How Long Should I Wait Before Making an Offer

Odie_Schmodie

Having been looking for a house in the town I have in mind for three months now and having viewed 20+ properties, and with a mortgage offer (that can be transferred) from a sale that fell through I have a good sense of what I would like. Something that on the screen fits the bill has just come on the market (literally, tonight) and I am wondering how keen I should look when I go to view the property. Is there such a thing as making an offer too quickly? Will the seller typically want to wait a while to see what offers they get? Is there a "best time" to time your offer? I am guessing if I make an offer after the first viewing of the property they will just think that's the bare minimum they should expect from anyone and automatically expect more. I don't want to pay asking price because I do think the house is slightly overpriced- 5-10%. Asking price is 280K but I don't think the houses in the 250-300 bracket are getting lowered to 250 in this town anymore. However while the market is hot it is not THAT hot (everything I have looked at there was haggling room and nothing I saw eventually got asking price). Even if an initial offer, what is the best timing? The same day as viewing? A couple of days later? I am doing this on my own so MSE feedback is pure gold for me! Thanks a lot in advance!

Old_Git

really it depends on how the market is moving .
I put an offer in on my first viewing .I was thinking two things
1 how low can I offer
2 how high do I need to offer to put others off .There isn't a one size fits all answer.

You may view and not like ,or it may be a must have house.

bluep

It depends - I always try and get out of the estate agent how much interest there has been (and I know they probably overplay it!). When we sold, we had 7 viewings the first day, 3 offers and it went to sealed bids and sold over the asking price. One of the offerers was really miffed that we didn't accept their offer at asking price but I politely explained that we had so much interest that it wouldn't make sense for us to do this.

moneyshoe

It really depends on the seller and the market.

We put our flat on at £275 in 2011, first viewing had 5 viewings and got an offer of £270 and a couple of notes of interest the next day.

The guy who offered was desperate to move quickly and suggested a completion date 5 weeks away ( we're in Scotland) it so happened that we were also desperate to move and hadn't expected to get over 250k which we'd paid in 2007 so we took the offer and did indeed complete within 5 weeks. His obvious desperation was attractive to us as we thought he wouldn't mess us around!

I don't see much point in being coy, if you like somewhere I would offer and see what happens. Good luck.

dimbo61

Viewed a house in June 2010 and three other groups of people walking around at the same time ! Two viewings the previous day.
Spoke to the vendor and offered him full asking price to secure the property and complete in six weeks, Made formal offer to estate agent next morning at 10am when 2 other offers under asking price had been made.
Made it clear this was my only offer at FULL asking price and would not get into any bidding war BUT we could move quickly , had Survey done 4 days later .
Second viewing after 7 days and again spoke to vendor about condition of property and problems other buyers would have with survey results, ie old kitchen / bathroom rotten wooden windows, electric night storage heaters etc
Hand shake and promise not to mess vender about with sale and completed in 6 weeks.
Then spent over £30,000 on total refurbishment in 8/10 weeks.
Happy with house now but still a Hugh money pit as now needs new roof !

robatwork

dimbo61 wrote: »

.
Then spent over £30,000 on total refurbishment in 8/10 weeks.
Happy with house now but still a Hugh money pit as now needs new roof !

Like this?

Lavendyr

We made an offer on the house we ended up buying about 2 hours after viewing. To be fair though we knew the area very well and knew it was an area where houses sell quickly, so we didn't want to hold back. I would think ti completely depends on how fast the market moves near you and how well you know the area.