Best and Final offer (Sealed cover bids)

magn8p

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Are you relying on a valuation at the higher amount for your mortgage or do you have a large enough deposit to cover the difference?

Relying on valuation at higher amount for the mortgage. I wouldn't be able to fund the difference myself - I have just about the right amount to cover the deposit for 90% LTV.

magn8p

eddddy wrote: »

Just an aside - but no, it's not usually best to play it cool.

Telling people how wonderful their house is, how much you like what the have done with it, and how much you would like to live there...

...will make many people like you, and want to sell their house to you.


If you 'play it cool' and disinterested, but then make an offer...

... many people will guess that it was a strategy for getting them to accept a lower offer. So they are less likely to look on you and your offer favourably.

Where there are multiple similar offers, that kind of stuff can sometimes make a difference.

Thanks for your advice. I will keep that in mind if I do more viewings.

ognum

HouseBuyer77 wrote: »

I'd say chain vs no chain does though.

I was in a similar situation, I offered at asking as did 3 other people. It went to best and final and I won despite not being the highest bidder (highest was 6% over I was 3% over, or so I was told...), though they did first come back to me and say they would accept over the higher if I pushed my offer up around £1000, which I did. I believe the reason they chose me over the higher offer was because I was an FTB (no chain) vs the others who had a two-house chain already.

How much do you care about the house? Are there many other options if you don't get it? It can be worth paying a premium to secure a property if you really like it, even if it's not really 'worth' that much.

Yes I would agree, this area is awash with cash buyers, I have bid myself as a cash buyer against multiple other cash buyers. (These are really cash buyers with money in the bank).

The Cambridge city market has been very strong and buyers are now pushing out from the centre to get affordable property.

OP it is called best and final for a reason, you need to put in an offer you won't regret.

magn8p

HouseBuyer77 wrote: »

I'd say chain vs no chain does though.

I was in a similar situation, I offered at asking as did 3 other people. It went to best and final and I won despite not being the highest bidder (highest was 6% over I was 3% over, or so I was told...), though they did first come back to me and say they would accept over the higher if I pushed my offer up around £1000, which I did. I believe the reason they chose me over the higher offer was because I was an FTB (no chain) vs the others who had a two-house chain already.

How much do you care about the house? Are there many other options if you don't get it? It can be worth paying a premium to secure a property if you really like it, even if it's not really 'worth' that much.

Thanks for your advice. I (and more importantly the wife) like the property. It has been very well maintained and has an en-suite which a lot of similar priced properties lack in the area. A similar property in the area sold for £185K in June but I guess this was before elections and after that there has been property price surges everywhere.

So, I am willing to increase the offer by £3K to secure the house.

Winter_Phoenix

May I suggest that you offer an amount which is a few hundred above a "nice round figure"?

You might not think that a few hundred matters when you're talking about a sale price of 200K or so. But if the vendors receive several offers at about the same price, sometimes a bit of extra cash can be the deciding factor because it will "help with the removal costs", or "go towards the solicitors' bill", etc.

Weave

My current sale for £300k (Warwickshire) had 2 asking price offers and 2 offers at £5k under. We went to final offers and the two offers under went to asking price and the two offers over increased slightly. We took the highest offer at £6k over as they also had no chain.


We priced sensibly to try and sell (and did so in 5 days) as there are other similar properties around us on smaller plots stuck on the market at our asking price. If you feel its worth the extra money compared to others in the area then go over asking price is my opinion.

johannalf88

We had a similar experience with the house we are currently buying. We went to see it on a Saturday, and put an offer in on Monday, only just below asking price £5000 less on a house in London) we were told that they had received a similar offer over the weekend (not surprising- compared to others in the area was reasonably priced.) They asked for best and final offers. I thought at that point that we were the higher offer (or surely the EA would have said they had a higher offer?) and our position as chain free made us very flexible. After discussion we decided to go £2500 over the asking, including our position as chain free I. The offer. Logic being if the others were lower they may just go up to asking price, or a bit over, but may not be chain free.

Our offer was accepted (Yay!) and valuation and mortgage offer came through today as fine!

All of my logical thinking may have been pointless, but it made me feel better rather than plucking a number! I hope that helps!

magn8p

Thank you all for your kind advice. I have something to learn from every response above. I guess in the current property market, sticking to asking price and repenting later is pointless. After all, for a purchase of about £200K, £3K over the asking price isn't much, especially if that can secure the deal.

But yeah, there are other factors that are out of our control - eg: last minute cash-buyer, seller withdrawing the property from the market etc.

So I am going with £193.2K (which is roughly 1.56% over asking price) + Explain the seller that I can move in quickly because I am FTB + Show the seller the proof of funds etc.

Thanks again, one and all. I will keep you posted about the progress in a couple of days.

nubbins

magn8p wrote: »

Relying on valuation at higher amount for the mortgage. I wouldn't be able to fund the difference myself - I have just about the right amount to cover the deposit for 90% LTV.

I would be very careful if you are at the limit of 10% deposit, the lenders valuer can often mark it down. I had a property which I was extremely confident would have sold for somewhere between 350 and 375 when I came to remortgage they valued it at 325, the lender will often err on the side of covering their own !!!.

alchemist.1

The last two house that we offered on (which also went to best offers) went quite above the asking price. Plenty of first time buyers and cash buyers.