How far below the asking price is too cheeky an offer?

Redcedar

We have viewed a nice house in our area and would love to own it. It has been on the market since March and has had no offers and very few viewings ( from what the agent said - but i have seen it on rightmove over the last 6 months, HIP pack from feb so think this is right ) The vendors have just dropped the asking price by 10 grand to £119,995.

The house is nice but need about 20k spending on it as its in a bit of a mess ( poss new roof, lots of cosmetic work ( new plaster in all rooms , new carpets in all rooms. bathroom and kitchen ok, boiler needs a service -oil fired), garden needs attention and a tree needs to come down ) We feel that its prob worth 100k as it stands and at this price would jump at the chance.

We are no chain buyers as we are planning on renting our current home out and have a prov ok by the mortgage lender to do this. We would have to get a 90% mortgage for the new house but have the funds to do this.

Is offering 20k off the new asking price too much and would turn the vendors off? They live in London ( property in Lincolnshire) and do no use it at all now. They paid 130k for in 2005 ( from the land reg info)

Any tips on how to play it ?

Thanks

jozbo

if it was me i'd use the info i had already (time on market, fact it's vacant, needs work and you are chain free) to try a low offer.

but -

has the work that needs doing already been deducted from the asking price? if so they may not want to go below a certain amount such as 110k.

use houseprices.co.uk or zoopla to get a rough idea of what similar properties have sold for and work from there as well as your own assessment for what you want to pay.

it sounds like the work that needs doing could run into far more than the 20k you've estimated - can you make a more calculated judgement of how much these things would cost - and add a contingency?

plus on a 90% mortgage will you have some money kept back as a safety net, for unforseens and in case there's trouble paying the mortgage?

Gwhiz

Don't ask, don't get.

I viewed a place on Friday up at £499, 999. I want to knock it down and re-build. I told EA £425000 was the highest I could go to for any property as the total including rebuild costs had to come in at a certain figure. Reply was "they are looking for the full asking and someone else is interested"

Yesterday I get a call... would you still be interested at £425,000?.

Redcedar

Thanks for the speedy replies :j

To answer some of the points -

Have checked houseprices.co.uk and there is nothing similar in that area for sale or sold for the last 4 years that is a semidet cottage. They are a group of 4 semis in the middle of a feild and all sold around 2004/2005 for about 120k each. 2 of the 4 now have extentions so not sure if they had them at the time of sale. The only other houses listed are big farm houses that sold for 300k plus!

Our own home is 2 miles away and is also a 3 bed semi but on an estate but its bigger, modern , finished, south facing garden ,garage and is sound with nothing to do to it and this is valued at 125k right now.

Re the cost of works- we would do everything bar the roof if it needed doing, so would cost our time and materials rather than professional rates. I hope that would keep the cost down i little bit:p We also have a few mates who would service the boier / check the electrics as they are tradesmen who work for beers on the weekend!

My partner has a good job ( that is not at risk, thank god) and although i am just about to go on maternity leave will be returning to a good job in 6 months time. We are both inline for a bonus of arround 4k at the end of sept - so that would give us a slush fund back. We also have 30% equity in our current home but would like to keep it there if at al possible.

on paper is kind of sounds like a good plan but we are not risk takers by nature but want to build a future for our children and feel its time to start thinkig about that. The house would offer them so much more than the location of our current home ( not that its bad at all but t he new house would offer so much more for little boys! )

Anyone elses wisdom is most welcome Thanks again xx

Horizon81

You can offer whatever you like. Why are you worried about 'turning off' the vendor? All they will say is no. All you can then do is try and guage how close to the £120k they actually want. Given that they paid £130k for it I doubt they'll come down that much, but you might as well start low in your first offer.

rrf494g

it's not about making friends

It's about what will you pay, and what they will accept. As long as you are businesslike and polite with communications, there is no right and wrong about offers on houses. An "insulting" offer is really about vendor dissapointment, not prospective buyer rudeness, as long as you are polite. Good Luck
regards

zcacmxi

As long as you can justify your offer, then in my opinion it is not cheeky.

If your offer is in line with previous sold prices of similar properties, and there are other comparable properties available, then you should be comfortable with your offer.

If you are finding it hard to compare, then it is more difficult but start from 10% below and work up?

missile

As others have said it is a business transaction. It seems, house has been on the market for 6+ months and no doubt owners are keen to sell, but maybe not at any price.

I had a stupidly low offer on a house I was selling. I rejected it, marked them as time wasters and refused to consider any other offer from that individual. Maybe cutting off my nose? Sure I did.

We all like a bargain and it seems you might get it cheaply. However, it could back-fire on you and I would think carefully before proceeding. Is this the house of your dreams or are you prepared to move on and look elsewhere?

westv

missile wrote: »

I had a stupidly low offer on a house I was selling. I rejected it, marked them as time wasters and refused to consider any other offer from that individual. Maybe cutting off my nose? Sure I did.

We all like a bargain and it seems you might get it cheaply. However, it could back-fire on you and I would think carefully before proceeding. Is this the house of your dreams or are you prepared to move on and look elsewhere?

Just curious to know what the offer was.

I don't know why anyone would be so petty as to refuse to deal with anybody who put in too low an offer in the first place but each to their own.

Redcedar

missile wrote: »

As others have said it is a business transaction. It seems, house has been on the market for 6+ months and no doubt owners are keen to sell, but maybe not at any price.

I had a stupidly low offer on a house I was selling. I rejected it, marked them as time wasters and refused to consider any other offer from that individual. Maybe cutting off my nose? Sure I did.

We all like a bargain and it seems you might get it cheaply. However, it could back-fire on you and I would think carefully before proceeding. Is this the house of your dreams or are you prepared to move on and look elsewhere?

Thanks

This is what i am worried about, putting them off so they don't want to make a deal.

We are prepared to walk away as we still have our home and are not under pressure to move on as not selling.

david39

Many, many years ago, during a previous credit crunch, I was looking for a house at about £20,000 (yes, houses were that price once!).

The maximum I had available via mortgage and cash was £21,500.

The agent that had already sold my existing house told me to go and view an empty house that he had on the market at £37,500. I protested that it was out of my league, but was finally persuaded to look at it.

It was a dream house, in perfect condition, and far superior to anything I had looked at. I took the keys back to the agent and he said what would you offer? I said I was looking at £20,000 ideally, but would go to £21,500 - he said he would make the offer to the vendors.

The vendors came back with £25,000 as I could offer a rapid completion - I said, that I could not afford that and £21,500 was all I could stretch too - they accepted it!

Two years later, someone knocked on the door collecting for charity and told me he had owned the house before me and hoped I would contribute to the charity to show I appreciated the bargain! I said I was surprised he had accepted the offer and he told me that he had got caught in the sudden downturn in property prices and interest rate hike - he'd bought his "dream house" before selling his existing one and had been running a mortgage and a bridging loan - which he couldn't afford and his bank were making threatening noises.

Moral - Bid what you think you can get away with and don't feel guilty. I did my vendor a favour by getting him out of a hole, even though he must have lost money on the price of the house. - and I don't feel guilty about that.