Negotiating your house sale price

ColU_FC

You have decided to sell your house. You advertise it for sale at a price of £120,000. You have decided that the absolute minimum you are prepared to accept is £100,000. A buyer, Fred Bloggs, has viewed the house, likes it and makes an offer of £110,000.

Scenario 1

You breathe a huge sigh of relief and accept Fred’s offer.

Scenario 2

You think about Fred’s offer and make a counter offer of £115,000. Fred comes back and says the absolute maximum he can afford is his original offer of £110,000. You then accept Fred’s offer.

Which course of action do you take and why?

Many thanks in advance for your opinions.

firstaspect

Probably number 2. If £110,000 was his first offer then it's quite likely that won't be his final and maximum offer. I'd go back with £115,000 and then he may move up to say £112,000. I'd then accept that. Obviously there's always a small risk if you don't accept his original offer he would walk away but it's far more likely he'd come back with a slightly higher offer again.

p00hsticks

Go for b) - but the response is going to depend on how realistic your original price of £120,000 was and your reason for setting the lower limit of £100,000.

If £120,000 compares well with other similar properties in the area, and £100,000 represents a real bargain, then the buyer may make another slightly higher offer.

But if you've put it on for £120,000 just because that was the highest valuation you got from an estate agent, or because a house in your road sold for that two years ago, and the only reason you need £100,000 is to clear off your mortgage and other loans, then be prepared for the buyer to walk away if you turn down the offer.

Doozergirl

p00hsticks wrote: »

then be prepared for the buyer to walk away if you turn down the offer.

I don't get this. If you turn an offer down flat and aren't even considering it and they aren't going to go any higher then of course they will have to walk away from the table.

But negotiating with someone and trying to push them higher, even when you know you will accept their offer is different. If they are serious about buying the house then they won't go anywhere in that negotiation period. Even if you do try to push them higher, when you get to the point where they won't move any more, their previous offer will still stand

Without a shadow of a doubt I would try to push a buyer as far as they were prepared to go, after all, they're prepared to go there!

silvercar

Definitely scenario 2. Scenario 1 runs the risk of the buyer thinking they offered to high and wishing to reduce their offer.

hazyjo

silvercar wrote: »

Definitely scenario 2. Scenario 1 runs the risk of the buyer thinking they offered to high and wishing to reduce their offer.

Same for me - would think they'd try dropping me further down the line thinking they should have gone in lower in the first place!

Mind you, saying that, we accepted a first offer, but he was an investor and the EAs have dealt with him before, and he said that was his only offer and would walk away. It wasn't a horrendous offer, so we took it. It was all very businesslike, unlike other times I've sold. And we offered once on a house that was way over our budget so put down our one-off top offer which they eventually accepted.

Jx

Janie2008

Neither, I wouldn't give a counter offer, just say I was looking for nearer to the asking price.

Catatonia

Sorry Janie, but I HATE people who don't counter offer (especially when the offer's that near asking. If you can't be bothered to counter offer, it puts me right off. What do you expect your buyer to do? Play an endless one-sided guessing game?

paul1964_2

ColU_FC wrote: »

Scenario 2

You think about Fred’s offer and make a counter offer of £115,000. Fred comes back and says the absolute maximum he can afford is his original offer of £110,000.

Scenario 3

You think about Fred’s offer and make a counter offer of £115,000. You never hear from Fred again.

poppysarah

Scenario 4
You find out how proceedable Fred's offer is. If he is able to move fast you accept.

westlondonbuyer

Catatonia wrote: »

Sorry Janie, but I HATE people who don't counter offer (especially when the offer's that near asking. If you can't be bothered to counter offer, it puts me right off.

I've been in several situations now where the vendor has made no counter-offer, even when I've made what even the EA agrees is a reasonable opening bid.

I just walk away if the vendor doesn't want to engage.

Since the abolition of HIPs, it costs nothing to put your house on the market. There are lots of vendors with daft asking prices as a result, hoping to get lucky rather than actually wanting to sell.