How much should i offer for a house? First Time buyer

Skywalker007_2

I am currently trying to buy a property and I have been viewing houses within the range of £150,000 but i am just wondering how much offer can i make without appearing cocky.

Will an offer of £130,000 sound ridiculous?

Any advise on how to make an offer with the best deal?

Thanks in advance

mrginge

Buying a house is a negotiation. There is no rule that says how much or little you can offer.
Every house, vendor, buyer, EA, lender, surveyor, neighbour, solicitor is different.
You have to figure out what you are comfortable opening at and what your maximum is. Being cheeky or offending sellers is not in any way relevant.

caprikid1

"Being cheeky or offending sellers is not in any way relevant. "


It is very relevant if you put it an offer you feel is way below market value and it irritates the seller.


If a stupid offer is started with then it can set the tone of the negotiations or even cause the seller to want nothing to do with you. Silly offers can just scream TIMEWASTER.


You are negotiating with People not machines, if you want to put silly offers on 10 houses and buy the one the accepts then go for it. You may not get the best house for you.

caprikid1

If you want to learn about what to offer, do your research on the area. the type of property and how the one you want fits into the price ladder.


Try and learn about your buyers their situation etc. Need to move , need a price?


My experience is it can be very difficult to get silly offers to get to the seller.

tlc678910

I would suggest making an offer that you would be happy to pay - e.g. Like you would on ebay but on a HUGE scale!

E.g. If it the home of your dreams, the only one and a competitive price in a competitive market offer the asking price, buy it, snap it up and love it.

If it is overpriced and you are not so bothered about getting it anyway offer what you think it is worth. E.g. I would like to offer £130k because I think that is what the house is worth considering it needs rewiring, central heating or one down the road with a bigger garden fetched that last year etc. particularly if the house has been for sale a while. If they say no ask them to keep your number in case they change their mind while you are still looking.

If you want it but you simply don't have the money for the asking price I would be honest and say "I want to offer 140k e.g. I love the house and it is what I'm looking for but I have pushed my mortgage offer as far as I can and that is what I am able to raise" if they say no you can again ask them to bear your offer in mind depending on the other offers they get but at least they won't go through a standard negotiation of saying no for an expected meet in the middle price.

I think keeping the homeowner on side is important (in a private sale) as a lot of people have a huge emotional investment in their home. I for one would hate to sell to someone I felt had been very negative about my property. The buying/selling process is stressful and it is a lot less stressful if there is trust between you.

Good luck

Sarahspangles

Just copied this from a post I made in another thread and added a bit more in case it is useful

Warning - geek alert!

When I was house-hunting I looked at all the sold prices on Zoopla, over the previous year, for houses with the same number of beds, in the village I was interested in. The "H" under the sold price on Zoopla links to the estate agent's particulars, including the original asking price.

Then I made a spreadsheet with the asking and sale price*, and worked out the average reduction achieved by the buyers. This was a 6% reduction on average. That was the starting point for my negotiation.

Another interesting bit of information you can get from this exercise is the sort of range of discounts you can expect - e.g. 1% to 9% was the range of discounts.

And of course the 6% may have come in two stages - an offer under asking price, followed by a reduction requested when the valuation came back with some issues. They almost always do.

Zoopla shows if a house has previously been marketed at a higher price, if so you may not be able to count on a reduction at the higher %, the reduction is to tempt people to view.

If a house has been on the market for a longish time, that's another signal that they may be ready to accept a lowish offer.

Another way Zoopla was useful is that on the "for sale" tab you can make a search ordered by "biggest reduction". For the same village if I switched on "including sold properties" I could see that two local estate agents in particular consistently put properties on the market knowing they were likely to be reduced before they sold. So they over-egged the valuation to get the business, not caring that the vendors would take longer to sell, and have to clear up for more viewings! When I next sell I won't be using those agents!

But it's still useful to know those agents may slightly overprice other properties they are marketing.

*Actually I removed the two biggest reductions first, on the basis they were possibly forced sales, and the one property that went for over asking, thinking it was probably a bidding war. I would say you need to have at least twenty houses left on your spreadsheet to make this a good indicator.