Offer advice please!

Alejandro

Bit of advice required on our bidding strategy!

Background:

A couple of weeks ago we found a property we liked and put in an offer £30k under asking price (the asking price was around 450k). This was rejected by the seller, and the EA said there was one other bidder so we had 2 days to make our 'best and final offer'. We were quite cautious but pushed up to 20k under asking price, reasoning that we weren't too bothered if we didn't get it.

EA told us that the other person's 'best and final offer' was higher and so the vendor had gone with that one. Fine.

A week or so later (today) the estate agent called us up to say that the sale had fallen through (apparently the survey came back fine but the buyer had financial difficulties), and would we like to make another offer. I told him that our existing offer still stood. He said that we would have to increase our offer to something near the other offer, which he hinted was around 5k under asking price.

Because we've done a lot more viewings in the last couple of weeks, we now think we were a bit cautious in making our 'best and final' offer last time round. However, obviously we don't want to pay more than I have to, so am tempted to go in with only a slight increase to our previous offer, maybe 15k under asking price.

Just interested to see what people think really? Are we still being too cautious? I have this nagging feeling that this other buyer may never have existed in the first place (although no evidence for that either way), or that there's some sort of horrendous problem with the place that came up on survey, but maybe just paranoia!

Any and all advice welcomed...

justjohn

dont offer anymore

GDB2222

It depends how much you want it. You could just stand your ground and see what happens. They may well take it.

moesasji

My feeling is that you are being played by the EA....the market is dead as there are not that many people around that can borrow this kind of money.

Anyway the only thing that you are talking about is asking prices. A seller can ask for the moon, so do your own research and base your judgement on those hard facts! So for how much have comparable properties in that area recently sold? You can easily find this using nethouseprices.com for example

hcb42

I would stand firm. Your offer is still the best offer - that can actually proceed - that the vendor has.

The other offer was not worth the proverbial paper it was printed on if the buyer cannot come good on the deal.

THey will ring you back.

Alejandro

Thanks for advice. I probably should have pointed out that it's in london, so 450k isn't actually that expensive (it's only a 3 bed flat!). I don't think the asking price is unreasonable, based on what I've seen other properties advertised at/selling for, but obviously every property is different, especially in London where places vary so much from one road to the next, so it's hard to be certain.

Incidentally there's one other thing that's bugging me. The flat is one of 6 in the building and it will be a share of freehold. However the arrangements between the various owners is that each flat pays a proportion of the maintenance costs based on its floor area, which means that 'our' flat pays a lot more than all the other flats. I just wondered whether that is normal (rather than splitting based on, say, number of people living in each flat, or just splitting equally), and also whether I necessarily have to sign up to the arrangement or whether its just an agreement between the existing owners. Not too sure how these things normally work. Also, what happens if the owners don't agree about the work to be done? At the moment they have an '8 year plan' for all the maintenance work, which includes replacing windows etc and requires 'our' flat to contribute over £200 per month!

hcb42

sheesh =- £200 a month.

I dont have any experience, other than to say there is no "fair" way...based on sqm or occupancy or bedrooms etc - someone will always be worse off.

£200 a month is a lot though. I would be buying a house, not a flat for £450k - then again I don't live in central London!

geoffky

you are being played...simple as that...you fell for it the first time.

suebfg

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but we've been told twice by estate agents recently that there is an offer on this property or that, hence putting us under pressure to make our minds up very quickly.

In both cases, we haven't put in offers and weeks on, neither property is under offer or sold stc.

Alejandro

Thanks guys. Geoffky - clearly you know your stuff, so i'd be interested to hear your reasoning as to why we're "being played". I've been trying to work that out, but I didn't think it was as obvious as you clearly seem to think, so would be grateful for some more insight.

I came to the conclusion that they were probably genuine, because if I was in the seller's position and only had one potential buyer on the cards, I don't think I would risk losing them by leaving them waiting for over a week between rejecting their offer and coming back to them (we've seen quite a few properties in the meantime since having our offer rejected, and it's only coincidence that we haven't happened to find anywhere appropriate). If they'd come back to us the next day, I'd have been a lot more suspicious.

Alejandro

hcb42 wrote: »

sheesh =- £200 a month.

I dont have any experience, other than to say there is no "fair" way...based on sqm or occupancy or bedrooms etc - someone will always be worse off.

£200 a month is a lot though. I would be buying a house, not a flat for £450k - then again I don't live in central London!

Yes, the £200 a month certainly concerns me. On the plus side, none of it goes to a managing agent or anything, so it does all go into improvements/repairs etc, and the building was clearly very well maintained.

And I daresay I'd feel differently about the cost allocation if I was in the smallest flat rather than the largest! I'm just trying to figure out whether I'd be tied in to that arrangement or whether i'd have any chance to renegotiate with the other owners.