Offer rejected - is it game over?

SparkyClarky

Offered on a property at 5% below asking but was rejected a week ago. The vendor is looking for a couple of grand off asking as a minimum.

However, the property has been on the market 6 months at least and per the EA they have rejected higher offers than ours and had a couple of chains fall through.

We are cash buyers, so given the chain fails feel like a good proposition. Our offer reflects the fact that some works are required beyond a bit of painting and decorating given the age of the property.

We did have a call a couple of days after the rejection from a more senior member of staff at the EA, but they were out when I returned their call and they have not tried to contact again.

Do we sit tight? Will the EA be pushing them if there are no other offers on the table, as they want the property off their books? We are not in a position to offer more, nor do we feel we should given recent sales values in the area and condition of the property.

SG27

To be honest I think you may have offered to high! If a house had been on the market 6 months and I was a cash buyer I would be looking at offering considerably less than 5% of asking.

To answer your question it is possible they may come back to you, we had an agent call us back after the vendors reconsidered but we had since decided it was probably for tr best our offer was refused.

SparkyClarky

Thanks!

Friends have said we may want to consider going in with a lower offer in a couple of weeks time if there appears to still be no other interested parties and questioning how much the vendor really does actually want to sell.

I'm concerned this is taking the mick a bit, would welcome any comments from people that have employed this tactic and it worked.

ess0two

Sounds like they can sit and wait it out.

somethingcorporate

I don't think it's reasonable to go in with a lower offer in a couple of weeks time given they rejected your higher offer. I think a few months maybe but given it has been on for 6 months and they are not being flexible on the price your plan does not sound like a good one.

They may not be in a hurry to sell and accept they may not get a buyer until the market picks up again next spring.

moneyistooshorttomention

ess0two wrote: »

Sounds like they can sit and wait it out.

Indeed...some people can.

In my present (medium speed) area my Dream Home has gone from over £900,000 to around £700,000 (ie big cuts).

In the area I am going to (very slow-moving) there are some houses that stay the same and stay the same etc etc for over a year.....but they can obviously afford to wait it out.

JimmyTheWig

SparkyClarky wrote: »

Friends have said we may want to consider going in with a lower offer in a couple of weeks time if there appears to still be no other interested parties and questioning how much the vendor really does actually want to sell.

I'm concerned this is taking the mick a bit, would welcome any comments from people that have employed this tactic and it worked.

I think a lower offer would just annoy them and make it look like you were taking the mick.
But I see no reason why you can't go back in a couple of weeks to remind the agent that your offer is still on the table if they want to reconsider it.

Make sure the agent knows that you are still looking at other properties so the vendors know that if they don't accept your offer it might not be around for ever...

Jaycee_Dove

Just to chip in here.

We are trying to sell our house in a hurry for family reasons.

It has been on for £100K for 4 weeks, well below market value.

We were offered £90K by a cash buyer and (without rejecting it) considered it over overnight and instructed the agent to accept. The purchaser then said because we made them wait 24 hours his offer was now £82K.

Needless to say we would never now sell it to that individual however desperate we become as this to me simply reflects greed and untrustworthiness.

Not sure if this helps your situation. But I wanted to offer a 'seller's perspective'.

Davesnave

Depends where it is and the market there.

When I was looking at houses in West Wales, my idea of the value and the vendor's were sometimes £80k - £100k apart.

Time has proved that I was right. However I didn't have 3-4 years to wait around to say, "Told you!"

hazyjo

Jaycee_Dove wrote: »

Just to chip in here.

We are trying to sell our house in a hurry for family reasons.

It has been on for £100K for 4 weeks, well below market value.

We were offered £90K by a cash buyer and (without rejecting it) considered it over overnight and instructed the agent to accept. The purchaser then said because we made them wait 24 hours his offer was now £82K.

Needless to say we would never now sell it to that individual however desperate we become as this to me simply reflects greed and untrustworthiness.

Not sure if this helps your situation. But I wanted to offer a 'seller's perspective'.

Unless someone was offering the asking price (or within a hair's breath!), I'd always go back with a counter-offer for precisely this reason. If you offered on a house and they accepted, would you be thinking we went in too high/should have offered less? I would!

I'd have reacted the same way as you and told them where to get off, but I can see why they thought maybe it wasn't such a bargain as they obviously expected you to come back with a higher figure.

Saying that, I accepted an investor's offer once! But I did try to get him to up his offer first, to no avail.

Jx

moneyistooshorttomention

Jaycee_Dove wrote: »

Just to chip in here.

We are trying to sell our house in a hurry for family reasons.

It has been on for £100K for 4 weeks, well below market value.

We were offered £90K by a cash buyer and (without rejecting it) considered it over overnight and instructed the agent to accept. The purchaser then said because we made them wait 24 hours his offer was now £82K.

Needless to say we would never now sell it to that individual however desperate we become as this to me simply reflects greed and untrustworthiness.

Not sure if this helps your situation. But I wanted to offer a 'seller's perspective'.

You're better off without that buyer. 24 hours consideration of an offer is far from unreasonable (particularly in view of the house being a bargain price in the first place). If you'd accepted that offer immediately or gone with his even lower offer later he would have been back for "another bite out of your backside" later for sure. Someone like that would be seeking high and low for excuses to gazunder at the last minute. Since he planned on staging a gazunder then it's just as well he got it in at the outset and you weren't pinning hopes on him for more than a day in the event.

You had a lucky escape.