Offering very high to get your foot in the door?

brazillondon

Hello all,

I'd like some general advice on offering on a house. I've spoken to more than one source, who claim it's perfectly common, and encouraged to make a really high offer for a property - with the intention of then reducing the offer once a valuation is made from the bank. The idea being to get your foot in the door - with the reassurance that you'll only pay little more than what the bank values anyway.

This is a tactic does not sit well with me, and I can imagine being pretty frustrating for a seller. Being a first time buyer, I have no idea how common this is - and whether it's generally frowned against, or just part of the property buying game.

Thoughts?

alchemist.1

And if you get a stubborn vendor you have wasted time/money.

duchy

So if the vendor sees through your ruse and refuses your far lower offer and puts the property back on the market you'll have paid legal fees, survey -peed off the vendor so they are far less likely to negotiate with you and got yourself a bad name with the estate agent whose time you'll also have wasted so the next time you offer they'll advise the vendor that you were a timewaster last time who plays games and advise them to go ahead and accept a lower offer from a more serious buyer.

House buying is stressful enough without idiots playing games......some might do it but there's a fairly good chance it'll end up biting you in the bum .

Presumably you are buying in London from your user name where the market moves fast -and replacement buyers are easy to find - so why do you think the seller would bend over for you rather than just go back on the market ?

MortgageMamma

I wouldn't advise this, it could cause an entire chain to collapse - go in with a fair offer, if its meant to be it will be - you should only reneg after survey if its genuinely downvalued or has costly structural issues

Doozergirl

Do you believe in karma?

mildredalien

The house we are buying already had an offer on it when we viewed, but the seller had tried to reduce the offer by £10,000 once it had been accepted (and before any valuations or surveys). Despite us offering slightly less, the vendor proceeded with our offer instead as she felt the original buyer had messed her around.

It could work, but it's risky - there's no guarantee that the vendor will agree to reduce it to the price you are willing to pay, or that the valuation will go in your favour!

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

You seem very concerned by the banks valuation.

brazillondon

Appreciate the responses all.
The comments here reflect my own feelings.

(Bluebirdman, am just out here trying to make sense of things - am getting conflicting advice from different sources and thus trying to gain a grasp on matters).

HouseBuyer77

A sensible vendor will realise a super high offer is likely to be above the bank's valuation anyway and could reject it on that basis.

eddddy

brazillondon wrote: »

I've spoken to more than one source, who claim it's perfectly common, and encouraged to make a really high offer for a property - with the intention of then reducing the offer once a valuation is made from the bank.

Out of interest, the people who are encouraging you to do this - have they actually used this strategy and did it work?

Have they bought and sold many properties?

Or do you think they might just be, kind of... making stuff up?

joeistheone

Only offer what you are willing to pay. If you want to get a property by outbidding others in a fast moving London market, then you may have to live with the offer you have made or lose the property later on if you try to gazunder. Of course you can also make your offer subject to a satisfactory valuation and survey, and renegotiate at that stage if anything reasonable (which is open to interpretation) comes up that warrants it.