What do you consider an acceptable amount to offer below the asking price?

myhouse_2

claire70 wrote: »

But that's just it, they haven't done their homework at all. Houses like ours in our area usually go for something between 310 and 325. So why do they think ours is overpriced at 300???

Two further general questions to everyone:
1. why is there this perception that it's a falling market? According to all the newspaper reports I've seen, it's a static market. One report might say prices went up 1% last month, the next might say they've gone down 1% - but nothing is *really* changing. It's not a major crash. Are buyers trying to engineer a crash by putting in stupid offers?
2. I've heard this figure of offering 10% below asking price bandied around several times now. Where is this coming from? Can anyone give me evidence for this or is it just hearsay?

What you're experiencing is the classic stand-off. A small number of houses (half the normal) are being sold, often at full price or within 10% of asking (this comes from Land Registry statistics by the way). Sellers understandably want to sell at full price but there are simply not enough buyers out there willing and able to pay full price.
You are right to say there has been no crash (though prices did drop 15% before coming back up a little), but the fact is that many houses have been on the market for months/years. Which sensible buyer would pay near full price for something that no one else wants to buy. You might think your asking price is fair, but if buyers' don't, then you're stuck with it. There is no urgency to buy anymore and that puts downwards pressure on prices. Not to mention the looming cuts and IR rises.
You may be right about your house value, but are the number of houses being sold at "full price" sufficient to maintain the market. It only takes one desperate person to sell at £290 and the new price is set in stone for that street/area.

WelshNic

claire70 wrote: »

But that's just it, they haven't done their homework at all. Houses like ours in our area usually go for something between 310 and 325. So why do they think ours is overpriced at 300???

Two further general questions to everyone:
1. why is there this perception that it's a falling market? According to all the newspaper reports I've seen, it's a static market. One report might say prices went up 1% last month, the next might say they've gone down 1% - but nothing is *really* changing. It's not a major crash. Are buyers trying to engineer a crash by putting in stupid offers?
2. I've heard this figure of offering 10% below asking price bandied around several times now. Where is this coming from? Can anyone give me evidence for this or is it just hearsay?

Are you familiar with the story of Chicken Licken?

That's exactly where a lot of the sentiment on this forum comes from, don't get dragged in to it.

If you feel you've priced yourself fairly in your area, you stick with it. Aligning a 300k property as close to the 250k stamp duty is laughable and anyone expecting you to drop the price to anywhere near that is most definitely having a giraffe.

neverdespairgirl

claire70 wrote: »

I agree with the above. We are both selling (asking price of 300k) and buying (prepared to go up to 450k). We have had several offers of between 30 and 50k below our asking price, BUT we have already reduced by 20k since we started, and are now at a VERY fair price for a property of our type in our area. So I consider those offers to be extremely cheeky, and made by people who haven't done their research properly.

If you've had "several" offers at £X and none at £Y amount, perhaps you are wrong rather than the would-be buyers?

neverdespairgirl

claire70 wrote: »

It's not a major crash. Are buyers trying to engineer a crash by putting in stupid offers?

Not a general crash, perhaps, but with a lot of property for sale and not many buyers, it's easy to offer very low on several properties and wait for someone who does want to sell to bite.

That's what we've just done.

paint

claire70 wrote: »

2. I've heard this figure of offering 10% below asking price bandied around several times now. Where is this coming from? Can anyone give me evidence for this or is it just hearsay?

I offered 14% below original asking price and had the offer accepted 11% under original asking price. It had been on the market for 9 months.

I think it's a good buy in the current market, but expect prices to either stagnate or fall 10% or so over the next couple of years.

claire70

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

If you've had "several" offers at £X and none at £Y amount, perhaps you are wrong rather than the would-be buyers?

Please read my previous posts! If I'm wrong, so is everyone else in my area. We are a 3 bed semi, nice area, large-ish garden, and our asking price is the same as smaller terraced houses, with small gardens, and/or not so nice area. So in what universe are we overvaluing ourselves??

In my opinion, the fact that there is so little on the market is doing us a big disservice, as people haven't got anything directly comparable to us at a higher price - there were houses like that until just before we went on the market (which sold for close to those higher prices). Then unluckily for us, no more have appeared.

claire70

myhouse wrote: »

You may be right about your house value, but are the number of houses being sold at "full price" sufficient to maintain the market. It only takes one desperate person to sell at £290 and the new price is set in stone for that street/area.

I would be quite happy to sell at 290 right now! But not at 260, I'm afraid. Not until I see other houses like ours being priced even the same as us - they are generally priced higher.

Fly_Baby

claire70 wrote: »

Please read my previous posts! If I'm wrong, so is everyone else in my area. We are a 3 bed semi, nice area, large-ish garden, and our asking price is the same as smaller terraced houses, with small gardens, and/or not so nice area. So in what universe are we overvaluing ourselves??

Then why is it not sold? I have been looking at houses for 9 months, in the nice area too, a 3-bed semi, with a good-sized garden. Here, if the property really matches the description and is cheaper than others by 20-25K at that, as you are saying is the case with yours, it might be sold before it has a chance to appear on Rightmove - or certainly within a few days after that, as I have been observing.

Or maybe there is something not quite perfect about your house which is why the buyers aren't eager to buy it even at 20-25K cheaper. For example, it doesn't have a driveway, or a garden is a weird shape - these are examples of houses which wouldn't sell for a while in my area while other, otherwise identical houses, would just fly off the shelves.

Fly_Baby

claire70 wrote: »

I would be quite happy to sell at 290 right now! But not at 260, I'm afraid. Not until I see other houses like ours being priced even the same as us - they are generally priced higher.

Are they really the same in every respect?

For example, in our town the houses prices are driven A LOT by school catchment areas, and I mean - A LOT. A 3-bed semi in a nice catchment will be 300K while an identical in every respect house in a not so nice catchment will be 240-260K. They will be just about 2-3 miles apart and in the same distance from the town centre too.

I have kids so I have to take that into account but I do feel sad that I cannot consider so many beautiful and affordable houses because of the schools.

claire70

Fly_Baby wrote: »

Then why is it not sold? I have been looking at houses for 9 months, in the nice area too, a 3-bed semi, with a good-sized garden. Here, if the property really matches the description and is cheaper than others by 20-25K at that, as you are saying is the case with yours, it might be sold before it has a chance to appear on Rightmove - or certainly within a few days after that, as I have been observing.

Or maybe there is something not quite perfect about your house which is why the buyers aren't eager to buy it even at 20-25K cheaper. For example, it doesn't have a driveway, or a garden is a weird shape - these are examples of houses which wouldn't sell for a while in my area while other, otherwise identical houses, would just fly off the shelves.

We do have a 'not quite perfect' factor - we have a galley kitchen, which people seem not to like. SOME other houses nearby (though not all) have knocked it through. But we feel we are already factoring that into account now by asking what we are asking, ie lower than others.

We are very close to four (!) well regarded schools, so it's not that.