Would you be offended if someone offered under asking price?

mrsbmartin

So much animosity for a transaction that needs to be mutually beneficial...I personally don't look at any properties advertised at over 10% of our budget and even then they get saved to see how long they stay on for and I have a chat with the agent first to see how open they will be to offers etc before I go and view...no-one wants to be disappointed.

As for reading descriptions carefully...I agree to an extent but few of us are able to tick every box within our budget and so it is sometimes necessary to view a property to see if a compromise is worth making.

If you are trying to sell your house - keep it clean and tidy so you don't have to rush around getting it ready for viewings. If your time is too precious (or you are a moody so-and-so) then get the agent to do the viewings. Price your home according to how you want to play things...

*Price above it's value and get less viewings but more negotiation room
*Price at a reasonable market value in line with current selling prices...people will still make 'cheeky' offers but you will be able to justify the price and stick to your guns
*Price to sell and go a couple of grand under market value so that you can sell quickly and get on with your life

There will be an option for all kinds of sellers but at the end of the day...why be precious about a property you want to be shot of?! Set a bottom line and say no to anyone that comes below it...rather simple really.

For Buyers...work out what you are willing to pay...make offers...go up to your max...if you get it - great! If not, there's usually another house around the corner...

JethroUK

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

At a guess Jethro has just broken some sort of record for "silliest offer ever" just received.

Sympathies Jethro.....

Well you guessed wrong

Strange how some people need selfish reasons to have a passion about anything - but I'm not one of those

I haven't sold a house for 30 years - still doesn't stop me disagreeing with the moronic, selfish behaviour of people who go to negotiates without enough money = timewaster

So when an advert says "No Time Wasters" they are talking about people who cant afford it

Tips to sellers how to avoid aforementioned time wasters - When they come around the first thing you need to talk about (nicely) is:

1/ Whether they have actually sold or first time buyers (i.e. Are they in a position to buy)

2/ Have they agreed a mortgage with building society? What can they afford

If the answer is NO to any of the above, or they can only afford 1/2 your asking price they are simply dreaming and you can throw them out without wasting anymore time because the chances of them buying your house is next to nil

lessonlearned

JethroUK wrote: »

Well you guessed wrong


Tips to sellers how to avoid aforementioned time wasters - When they come around the first thing you need to talk about (nicely) is:

1/ Whether they have actually sold or first time buyers (i.e. Are they in a position to buy)

2/ Have they agreed a mortgage with building society? What can they afford

If the answer is NO to any of the above, or they can only afford 1/2 your asking price they are simply dreaming and you can throw them out without wasting anymore time because the chances of them buying your house is next to nil

This is what your EA should be doing before any viewers are allowed any where near your property. They should be qualifying any would be purchasers.

Obviously if you are going it alone then you will need to filter out the wheat from the chaff yourself.

A little tip, if you ask "hard questions" like the ones suggested above you probably won't get very far. The trick is to get them to talk to you by asking "soft" open ended questions.

Never ask a question that can be answered by a simple yes or no. They need to have to give you a detailed explanation for an answer so that you can get not only the hard facts but also the soft ones. It's the soft facts which are the most revealing and which will give you the information you need.

You need to be able to read between the lines, join up the dots and read the body language - you can't do this if all you are getting is a monosyllabic "yes" or "no".

Your best friends are the words "what, which, how and where". Go easy on the why - that one can be too intrusive.

Mrsbmartin is spot on. Why all the animosity. The transaction needs to be mutually beneficial so you achieve that magical win-win scenario where everyone walks away happy.

There really is no need for everything to be so confrontational.

In fact in the kind of delicate negotiations needed confrontation is the last think you need, it will not deliver the desired result. So many of you sound as if you go into negotiations just spoiling for fight.:rotfl:

Tancred

cgk1 wrote: »

I can afford the asking price of the houses I look at, I just don't want to pay it - that's the whole point of a negotiation - your job as seller is to get as much as possible, my job as buyer is to convince you to take as little as possible.

That's your approach but others will simply buy and be done with it. You can play this game if time is on your side (i.e. FTB or already sold your house), but you may not be in a position to do this if you need to buy fairly quickly.

Tancred

myhouse wrote: »

I was probably considered a time-waster when I first offered. As it happened though, it was the vendors who were time-wasting - after a year and a half on the market, my offer was the only one they got and they finally accepted it. Better to put in low offers than no offers.

True, but you were lucky that in this case you found someone who was clearly having no success at all and who was wiling to accept a low offer. Not every situation will be like this one.

Tancred

BertieUK wrote: »

We will certainly not be losing any sleep during this exercise of getting offended at some of the silly offers that will be made.

Good luck.

I'm not saying I'm offended at any low offers, just a little irritated. I'm condering advertising the house at 'offers above.......' to avoid misunderstandings.

Davesnave

JethroUK wrote: »

So when an advert says "No Time Wasters" they are talking about people who cant afford it

When an advert for anything says that, I immediately pass it over, because I think, "This one has an attitude problem."

I don't suppose I'm alone.

On the specific matter of houses, I've seen houses I can afford, but when I've viewed, I've realised I can't afford them after all. These are the houses that the vendor is quite happy in, and which present reasonably well on the Internet, but which shout "This needs shedloads of £££ to sort out!" as soon as you walk through the door.

When this happened, and it happened quite a lot, I didn't feel any need to go on this forum and rant about it. It was just another bit of experience, which was something I lacked, not having purchased for 21 years, and never in that area or price range.

Better_Days

Davesnave wrote: »

These are the houses that the vendor is quite happy in, and which present reasonably well on the Internet, but which shout "This needs shedloads of £££ to sort out!" as soon as you walk through the door.

Ah yes, my favourite was one where there was newspaper on the ceiling in the hall, the vendor had decided she didn't like the artex, newspapered over part of it and then never got round to painting it. In the same house there was one of those push button car radio's set into the wall between the hall and living room and wires looped all round the house to run the lights (and goodness knows what else) from DIY solar panels proped up against an outside wall. We looked round on a gloomy day, and as a result the light bulbs didn't give off much light, and it was difficult to 'view' much of the property in any meaningful way. The vendors took the property off the market after less than a week, the EA told us that it was because they hadn't realised how much work it is selling a house.

Going back to selling - I think lessonlearned is right - flexibility is important. We got a good offer for our house, only £3k under AP because we have gone into rented and the chain could complete. A nearly new cooker, some freestanding cupboards and all the blinds were included in the sale.

There were other things that I would have been happy to include in the sale for such a good offer, but the buyers didn't ask. I also would have accepted £5k - £10k less, because even at £10k under AP, the offer would not have been unreasonable, given recent sold prices in the area.

As to EA's, in my experience there are few good ones, mine was excellent, but I had to go through a lot of chaff to find her. The professionalism and skill of my EA conducting viewings certainly helped to secure the offer. However, whilst going through the selling/buying process I have come accross more poor EA's than good.

As buyers we can afford up to about £250k, and are looking up to about £275k. The SDLT threshold does distort the market. I keep an eye on sold prices and the vast majority in the £250k to £275k AP range go for £245k to £250k, and the ones where the vendor is holding out for close to their AP tend to stick.