Reducing our offer...

sophi123

We had an offer accepted on a property 2 months ago. It was sealed bids, we had been looking for months and getting really frustrated at missing out even when offering asking price so - to secure the house in a competitive market - we offered 10% over the asking price.

As soon as our offer was accepted we got really nervous, thinking we had overestimated, but thought we would continue with the process and our valuation/survey would tell us if we were wildly out with our offer.

So valuation came back fine at price we offered. Survey also came back with valuation exactly what we had offered, but raised some issues to resolve before exchange including problems with roof and electrics which we have quotes totalling about £1000 to fix.

Anyway we are still really really nervous that we have over-offered and will be really screwed if we try and sell up again in few years time. Zoopla doesn't show anything in the surrounding area going for anything near what we have offered and we have realised there is significantly more minor work to do than we had first realised.

What should we do?

We appreciate we have been naive FTBers here and don't want to be playing games with people etc. I think we genuinely just made a mistake.

Should we:

- try and be honest and see if any way we can negotiate (accepting that the vendors may just say foxtrot Oscar!) and then walk away if they do

- plough ahead and just hope that we can make up the shortfall if prices increase (and learn an important lesson if we ever buy again!) perhaps trying to negotiate on 1k for survey stuff

- just drop out now, lose out on our fees so far, but don't screw vendors over for our mistake?

So grateful for any thoughts. Really very very stressed about it all.

S x

jackomdj

So the valuations have come back at what you offered. If I was the seller I would not sell to you, as I wouldn't trust you not to try to negotiate down again.

Buy it at the agreed price, as the valuations have said this is fine.

Guest101

Just offer what you feel comfortable with now.

Work needs doing, this obviously wasnt pointed out in advance, knock the price down

ellie27

Most people find that they have paid over the odds for their house, thats why their offer was accepted!

If you didnt offer 10% over then someone else might have got the house. Someone else might have offered 8% over. That extra £2k or so that you want to knock off might have been the reason why they accepted yours. You want to knock that off and there might have been another offer that matches yours now.

I think you are just having the normal wobble that a lot of folk have.

If you dont want the house pull out - now.

You said you might lose out if it comes that you sell up and move in a few years. Perhaps if you are thinking of it as simply short term then you should be looking for something more 'make do for now'

Pixie5740

I wouldn't put too much faith in Zoopla valuations. The surveyor you appointed, who has rules he/she must adhere to. So if the surveyor thinks the property is worth £X and you've offered £X I'd go with that over Zoopla.

jb66

If someone knocked me down on price I would pull out the deal. I would loose trust in the buyer and be worried they may try a similar stunt later on

ReadingTim

Buying your first house is scary - it's the largest single purchase you'll ever make, and (to a certain extent) puts an end to a carefree stage in your life where you could decide on a whim to jack it all in and go and live in a yurt in outer Mongolia - certainly when I got the keys to my place, my excitement was tempered by the dread that I couldn't lose my job.... So some nerves are inevitable.

But I'm confused - you say the market was competitive and you'd lost out on other places hence the high offer, yet 2 months later this isn't the case - has it really peaked, or was this a temporary slowdown (for example due to the general election), and now prices will continue to rise again.... I suspect the latter.... You could always look at other places (via a different agent) rather than simply look at Zoopla, whose valued are often derided on this board.

Also, you don't mention the house itself - do you like it and how long are you planning to be there? While no-one likes paying more than they have to, a slight bitterness over price will fade when compared to many happy years living there - that's certainly been the case for me, who suspects they were played for an extra couple of grand by the 'mystery 2nd buyer' line from the EA...

Surrey_EA

I suppose it's pretty common for buyers to feel like they've overpaid, in the same way a lot of sellers feel like they've sold for too little!!

I wouldn't take a lot of notice of what Zoopla's algorithms say, personally, but pay more attention that both the bank valuer and your surveyor saw no issue with the price.

sophi123

Thanks for these helpful perspectives!


I think our hope is that we will stay there for maybe c. 5 years, but it is certainly not our forever home and it depends a bit how much we like the place we are moving to (we've not lived there before, but think it suits us!) and any other changes in circumstances e.g. jobs moving etc.


Useful to know that surveyor valuation is probably more reliable than zoopla.


When I look on the land registry though, comparable properties selling in Feb/Mar come up about 30k less than our offer. We are buying in outer London so all the signs are that the market will keep going up, but should we not be able to see other houses completing at similar prices by now? Of course estate agents tell us that others houses are going for similar to our offer, but seen no evidence of this yet.


Negotiating on the couple of grand from survey is also surely still worth it regardless of any big change in offer?

ReadingTim

sophi123 wrote: »

Negotiating on the couple of grand from survey is also surely still worth it regardless of any big change in offer?

Depends on the extent to which it reveals things which weren't obvious or aren't likely for a property of that age and general condition.

Electrics, for example, unless completely new, won't meet 'modern standards'. This doesn't mean they're unsafe. If you want those which do meet modern standards, you'll have to pay for it yourself.

Issues costing a couple of grand are likely to be pretty minor, especially in comparison to the purchase price of a London property, and are likely to be either obvious from viewing or implicit with the age, style and general condition of the property you're buying, and if I was the vendor, I'd suspect you were chancing your arm and tell you to take it or leave it.

Sounds like you have 2 questions to ask yourself:

1 - can you afford it?
2 - do you want to afford it?

Hoploz

Properties that went through in feb and march would have been deals agreed maybe Christmas time, or even before. It takes time between accepting an offer, the chain completing, and it appearing on public records.

Winter is a quiet time, spring is the busiest - so today's price is bound to be more than last winter's, as in outer London there will have been an increase.

What sort of money are you talking about here? 30k is a lot on 100k but not so much on 500k.

The main point I would say is, ask yourself whether you could get what you want in the right location for less. If so then maybe you're over the top (though I doubt by much, as the valuations are ok) but if when you look asking prices are higher the then you haven't.

We don't know where the market will be in 5 years time. The likelihood is it will rise. As long as the place you're buying is suitable for you to stay in in the longer term if it became necessary then you're ok. If you're struggling to buy a 1-bed flat which will quickly become too small to live in then price is more critical