Share Your Stories Of How You Managed to Negotiate A Bargain When Buying Your House

decsdad

Patience.

Offers over £285k
wait
Offers over £250k(the vendor turned down £230k at this point)
wait some more
Offers over £230k
wait
offer £185k
rejected
wait
offer£198k
rejected with £210 counter offer
Offer £200 with deadline of noon next day when i will be viewing a rental and taking it.
11:55 next day
offer of £200k accepted

klolav

propertyman wrote: »

Saw it on the Saturday and exchanged Tuesday lunchtime and completed the following Friday.

Wow! That I like

basscadette

We offered really low to start with (65k on a house that started at 105k and was reduced to 90k). Obviously this was rejected so upped it to 68k. Still no chance (I knew this anyway but said Iowuldn't go any higher). I then made a final offer of 70k - no take still - so I left it for over a week and the estate agent rang to ask if I could up it a bit. I said no, I liked somewhere else. I then rang them back and said although I liked the other place, my OH asked me to make one FINAL offer of 72k.

BINGO!

They were very angry and didn;t want to accept but house was on market for almost two years, probate, and they probably thought it could be another two years and the'd lose more. DOne up, houses on this street sell for 125, so we got a big bargain by

Acting like we knew what we were doing
Acting like we could take it or leave it
Having other properties in thepipeline which we were actively viewing, some with the same agent

Procrastinator333

If you are the sort of buyer who falls in love with a particular house. Tough. No tips or tricks will help you. Unless you very Jammu you will be paying a steep price for your property.

If you are flexible, patient and pick your targets well, it is only a matter of time till you get a bargain. There are some properties the owners will simply never sell at a sensible price, let alone for a bargain price. They have a number in their head. End of. To get a bargain, you really need to find one of the 3d's, or ideally several. You then need patience and a strong nerve.

We looked around, picked out 4 properties and started offering. 1 property at a time, but we told them we had 4 houses we liked and if our offer was declined we would offer on the next. Might be back to up the offer, but only if the other 3 declined and if we didn't find another in the meantime. The 4th house, we offered £210k on a property up for £240k. They went away, came back next day, said it was tough, wanted to sell, but too low. Told them no worries, so long as the others declined our second offers we would be back. The agent pushed and evntuallt asked is there not just something, just £1k even? So I said fine, £211k if it got the deal done today. Hour later, all agreed. The £240k was a little overpriced, but £211k was a bargain.

Just be patient, give off the impression you want it and are serious, but equally, you would be more than happy with another property and will be going there shortly if they decline. If it doesn't work on one house, just keep trying. Even this block of 4, I think we had offered on 3 houses prior to them.

I guess the short version of my opinion is that a bargain is all about finding the right vendor, not so much your tactics (though you need them as well).

TeamLowe

3 Ds? Debt, divorce, death?

Procrastinator333

TeamLowe wrote: »

3 Ds? Debt, divorce, death?

Yep. Key to a bargain imo.

san09

Wow, I really need to get more of a system and plan in place if I'm going to get a good deal.
I also need to keep more of a cool head as I'm absolutely rubbish at negotiating. It just doesn't sit comfortably with me.
All the EA's I've come across have made me feel like I'm a crazy person when putting an offer in at even 10% below asking price! I wouldn't mind but property really isn't shifting in my part of the country.
The only houses selling in any numbers are really cheap ones in areas I dont want to buy in.
The houses I'm interested in I'm guessing people have gone in over their heads to buy so are not in a position to sell at a lower price. Either that or they're not being realistic.
All your stories really are inspiring to do my homework on this.

kiddy_guy

TeamLowe wrote: »

3 Ds? Debt, divorce, death?

2 D's . Divorce usually ends up with 1 party unprepared to let the house go for a song whilst the other wants to flog it cheap to help get on with their life...

giddypenguin

Hi, I guess I can only echo the brilliant advice so far... research, research, research... I am now a massive rightmove/property sales website addict, despite being in our new home for 7 months now! It was so much use to know what had been sold recently on the street, what the vendors had paid etc... Secondly, DO NOT LOOK AT DECOR. So many of my friends will not look at a house as its got 'OAP home wallpaper" It can be sorted in the sort term with a tin of magnolia paint and can be worked on as time goes by. Look at size and proportions of rooms. Not what they look like.

We had a trickly sale/purchase. My husband had inherited his house so even though we were both in our early 20's looking at 300k houses every treated us as if we were seasoned professionals (except our solicitor who was amazing - even giving us his 'hand holding' service where we could call him anytime any day, and all it cost us was some chips - will recommend to anyone). It lasted 18 months with 4 chain collapses, which cost us about £2000.

In the end we found a lovely house, we felt we had been exposed to the K-O nature of house buying and wasn't expecting anything. We found a new build house which was the last on the site, therefore the company was keen to get rid of it. We managed a 50k negotiation off of the price which went to 65k after a few arguments over planning and garden boundaries. Which leads me to my final bit of advice, don't get attached - if its not in your price range, walk away. You'll be surprised - sellers need buyers at the moment and a lot of the time they will reduce accordingly due to estate agents over inflating prices at the start.

giddypenguin

KateLiana27 wrote: »

My humble advice:

1. Do not getting emotionally attached. There are always other houses.

2. Find a few houses you are interested in and work out what they are worth. This takes a lot of time and mental effort. "There aren't any houses like it" is a rubbish excuse. Trawl through sold prices over the last ten years for the most similar houses you can find and then adjust for the market (average house prices at the time), area, and so on. Check out the crime statistics, Ofsted reports, everything.

3. Offer on your favourite house, just a bit less than what you think it is worth. Ignore the asking price. Emphasise your excellent buying position and time limit your offer. Be nice and friendly throughout - make the vendor want to sell to you. Whatever you do, don't insult their house. If you get turned down, wait a week, then increase your offer to the maximum you think it is worth. A useful phrase is, "We really love the house but just cannot stretch to any more".

4. If they still refuse, shrug and walk away. This is where number 1 comes in use. Immediately view other houses to "get over" the other one.

You can't MAKE a vendor sell to you at a good price. Some are willing to wait it out and see what happens; others are just plain unrealistic. There is no magic formula. But a good understanding of human psychology will get you a long way.

By the way, I wish we had this advice when we first put our house up to market. Brilliant, priceless advice... but I bet 90% of buyers won't follow it.