you want for it. I'd point out that an estate agent isn't a mortgage valuation expert though so people might not be able to get a mortgage or just come back to renegotiate.

If you expect more than the asking price I think you'll be waiting a while, has it been on a while? Also the estate agents may not think you are that eager to sell the house and I'd be put off if I offered £159k and was told by the EA that the seller won't even consider such a low offer as worthy of their attention.

When you have the house on the market for £150k because nobody wanted it at £165k, you might wish you'd been a bit more open to negotiating. Unless your house is some sort of 8 bed character property, I imagine there are plenty of other similar properties for sale, all with people more interested in selling their house

R

property.advert

The true cost is not what you get for yours but the difference between your current and new properties. You have to think that strategy out in advance.

Grolsch30

We are open to discussion on the price and a very similiar property on our estate is on for a whopping £174k.
We will not be buying another house as we will be emigrating and will be investing most of the monies gained from the sale for a future new build abroad.
Obviously at the end of the day the prospective buyer will only offer what he/she actually is willing to pay, which is fine.
That ours is for sale @ 165k and willing to negotiate from 160k onwards given our extension and upgrades to the property which we have done which compared to an equivelent house on our estate (all the same layout but no extension) is surely to be of more value.

But again we shall see if we get an improved offer

As to HN negoitiating, when we declined the original offer HN did ask me what we wanted and I told them nothing less then 160k, idealy 163k and it's a deal.
Don't realy know how good or bad they are or how far their negoitiating goes.

FATBALLZ

Never sold a house, but if I was buying I would be quite put out at 'immeadiately' being rejected on an offer of 94% of asking price. I'd think you weren't really a serious seller, might have been better if you'd taken some time to consider (or pretend to consider) their offer as it sounds fairly decent to me. I wouldn't even offer that much in the first place, typically I'd start at around the 85-90% of asking price amount (but I'd do my research in case the asking price is way too much).

QTPie

Depnds how quickly you want to sell.... How long has it been on the Market?

That is a good first offer. I would have got HN to feed back something like "thank you for your offer, but the vendors are looking for closer to their asking price". I think that you are doing yourself a dis-service by not wanting to hear of offers below 160....

I would imagine that the people who offered will come back andmake another offer (if they haven't been offended by outright rejection and that your property is priced reasonably AND is differentiated from other similar properties). BUT I would be surprised if you get them to 163k - considering their starting offer, I would be willing to bet that they are not looking to go above £160k....

Some houses do achieve asking price (or higher) at the moment, but if this is likely to be the case, then you should be able to see it (within the first week or two). How much interest and viewings have you had? Are people beating down your door?

Difficult... It is a funny Market and all about gambling...

QT

jockosjungle

I just got an offer accepted on a house and it worked quite well. I offered £60k on a £65k price (reduced from £70k), they came back and said they were thinking more around £63.5k, I came back with £62 which was accepted. Instead of rejecting my offer flat out, by showing they were willing to do a deal and come down a bit we came up with a figure acceptable to all. If they'd just said no at £60k, not sure I would have come back.

What has the EA said to the buyer? Has he simply refused the offer or has he given your counter offer? It's not really haggling if you just reject offers

R

silvercar

Even though your answer is a straight "no", you need to put words around it to soften the blow and encourage an increased offer.

You need to use phrases like, "we priced realistically to encourage potential buyers", "feel that an offer nearer to the asking price would be greeted more positively".

Grolsch30

Our property has been on the market for 25 days with 4 viewings.
The persons interested are cash buyers looking to downsize and according to my other half were realy excited and impressed with our property, so hopefully a deal can be made.
We did say that we are open to negotiation but are looking for at least 160k warranted by our extension compared to other houses and the improvements made within the house.

We shall see.....