Can we reduce our house price offer?

Dan-Dan

housemouse101 wrote: »

Thank you so much for your advice everyone. Will consider very carefully whether to ask to lower the offer by the end of today.

They accepted the offer immediately.

It's not necessarily that we think the house it worth less, more that the asking prices are normally inflated and in the midst of falling in love with it we hadn't really accounted for this.

Currently thinking that while we may be paying a little over the odds, we can afford it and it's probably worth it overall. Plus its in good condition etc etc so someone else would probably snap it up anyway.

If its a long term family home then 5k is not going to make a great deal of difference to you

One thing that is a little surprising is that if that were some people who had an AP offer so quickly they might be wondering should they have had an open day or something to try and get more, this is obviously a personal thing though and your vendor might just be pleased to get the deal done and get stuck into the legals

warby68

Buyer's remorse is common and if you've changed your mind so be it - much better straight away than further down the line.

You say the 'actual value' is £145k - well the actual value is what someone is prepared to pay. If you were prepared to pay £155k on Sunday but only £145k on Wednesday, where will you be by Friday?

By all means try but be prepared to lose it. Buyer's remorse is fair enough but I suspect that pulling out altogether at an early stage would be viewed more kindly than ducking and diving on price, by vendors and agent alike.

Sellers are no less emotional than buyers - perhaps more so, so the annoyance/confidence/offence potential is high

frugalsmurf

My advice would be to definitely get it in writing what they're leaving (they will possibly do that on the fixtures and fitting for which lists what's included in the sale which you get later)

Work out if you love it/want it? If so, I'd be cautious about offering lower after they've accepted your higher offer.

economic

at least wait for the survey as it may pick up things you can use to lower price.

70sthrowback

Why don't you wait and see what the mortgage valuation comes back as. If it is the same as the asking price, then it reinforces your initial bid. If the valuation comes back lower then you can use that as a tool to lower your offer. It doesn't mean the vendor has to accept the lower offer though.

Cakeguts

Have you based your new asking price on something that you have seen on Zoopla by any chance? You do realise that the information on Zoopla is based on sold prices that are about 3 months old? They also aren't actual prices that are going to be achieved.

So for example if someone buys a house in poor condition in a nice area for a low price that price affects what Zoopla estimates for all of the houses in that area. So it doesn't reflect the true value of a house in very good condition in the same area and it is about 3 months out of date.

The only way that you can get an estimate of what a house is worth is by comparing it to other similar houses that have sold recently in the same area.

Do you need a mortgage because if you do the bank or building society will give a valuation. So if you don't want to lose this house you could wait until then and see what comes up.

bmthmark

If you really want the house, for the sake of £5k off I wouldn't bother to be honest.
All you will do is annoy the seller as they will be in constant doubt whether you will lower the price later on.
Personally I would wait until survey comes back and see whether it gets valued correctly and if there are issues then of course put a lower offer in.

If I was selling and someone did this to me I would tell them to do one as they can't be trusted.

warby68

There is another thought in the current 'hot' market.

You vendors may also be regretting accepting your offer immediately- they might think they could have got more if they waited a bit.

chelseablue

As above, if you really want the house and its a long term home (at least 5 years) I wouldn't be that bothered about 5 grand

clarky_cat

I'd wait until the valuation came back as well.

I was in a similar position to you when we bought last year. We had an offer of the asking price accepted and I immediately regretted not going in lower. It turned out the valuation came back £3k less which put us in a position to negotiate a lower price, which in turn was accepted, and the sale went through.