What to offer next? (I'm useless at this...)

scarletjim

Property came on the market only last week priced at £350k. In my view, comparing to similar properties locally, it’s probably worth about £320k or maybe £330k, but I’m happy to pay a little bit more if necessary because I particularly like it. So today I made an offer of £320k. The estate agent responded:

‘Many thanks for your offer which I have put to my clients today. The offer has been rejected and I am to advise you that the sellers are looking for a purchase price within £5,000 of their asking price’. (my bold not theirs)

When an estate agent says this, does it tend to be true and set in stone, or are they just ‘playing the game’, are the sellers really saying ‘ok we’ll knock £5k off, now its your turn to make another offer’? I don’t want to pay more than I have to, but equally I don’t want to annoy the sellers so they won’t want to sell to me – would I be wasting my time going back with an offer of say £330k, with the hope of settling at £335k or maybe £337.5k? What would you do next? I hate this stuff… L

go_cat

Offer what you think is appropriate for the house. Don't go over this.

They may accept it they may not, if they don't leave the offer on the table and actively look at other houses preferably with the same estate agent who will know you are serious

It is a waiting game

myhouse_2

Just because the vendor wants a price within 5k of their asking, doesn't mean they'll get it and they may well have a very different lower limit in mind. You can't expect the EA to give away everything right at the start of negotiations. 330k sounds entirely reasonable. If nothing else, it helps the vendor come to terms with the possibility they might not get too near asking price.

phoebe1989seb

Well it has only just come on tne market, so maybe both vendors and EAs think it's early days and are expecting/hoping for other offers closer to asking price.

However, it may just be the EA acting on his own instincts......last year when we put our old house on the market, we didn't instruct our EA to reject offers below a certain price and whilst they knew we a) wanted a quick sale (and were priced accordingly) and b) were going to take quite a hit financially on what we'd paid for the house, we had not discussed with them the option of them rejecting certain offers on our behalf. Despite this, that's exactly what they did......the people that eventually bought it initially made a lower starting offer which we didn't get to hear about till our EA told us they had turned it down.....maybe that's what this EA is doing......

If it were me I would definitely be making appointments to view other properties with the same EA and leave your offer on the table.....but that's easy for me to say when I haven't fallen for the house in question. I guess it depends on if there are other equally appealling houses for you out there op