Offering Below the Asking Price

Mickygg

agrinnall wrote: »

A property is "worth" whatever it sells for. You may think you've priced it realistically, but if you don't get any offers at that price then the market says you were wrong, and you're left to make a decision to either not sell or start entertaining a lower price.

You've stated the obvious! It is worth what it sells for, not offers 10% below asking price.

If I would consider 10% below asking I'd drop the price to get a lot more interest. Chancers offering 10% below irritate me! unless the property is overpriced of course! but soooo many people say offer 10% below without considering whether the house is reasonably priced to sell to start with.

No one but the OP knows what the house is worth, people are just guessing and stating opinions.

How the hell do we know what to offer on a house we can't see??

nubbins

I think it depends on where you live, an offer at 10% under ask where I live would get laughed at, how do I know....I got laughed at once. Having said that there are a lot of overpriced properties out there, a property near me was on for 700k and is currently on at 625k, another 585k now on at 499k. If I was the owner and depending on how desperate I was I would be be holding out for near 340k what with Jan fast approaching.

Loopy28

I recently offered 5k below asking price and did a deal at 3k below. That only represented a discount of less than 2% of the asking price.

I live in South East Cornwall and the last 4 months seems to have gone nuts with anything decent going sale agreed in a fortnight.

It depends on the area, if the vendor has priced it to sell or has added 5-10% to the price as they are expecting this discount.

Look at Zoopla sold prices in your areas over the last year, you can click on property history for each sale and see the previous ad with asking price compared to what it actually sold for. It will give you an idea for patterns in your area. Where I live most seem to go 2-3k below asking, I have seen some sold for more!

agrinnall

Mickygg wrote: »

You've stated the obvious! It is worth what it sells for, not offers 10% below asking price.

If I would consider 10% below asking I'd drop the price to get a lot more interest. Chancers offering 10% below irritate me! unless the property is overpriced of course! but soooo many people say offer 10% below without considering whether the house is reasonably priced to sell to start with.

No one but the OP knows what the house is worth, people are just guessing and stating opinions.

How the hell do we know what to offer on a house we can't see??

Yes, but the problem for buyers is that a lot of people don't do that, and how are they to know which is which? So offering below the asking price may be a sensible starting position for them. If that annoys you, well, that's up to you, but it means you're dismissing people who may eventually come up to a price that you do consider acceptable.

jacko74

Mickygg wrote: »

I have a real problem with people saying offer 10 % below the asking price. What a load of tosh.
I price my homes to sell at a reasonable price. I have had 10% below the asking price offered before and I told them only to come back with the asking price or nothing as offering me that was saying they were not serious and only wanted a bargain. They then upped it to 9% below asking price and I told agent not to sell to these people and I would not and did not consider any more offers from them.
Up to you but sellers like me it gets backs up and then because of the ridiculous low first offer you will end up paying more than going in with a more serious offer.
As above offer what the property is worth, everyone prices houses differently, some want to sell, others don't care and will only sell if they can get top dollar. 10% below rule of thumb is just rubbish.

Fair play to you if you really do price your properties at reasonable price, but you're in a tiny, tiny minority.
Most vendors set their asking price at least 10% more than what recent comparable SOLD prices have achieved.
In my particular part of the country vendors often ask 20%-30% more than what their property is realistically worth in the hope that some gullible tourist will come along and buy it without doing their homework first, in fact many home owners round here just routinely stick their house on the market for a silly price even when they have no real desire to move... now they're the real chancers and timewasters that annoy me!

MysteryMe

Mickygg wrote: »

You've stated the obvious! It is worth what it sells for, not offers 10% below asking price.

No one but the OP knows what the house is worth, people are just guessing and stating opinions.

How the hell do we know what to offer on a house we can't see??

I agree, there is not enough information provided by the OP to even offer the most basic of views. If they said what part of the country there might be someone who knows the area who can offer informed advice. All you tend to get is the usual "offer at least 10% under and don't bother about offending the vendor you've got nothing to lose" clich!s which add very little value and as touched on in your post, can in fact be be counterproductive.

Mickygg

jacko74 wrote: »

Fair play to you if you really do price your properties at reasonable price, but you're in a tiny, tiny minority.
Most vendors set their asking price at least 10% more than what recent comparable SOLD prices have achieved.
In my particular part of the country vendors often ask 20%-30% more than what their property is realistically worth in the hope that some gullible tourist will come along and buy it without doing their homework first, in fact many home owners round here just routinely stick their house on the market for a silly price even when they have no real desire to move... now they're the real chancers and timewasters that annoy me!

True, maybe I do this wrong pricing reasonable. Certainly food for thought on my next move, especially if I might be missing out.

ncfcstar

Thanks for everyone's tips and advice. The house was in the West Midlands by the way.

We don't know much about the area, but we've done research, and as I said in my original post the sold prices on Zoopla don't help as it is an older house and not on a development. There are houses priced from £150k all the way up to £700-800k on the same road.

We've put an offer in, at around 7% below the asking price. So we will see what happens.

Briddie

My house is currently on the market and I agree with Mickygg i.e. not every seller is greedy. My house is priced at its value, an offer of 10% less would take it to considerably less than I paid for it three years ago. Any buyer, whether first time or experienced, can usually get an idea of what a house is worth by studying what else is for sale and what similar properties in that area have sold for, which is a doddle with the internet these days. Frankly, I would expect any buyer to do this and would regard an offer of 10% under the asking price as offensive as the potential sellers can also find out what I paid for it.
Also, it depends on the house i.e. if it's a bog standard house like dozens of others in the area then wait for a similar house to come up if the sellers aren't being realistic. On the other hand, if the house has some really desirable and hard-to-find assets like stunning views and/or an open aspect unlikely to be built on, then it is entirely reasonable for the seller to hold out for the asking price (unless it's ridiculous) and the property is unlikely to be around for long.