It's starting to feel like lowering the price was the wrong thing to do....

pinkteapot

Not all buyers out there have that "must get 10% off asking" mentality.

Important thing is, what are similar houses on the market for and what are they selling for?

We bought in August 2010. We looked for 18 months and knew the market in the area we liked really well. We felt that houses like ours should cost around £250k (based on sold prices) but most were still at 2007 peak asking price (£270-280k) and not interested in offers. Ours came on at £233k. We went to see it the day it appeared on Rightmove, second viewing the next day. We tried a cheeky offer at £225k which was unsurprisingly rejected. Agreed on £231k. The house was fairly priced but we said we wanted something off for being chain-free buyers.

Point is, if your house is genuinely cheaper than similar properties are selling for, then hold out for close to asking (unless you're so desperate to move you don't mind losing some money). In response to low offers you can say that other places have sold for more so you think the asking price is fair and are looking for close to it.

Did you try negotiating the offers upwards? Very few people go to their maximum with their first offer - it's always worth trying to get something for less than you're prepared to pay.

moneybunny123

The EA told us that Couple No 1 aren't prepared to offer any more (they want a buy-to-let investment so naturally they want it as cheap as possible). The second couple, I'm told, are "considering making a higher offer".

As I said, an identical property just a few doors down recently sold for £125k on the nose. It was marketed at £129,950 (a PX property sold by Barratts after the family moved out) and definitely wasn't as desirable as our property. Another identical property was on the market for about a year for £149k and is now showing as SSTC, but I don't know for how much.

hyposmurf

Remember your property has hardly been on the market that long (2 weeks if I'm correct) and you want to move urgently.If you left it on the market longer and were preprared to wait you'd probably get more for it.
My own property was in very good condition and stood out from other properties within the town.However I had to wait 6 months to get a buyer (watching other local property this was fairly normal).This was more a case of finding a suitable buyer.I had some odd viewers turn up,one with no deposit another travelled from cornwall, who said it was too far from the centre of town (weird they never checked the map).Another said the baclony was too small and sitting room too small,but there was no other property in the area with a sitting room as big with a balcony for the price.Some FTB are just unrealisitc.

Agents like to over value properties so they can then drop the price later on to give them more to play with and attract further attention.

lincroft1710

Read all the "What should I offer" posts on this board. The perennial advice MSErs give is go in low, so low that the vendor screams with pain. Probably your potential buyers are MSErs too, they know how to play the game.

TBH I can see the advantages of the main way of buying an existing house up to the late 1960s - auction. Which was the norm then and was not just for oddities, repos (unknown then) and wrecks.

pinkteapot

Unfortunately what we often lack on MSE is reports back from the OPs on "what should I offer" threads telling us if they managed to buy at the low offers suggested...

SG27

If it was on at 140k you might not have had any viewings or offers!

neas

why didnt u part ex?

DPJames

The builders offered you £140K but will be pxing the new build at full price to you. In a straight sale they would possibly knock £15K off. And getting offers of £115K on a house priced at £129K is perfectly normal and should be expected.
You are waiting for an offer that you think is "Fair". But fair to who? Just you. Buyers want a price that is fair too, but fair to them. What you have to do is meet in the middle.
This identical house that sold for £125K (but obviously not as desireable or good looking as yours of course), how long was it on the market? And where did they start?
I'd say get your potential buyers to up their offer to £120K and then snap their hands off.

Do you have a Rightmove link to this house of yours? I want to see why you think it's so desirable and better than any house in town because you've spent £10K on it.

PasturesNew

moneybunny123 wrote: »

...have easily spent £10k on it (fire, carpets, landscaped gardens, etc).

Those are personal preferences, you can't really count those as being part of the cost/value of the house now necessarily as somebody buying it might hate the fire, carpets and landscaping and spend another £10k choosing something different.

moneybunny123

DPJames wrote: »

The builders offered you £140K but will be pxing the new build at full price to you. In a straight sale they would possibly knock £15K off. And getting offers of £115K on a house priced at £129K is perfectly normal and should be expected.
You are waiting for an offer that you think is "Fair". But fair to who? Just you. Buyers want a price that is fair too, but fair to them. What you have to do is meet in the middle.
This identical house that sold for £125K (but obviously not as desireable or good looking as yours of course), how long was it on the market? And where did they start?
I'd say get your potential buyers to up their offer to £120K and then snap their hands off.

Do you have a Rightmove link to this house of yours? I want to see why you think it's so desirable and better than any house in town because you've spent £10K on it.

Clearly you haven't read every reply of mine on here otherwise you'd have read that the builders already had their "straight sale". We'd reserved off plan with no property to sell as we weren't dependant on our current house selling and were still weighing up options (whether to rent it out, sell it empty, etc..). After the build date of the reserved house got moved forward, we decided to just ask if they'd consider a PX. We never expected them to say yes - as I said, they had their sale in the bag, but they came back with almost full market value (the house was valed by 5 agents at 145k) and we naturally accepted.

In answer to why we backed out of the PX - because we didn't like what came up in the searches.

And I'd already explained my justification for mentioning the 10k - it was because newbuilds in the area (with whom my house contends) will more than likely need this sort of money spending on them (as most don't even come with turf, nevermind a beautiful, established garden), thereby pound-for-pound making my house even more of a bargain. It's also been completely redecorated throughout after our tenants left and is in immaculate condition.

And yes, DPJames, I have a RM link to it. Am I going to post it? Doubt it - not when there is already a vitriolic tone in your last reply.