How much to offer over the asking price?

mrmcmc

Hi,

I offered asking price on a property a few days ago & have now been told there are multiple asking price offers. I've already caught the EA lieing about 1 thing but I think this is true because when I took my partner to see it yesterday there was literally a queue out of the door of people viewing it. It looks like it's going to go to highest bids. Has anyone ever got a property through highest bids & if so how much over asking price did you have to offer to secure it? Also if the valuation came back it was not worth that much was you able to negotiate?

Thanks

Hoploz

My advice is just offer what you can afford.

If it's a long term home and you aren't likely to find anything else that compares to it for a long time (till prices rise) then a little extra is worth it.

I've done sealed bids three times. The two houses in 2007 we offered what we felt they were worth. We lost out and both went for 40k over asking price (c. 400k). They are now worth over £600k.

Third time, last year, we knew we had to do it differently. It's our forever home, for 20+ years so we offered what we could afford, and a little bit on top, just so we wouldn't have regretted (if only we'd had an extra x) It's a unique house and our perfect home so it was worth paying 'next year's price' There was a lot of competition, and we know other similar offers (turns out a friend of a friend also bid!) but we won the house and we have no regrets.

If its a house that's pretty standard design and there'll be another round the corner next month, or you plan it as a short term purchase, then I'd urge more caution.

Just telling you how we played it

kinger101

I won on highest bids, but there's not much point saying X percent over will win it. Arm yourself with as much information as you can. What have similar properties sold for recently?

If there are multiple bidders, it's much less likely that the vendor will renegotiate on price as they have alternative buyers lined up already. They'd probably suggest another valuation with another bank, or selecting another buyer.

If the agent is on the ball, they'll scope this out and see what you'd do if the valuation was short. If they don't, and you have an offer accepted, and you think this is a real risk, you can delay legal work until you receive the bank valuation anyway rather than spending a wad on solicitors and surveyors only for bank to say no.

You just need to think about this and do the heart vs head calculations.

GoldenShadow

Best bit of advice I found on here was decide what it is really worth to you. How many boxes does it tick compared to other properties?

We offered 190K on a property listed at 195K, rejected, and someone else paid 195K. We are now buying a property for 210K that was listed at 210K. Despite being able to afford it, I would have never paid 195K for the first one. The 210K one is only a 2 bed, but there is more we could do to it and it is a wonderful location, so prepared to stomach it. If something awful happened re the market I like it enough that I could probably live there forever.

I find lists help to define priorities too. We had things like parking and garden at the top of ours, followed by no open plan etc.

jamei305

I've had seen best and final offers go for the asking price, on the other hand we recently offered £585K for a property with an asking price of £495K and were outbid!

If you don't know already try and find out what the market is like for this sort of property in your area. Are other agents seeing similar properties go for above asking price and by how much?

mrmcmc

To us it feels like and on paper is a house we would never have to move out of. It needs a lot of work internally but the locations amazing & the exterior is in good condition.

We've looked at sold prices but it's difficult to determine because the actual street its on houses don't go on the market very often. I found an identical one in about the same state has just sold for about 15k less then what we are thinking of offering. However it has a smaller garden and is on a main road. 15k extra seems just about ok to us.

Both EA that showed us around said we can submit a higher offer but something might come back on the survey where we could negotiate. It has felt both times they know something I don't. They did originally even tell me not to offer over asking price which I found very strange from an EA.

Hoploz

That is very odd. Telling you there are multiple offers at asking price, but urging you not to go over it. And suggesting you renegotiate later. These are very fishy. Sounds like they are trying to get someone else to buy the house. Maybe a BTL investor, who will use them to rent it out once they've bought, or a developer who they regularly deal with who will return it to their stock when renovated?

Lummoxley

I'm in the final stages of buying a house and paid over asking. But there are so many variables that it'd be impossible to advise. I went with a figure that was only 1.5% (£5K) above the asking but that was the most I'd would have been prepared to pay.

united4ever

You know when some houses seem to come on at a comparative low asking price and the sellers don't turn out to be in financial trouble or anything to explain it....is it listed low to try to achieve a higher sale price through generating an auction type scenario? Do people and EAs put properties on at a price they would not actually accept even if only one person met that price?

ognum

the key thing that I would suggest is to detail in writing the positives of accepting your offer (forget others)

Like

No chain
Cash buyer
Mortgage agreed in principle
Big deposit
Willing to work to the vendors timescale
Going to live there as a family home (surprising how many vendors this sways)
Solicitor and surveyor already aware of you

I am sure you can think of other things but submit the best of you with your offer.

I have won 'best and final' this way and I have also sold to not the highest bidder because I liked them!!!

Char89

I can relate to this. We viewed about 20 open days this years with about 30 people booked in to see each one. We would see the same people at each property.

The first flat we ever saw went on the market for 200k and finally went for 230k, and then fell through as the buyer didnt have the funds. It came back on the market 5 months later and we put in another offer and the seller was being incredibly greedy, it needed a new kitchen complete refurb and new lease, but wanted over 245k. We refused to put in a higher offer. I then got a call from the estate agent to tell me it had gone back on the market as the seller didnt have the money again, and would I like to put another offer in which I refused to do so.

The flat we are buying was on the market for 235k and sellers accepted 240k, I think it really depends on the EA and the buyer. Luckily our offer was the highest and as we didn't have a chain they accepted, we also put in another offer at the same time for another flat which was on for 237k and we offered 245k and it got rejected.

It all depends on how much you can afford, but be careful as the valuation could come back as the flat is not worth the ammount your asking from your mortgage lender. We put in an offer on a flat and got our offer rejected as the other buyer had a higher deposit. It's really just a waiting game buying flats in London just keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. We didn't think it would work out but be patient - if you don't get it it's not the property for you.