Does anyone pay full asking price?? or even more

newbridge

Hi all,
I had thought that the economy slowdown would have brought down the house prices by more or less % depending on the area and clearly a buyers market. I recently viewed a property and decided to put an offer 6-10% less than the asking price.

To my surprise when i went for viewing I found out that they would only do a 'sealed offers'. Some of the other properties in the area have just sold off in weeks, so am thinking whether I would loose my chance if i go any lower than the asking price. Or is this some kind of EA tactics to create a hype and get the maximum money??

googler

If the property has something unique, or something which makes it 'in demand', there's every chance it could go over asking

skivenov

A lot of years ago I went to view a house, told the agent I had a mind to making an offer. He looked at me with pound signs in his eyes and told me the vendor was already considerring an offer over the asking price.

I told him if someone made me an offer for something over the asking price, I wouldn't waste time considerring it and left it at that.

3 months later the place was in the auction catalogue :rotfl:

Pupnik

Yes, but I think it depends on where you are looking and how fair the asking price is to begin with. Here in the SE when cheapish (100k or under) properties come up they still get grabbed pretty quickly. One property I viewed recently was on the market for £100k and ended up selling for about 118k (developers fighting over it - it was a great sized building which will probably be chopped up into flats). Another flat I looked at had an asking price of 60k but the owners had rejected an offer of 90k! I was gobsmacked, although the asking price to begin with was extremely low as flats on that street usually go for around 120k at the moment (much more during the boom) or so as it is such a sought after location. Another couple of good sized fixer uppers looked perfect for us as first time buyers, but when we phoned up about them we were told that there were already offers from cash buyers meeting the asking price so we didn't even bother going to see them as there was no way we could compete. Each of these properties were on Right Move for less than a month. Meanwhile, a lot of the higher priced houses have been listed for months, presumably because they don't attract cash buyers so easily.

I haven't come across anyone wanting sealed bids yet, I don't think I would be comfortable with that - I'd probably be thinking 'could I have gone lower?' But if it is your ideal home and you really want to live there then obviously it is harder to walk away from the chance.

newbridge

Thanks for quick replies..
The property is in cambridgeshire area and in last 1 month since I have started keeping tap of listed properties, 2 of them were already sold when i called to book viewing!!
The property in question is in very ok'ish condition. Almost everything except the structure will need redoing but has got lot of space for future expansions. So its possible that the developers with cash could be pushing it high.
'sealed offers' is new for me as well (+being a FTB). EA would be getting back to me with further details soon.

Meanwhile I have got few appointments with banks to get Agreement in Principle. And after reading through posts realized I better start looking for good solicitor

thelem

Don't get carried away by the whole sealed offers thing.

If you under bid, then worst case scenario is you'll have to keep looking.
If you over bid, you could throw away thousands of pounds.

Bid what you think that property is worth, maybe adjusted a little based on if you really like it on not. That way you can either be happy that you paid a fair price for it, or content that someone else has paid over the odds and you've not been drawn into a bidding war.

fairytinkerbell

I did, the house I'm completing on today i payed 2.5k over guide price but it's unique and i fell in love with it it's also my forever home

CKhalvashi

skivenov wrote: »

3 months later the place was in the auction catalogue :rotfl:

We went the other way, and ended up in a bidding war for our property (advertised at £550k, we paid £605k as the maximum mortgage they could get would only cover £600k) :eek::D

5 years on, mortgage paid off, we're still happy here. It's worth between £650 and £700k today, so it was a good buy IMO.

CK

abankerbutnotafatcat

We paid full asking price as, after several months of viewings and following the market, when we saw this property we thought it was worth the asking price and we didn't want to lose it.

Well-priced properties in our area were, and still are, typically selling within a couple of weeks. On our road 2 or 3 houses have sold in less than a week in the last year.

googler

thelem wrote: »

Don't get carried away by the whole sealed offers thing.

If you under bid, then worst case scenario is you'll have to keep looking.
If you over bid, you could throw away thousands of pounds.

Surely even if you overbid, when you get a survey done, the surveyor won't have your dollar signs in his eyes, and will come in with a realistic figure; then you renegotiate down toward the surveyor's figure.....?

Davesnave

Sealed bids or bidding wars can happen anywhere if a property has something special about it, or maybe if the owner needs to sell fast and doesn't want to auction it.

As I've never been keen to buy an 'ordinary' house, two of my three purchases have gone down the bids route, but they were both reasonably cheap for their type, so one doesn't necessarily pay over the odds. Perhaps there was an element of luck in the timing, though.

If you are going to sealed bids, don't offer a round figure. Always stick a couple of quid extra onto whatever maximum you'll go to. The agent implied I'd got my first house by bidding £1 more than someone else!