Anyone ever tried this, to sell a house?

usupnorth

We've seen a house we'd put an offer on right now, if only we had a buyer for ours. I'm sure many of you know that position all to well!

I feel like saying to the vendor of the house we want to buy: "Tell us now what you'd really accept from us on your house, if we could get a cash or first time buyer for ours, and we'll knock the asking price down pound-for-pound on ours, based on the figure you give us, to try and make a chain."

Although we'd be discounting at a slightly bigger percentage of the value than the other vendor (because ours is worth less), the gap is not significant enough to be a worry.

Only thing I can see, is that we'd have to readvertise at the higher, original price, if the house we want disappeared.

Your thoughts please! Anyone done something similar to this?

cattie

No vendor in their right mind is going to agree to accept an offer from somebody still with a property to sell, unless of course they were going to be offering a fair amount over asking price to take the house off the market.

Estate agents actually tell vendors to keep their house on the market in the very rare instances when a vendor decides they will provisionally accept an offer from anybody who is not proceedable, and rightly so too. Tomorrow a nice proceedable offer could come through and who would want to miss out on that!

Ivana_Tinkle

If you have a rapport with the vendor and they're v motivated to sell then I guess it can't hurt to ask but, as cattie says, you're essentially asking them to agree a sale at a huge discount when you're not even in a proceedable position.

I could see it working if the property you want to buy is unusual in some way, or where a chain has collapsed and everyone needs to get it moving again, but otherwise I don't see why they'd agree. Plus obviously you'd be at massive risk of being gazumped if someone came along with a better offer - if that happened after you'd accepted a low offer on your own property would you withdraw from your sale and start from scratch?

usupnorth

cattie wrote: »

No vendor in their right mind is going to agree to accept an offer from somebody still with a property to sell, unless of course they were going to be offering a fair amount over asking price to take the house off the market.

Estate agents actually tell vendors to keep their house on the market in the very rare instances when a vendor decides they will provisionally accept an offer from anybody who is not proceedable, and rightly so too. Tomorrow a nice proceedable offer could come through and who would want to miss out on that!

To clarify: we would not be asking them to remove their property from the market. Of course, it would be their right to withdraw if they got a better offer.

The chain has to start at the bottom, and we're all currently wasting time if it turned out the vendors above us would knock enough off for us to make it worth reducing the asking price on ours. We have a fair chance of attracting more FTBs, if we could afford to drop a chunk, but could only afford that if we were getting it back at the other end.

Why is that such a bad (or unrealistic idea)?

somethingcorporate

If I was selling I would tell an EA not to pass on any offers from non-proceedable parties. You just waste everyone's time I am afraid.

Why would they accept your terms if a better and proceedable offer was to come along?

It's a bad idea because you haven't formed a chain as you have not got a buyer. Why should the seller discount their house to get you in a chain? The price of your house is none of their concern. Just get a sale on your house and proceed in the normal manner.

Ivana_Tinkle

I'm just concerned that the chances of you being gazumped are extremely high.

Would you only accept offers from FTBs/cash buyers? We're going through a horrible sale at the moment where our "chain-free" buyer turned out to be part of an enormous chain, then the "cash buyer" at the bottom of that enormous chain decided, 3 months in, to get a mortgage, then to gazunder. What I'm saying is, there's no guarantee of getting a nice easy sale just because you drop your price, and, if anything does go wrong, having agreed such a low price, your vendor won't have much motivation for sticking with you.

StuC75

deals like that tend to work UP the chain, not down the chain, in that:

We had a lower offer made on our house; rather than straight rejecting we countered with a "Let us see if we can re-coup that on the house we had in mind". Where it did all work out..

usupnorth

Thanks for your comments - I appreciate them.

In reverse order, following up what you've said...

StuC75 - That's actually how I had the idea, when we had a low offer, though it was TOO low. If they'd come back with just slightly more, I was planning to go up in the chain with the figure, and see what they'd do. I am now assessing whether it's worth doing it the other way...

Ivana Tinkle (Nice name!) - If we then had an offer from an encumbered buyer, of course we may have to renegotiate above us: nothing lost there though. At least we had the chance to get an FTB/cash buyer in the first place and had generated interest.

With regard to the threat of being gazumped, surely you'd just end up making the case that you always need to offer the asking price to avoid it. That's no way to get a good deal, is it? If our vendor above knew that the chain finished with our buyers, they'd be likely to stick with us for the sake of a small discount. It's a mitigated risk, where no way is totally secure.

somethingcorporate - Just an aside: I think I'm right in saying your EA legally has to pass on EVERY offer, proceedable or otherwise. Of course, you can then do what you like with the offer! When we were selling a property before and had interested parties, we immediately looked at the price of their house to see how realistic it was. If the sale of your house could depend on the pricing of someone else's below you, why not take an interest?

Seems to me that those who are second up in the chain and beyond could get chains moving quicker if they spoke to each other a bit more openly. Particularly when there is such little demand at the bottom.

Strapped

It normally works the other way round, doesn't it? You knock off your asking price as much as you think you could get the vendor of the house you want to knock off, if you will then be in a good (short-chain) position (bearing in mind that you will still be in A chain so not the perfect buyers by any stretch of the imagination).

If you want a good deal, then consider selling up and going into rented to be great buyers. You may miss out on this particular property but be in a great position for the next one coming round.

Ivana_Tinkle

usupnorth wrote: »

With regard to the threat of being gazumped, surely you'd just end up making the case that you always need to offer the asking price to avoid it.

True. But if you accept an offer of less than market value on your own property and then get gazumped you're going to find it v difficult to buy somewhere else and, as you said, you'd end up having to put your house back on the market at a higher price, which looks v strange to potential buyers.

usupnorth wrote: »

If our vendor above knew that the chain finished with our buyers, they'd be likely to stick with us for the sake of a small discount.

Why? Is there a particular reason why anyone else buying their property would have a longer chain?

usupnorth

Ivana_Tinkle wrote: »

True. But if you accept an offer of less than market value on your own property and then get gazumped you're going to find it v difficult to buy somewhere else and, as you said, you'd end up having to put your house back on the market at a higher price, which looks v strange to potential buyers.

Thanks, but I don't get what we have to lose (compared to any other gazumping). There'd be an easy answer to why the price went up again - we previously made a discount in a chain because we were getting it off the other end. Not that strange, really.

If the other house disappeared, we'd put ours back on at 'market value' and would accept offers close to that and proceed as normal, or, if another prime property came on the market before we had a buyer, we could do the same again.

Why? Is there a particular reason why anyone else buying their property would have a longer chain?

No, though I think there are many people that will work with what they've got up to a point, (and save further solicitors' fees once it gets that far) rather than throw something out lightly. If our buyers disappeared and they had a higher offer from a proceedable buyer in a small chain or none, I'd expect them them to pull out. Nothing lost that wouldn't have been in any other gazumping.

'Strapped' - It's a good plan if you can do it. I didn't mean to overemphasise the 'deal' in my answer to Ivana - It's more to get a buyer and avoid losing a rare property.