Can we reduce our house price offer?

alchemist.1

No one knows but I dont believe Brexit/Bremain will have any major effect on prices.

If the lenders valuation is lower than your offer then :

1. You will have to make up balance yourself or
2. Request a price reduction or
3. Pull out or
4. Look another lender and hope by chance they value the house diffrently (unsure whether this will be likely a lot use the same co.).

You can look to reduce your offer after the homebuyers report if there is any work that needs to be done (which wasnt apparent on viewing).

kinger101

housemouse101 wrote: »

Lots of really helpful thoughts and advice - thank you all. We decided not to reduce the offer, given that we do want the house 100%, it is not worth the risk.

A question – when you say to consider reducing the price based on the survey:
a) do you mean the lenders valuation or the homebuyers report which we pay for? Do they both give an estimated house value?
b) what if it says that everything about the house is solid, but they give a value lower than we offered – in this case are we still able to ask to knock off a thousand or two?
Just curious.

And one more, while were talking of crashes - do you think house values will be lowered/increased if we leave europe? We did consider waiting to buy after the referendum. (might sound daft but were not in a rush to move, or we weren't until we found this house we fell in love with, that is....)

Regarding the extra 5k+interest – We both followed MSE advice over the years and as a result have a large deposit - we can afford to chalk this one down as a lesson learned, a mistake on our part. We intend to overpay. Would have been a very different story if it wasn't for this community.

The bank's valuation by definition gives a valuation. Some full surveys don't include a valuation. Don't know if it's the same with homebuyer's reports, but you should check with the surveryor. Neither valuation will come back as more than you've offered. It's not in the banks or surveyor's interest to do so. At the same time, if they think you've offered a little over, I suspect they'll also come back at your offer price as it's within the margin of error.

It's impossible to know what the vendors will do if the valuation comes back short with no major defects. They might be inclined to say "you offered £X, so it's worth £X to you". You'll have more leverage if the vendor (a) needs a quick sale, (b) isn't relying on every penny for an onward purchase and/or (c) have reason to believe you're unable to make up the shortfall.

As for property prices, it's crystal ball territory. But you can ignore everything crashytime posts as he's part of some crazy sect called housepricecrash.co.uk. They are to house prices what homeopaths are to medicine.

Lazarus_Blackstar

housemouse101 wrote: »

b) what if it says that everything about the house is solid, but they give a value lower than we offered – in this case are we still able to ask to knock off a thousand or two?

This is exactly what my post earlier referred to. When we were buying our house, it was absolutely in perfect condition inside & out, the survey didn't flag anything up and the lenders valuation was based on houses recently sold in the area. Hence a £15k reduction of the estate agents original market value.
At the end of the day, the vendor has 2 choices, either accept a lower offer in reference to the valuation etc, or simply hang on until someone else comes along, gets the survey/valuation done again, same happens but buyer makes up the shortfall.
On the odd occasion some vendors make take a lower offer like ours did when we were buying, but it's a gamble & a chance you take to see if they play ball.

Crashy_Time

kinger101 wrote: »

The bank's valuation by definition gives a valuation. Some full surveys don't include a valuation. Don't know if it's the same with homebuyer's reports, but you should check with the surveryor. Neither valuation will come back as more than you've offered. It's not in the banks or surveyor's interest to do so. At the same time, if they think you've offered a little over, I suspect they'll also come back at your offer price as it's within the margin of error.

It's impossible to know what the vendors will do if the valuation comes back short with no major defects. They might be inclined to say "you offered £X, so it's worth £X to you". You'll have more leverage if the vendor (a) needs a quick sale, (b) isn't relying on every penny for an onward purchase and/or (c) have reason to believe you're unable to make up the shortfall.

As for property prices, it's crystal ball territory. But you can ignore everything crashytime posts as he's part of some crazy sect called housepricecrash.co.uk. They are to house prices what homeopaths are to medicine.

You don`t need a crystal ball, just a look at how sentiment towards high prices is shifting.

Crashy_Time

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/13/landlords-should-be-squealing-under-george-osbornes-crackdown-tr/


If people steer clear of BTL, or existing landlords start offloading property, house prices are going to come down.

Smodlet

Loads of good advice on here, only thing I can add is to also look at rightmove, whose prices, I believe, are actual sold prices and they have pictures of the sold properties so you can guage what state they were in when they went for the price they did. Obviously, as has been mentioned, if a similar house in the same street went for £25k less last month, you need to know if it was in a right state, needed re-wiring, new boiler/heating system, etc, etc... the £25k would soon be used up if enough things were wrong with it. Depending on how you cope with stress/mess, is it worth £5k not to have to clean up a load of plaster dust, or worse?

Thrugelmir

housemouse101 wrote: »

And one more, while were talking of crashes - do you think house values will be lowered/increased if we leave europe?

Ask yourself what's going to change.

Crashy_Time

Smodlet wrote: »

Loads of good advice on here, only thing I can add is to also look at rightmove, whose prices, I believe, are actual sold prices and they have pictures of the sold properties so you can guage what state they were in when they went for the price they did. Obviously, as has been mentioned, if a similar house in the same street went for £25k less last month, you need to know if it was in a right state, needed re-wiring, new boiler/heating system, etc, etc... the £25k would soon be used up if enough things were wrong with it. Depending on how you cope with stress/mess, is it worth £5 not to have to clean up a load of plaster dust, or worse?

Thought RM was asking prices and LR was sold prices (repo`s not included)?

kinger101

Crashy_Time wrote: »

You don`t need a crystal ball, just a look at how sentiment towards high prices is shifting.

Well, how come you're wrong 95% of the time then?

Crashy_Time

kinger101 wrote: »

Well, how come you're wrong 95% of the time then?

Sentiment from the government and MSM has shifted dramatically recently, that is 100% obvious. Some of a cynical mind-set may say it has to do with the upcoming Brexit vote, others may just say that they are facing reality......?