Should we increase our offer? Help!

mouche

Hello,

Thanks to everyone for your answers. I guess I knew that realistically offering £5K less than the asking price was not a good idea. The advantage we have is that the asking price is our maximum budget. We couldn't go over that even if we wanted to. Well we could in theory (bank would lend more to us) but we won't because we want to keep the monthly payments affordable.

As it happened the agent called back saying that they'd had a number of offers and did we want to revise our offer? I said we'd go upto the asking price and she called back saying they'd had more than one offer at asking price so the owner was trying to decide who was in a better position to proceed. I gave them the information they asked for (FTB, 20% deposit in place etc) and am now waiting to see if the offer is accepted. If it isn't, we'll just have to keep looking - we've offered our maximum and if someone is in a better position or can offer more, so be it.

By the way, the reason it's up for a quick sale is because the owners are buying a new build property and the developer is helping them to sell. But if our offer is accepted we'll get a full survey done just in case.

Thanks again for all your feedback.

Arthritic_Toe

mouche wrote: »

Hello,
Thanks to everyone for your answers. I guess I knew that realistically offering £5K less than the asking price was not a good idea.

- well it might have been, if you hadn't already shown your hand to the EA.

mouche wrote: »

.. Well we could in theory (bank would lend more to us) but we won't because we want to keep the monthly payments affordable.

Whatever you do, DO NOT mention this to the EA. Remember, she is sitting at her desk right now, wondering how high she can push you. She doesn't care whether your 'monthly payments are affordable'. You are probably the only potential buyer (statistically, and given the current state of the market).

mouche

Arthritic_Toe wrote: »

- well it might have been, if you hadn't already shown your hand to the EA.


Whatever you do, DO NOT mention this to the EA. Remember, she is sitting at her desk right now, wondering how high she can push you. She doesn't care whether your 'monthly payments are affordable'. You are probably the only potential buyer (statistically, and given the current state of the market).

Thanks for the advice - the developers had an independent mortgage advisor call me to do an affordability check so they know my financial status. But no matter how much I like the house and how much I think it's worth, I won't go over my budget. So if they do try to push me higher, I'll walk away. It's a much better house than I was expecting to be able to afford and it will be sad if I don't get it, but I'll just go back to looking at houses that would normally be in this price range.

mouche

Just in case anyone was interested in this case, we didn't get the house.

Apparently there were 4 buyers who offered the asking price (including us) and the developer doing the assisted move and the vendor chose to go with someone who had a 60% deposit rather than us with a 20%.

We're obviously disappointed but hey ho, we'll just have to keep looking and hope something else comes up that is just as good. Thanks for your advice eveyone.