Negotiating House Offers

sensiblesaver55

Hi there,

My and my husband are first-time buyers and want to put in an offer on a house that is on the market for £125k. It started at £130k and has recently been reduced. Overall though it's only been on the market for 6 weeks.

I was wondering if anybody had any advice on what to offer? At an absolute push we would pay £120k but this would leave us with no money to spend on doing things to the house (and it does require some work). Ideal price would be £110-£115k.

Obviously as first-time buyers without a chain we are in a good position but I'm getting conflicting responses from family members. Even though they all agree that "it's a buyer's market" at the moment; some people think £100k is a cheeky offer and one person actually said they thought £120k was a cheeky offer! Understandably I'm confused!

As I understand it the vendor simply wanted to relocate- they aren't in a chain.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

sensiblesaver55

Oh, I should also say it's advertised as 'priced to sell'- should this put me off making a 'cheeky' offer?

DannyboyMidlands

Forget all the subjective stuff about cheeky or non-cheeky offers.

OK so what do we know? We know that £130k is too much. Otherwise it would have sold. I would also assume that any offers so far would have been for less than £130k. So something sub £120k shouldn't make the vendor fall over.

Considering your budget I'd go in at around £100k. If they refuse, give it a week and offer a bit more, say £105k. Then keep quiet.

My place was advertised at £165k. I offered £125k, settled at £128k.

You owe it to yourselves to get this place as cheaply as possible. If the numbers don't work then find another one.

DRP

DannyboyMidlands wrote: »

Forget all the subjective stuff about cheeky or non-cheeky offers.

OK so what do we know? We know that £130k is too much. Otherwise it would have sold. I would also assume that any offers so far would have been for less than £130k. So something sub £120k shouldn't make the vendor fall over.

Considering your budget I'd go in at around £100k. If they refuse, give it a week and offer a bit more, say £105k. Then keep quiet.

My place was advertised at £165k. I offered £125k, settled at £128k.

You owe it to yourselves to get this place as cheaply as possible. If the numbers don't work then find another one.

This method is good to get a bargain (eventually), but be prepared for lots of knock-backs!

DannyboyMidlands

Good point.

I don't mind knockbacks though. It shows that you are doing it right. Lots of acceptance is what would worry me.

The way I see it there are millions of houses in the country. If I get knocked back from a few, so what? I'll still probably end up one similar to all the others.

Mojisola

sensiblesaver55 wrote: »

It started at £130k and has recently been reduced. Overall though it's only been on the market for 6 weeks.

It sounds as if they're in a hurry to sell if they've reduced the price after 6 weeks so make your offer and see what happens.

As FTBs, you're not in a chain so that's in your favour.

sensiblesaver55

Thanks for your replies. We are not in a rush to buy and we've looked at less than 10 properties in total so I'm in no doubt that if this house doesn't work out then there'll be another one along soon.

The property has had no offers on it so far.

Out of interest DannyboyMidlands how many houses did you offer on before you got the one you mention?

andy.m_2

We made a ton of cheeky offers when buying our place, as stated above we got knocked back all over the place, a few people just said get lost, a few came back with counter offers a lot closer to asking (understandably).
What was telling though, a number of them came back to us some weeks later confused as to why we hadn't countered their counter offer.
One couple actually marketed their place as under offer even though they knocked us back, they assumed that we qwould keep trying.

If you have tiome on your side then go in low, get knocked back as many times as it takes, you will eventually get your house at a bargain price and you can start homeownership in a positive fashion.

DannyboyMidlands

Not that many. We offered on 3 including the one we bought over a period of say 4 months.

1. Our favourite. Family selling on behalf of elderly owner. Nice place but needed work. On for around £180k. We figured that would be a fair enough cost to us including any work. Couldn't get them to accept our offer of around £160k. Our numbers didn't work at a higher price.

2. Half-finished refurb/decoration including the yet to be installed flooring etc. Would have been ok for the right price. Couldn't get the right price.

3. Our current house. Repo. Cheapest place we could find and haven't regretted that for a second.

DannyboyMidlands

UPDATE

1. I've just checked sold prices. The house finally sold for £170k.

sensiblesaver55

Interesting that the vendor assumed it was a done deal Andy M! Just shows how much of the process is guess work!

Thanks again, I'll have a chat with DH about it and then go from there. Will report back soon!