AIP help

casson2006

Hi,

Me and my fiance have been looking to buy a house for the last year. We have so far viewed over 20 properties and made offers on a few. It has been such a struggle as all our offers have been rejected as there is so much competition from people who seem to go above asking price. During this period we have had two AIP's which have now both expired.

The current situation is that we put an offer in at the weekend on a ideal house. The estate agents are saying that they will not put our offer forward to the vendor unless we have a AIP. I have explained that i do not want to apply for another one as i fear will affect our credit rating. They also keep asking is that our 'best' offer, but surely they dont expect us to increase it before we know our first offer is rejected? (The offer we have made is not a silly one, it is just slightly under asking price)

Does anyone have any advice? We are finding trying to buy a property increasingly difficultly and fear we never will. It seems to be so hard, especially with ever increasing house prices!

james1089

We have been in the same situation for a while but luckily we have just had an offer accepted on a place. Although we had to bid over the asking price to secure it. If you have seen quite a lot of properties and have been outbid then you should have a rough idea of what you think a place is worth and what kind of interest it will get and then you can put forward your bid accordingly. We found that finding somewhere we loved and putting in a bid lower than the asking price just left us disappointed time and time again. If there's too much demand you'll have to pay what it's worth.

james1089

And with regards to the AIP we just got one for our maximum budget and used this for all offers, we just wrote a covering note with it when we submitted our offer. I'm not sure on how badly another one will affect your credit score unfortunately.

alchemist.1

Just get a halifax online one. It only does a soft search. Doesnt have an effect on your credit rating.

Jhoney_2

casson2006 wrote: »

Hi,

Me and my fiance have been looking to buy a house for the last year. We have so far viewed over 20 properties and made offers on a few. It has been such a struggle as all our offers have been rejected as there is so much competition from people who seem to go above asking price. During this period we have had two AIP's which have now both expired.

The current situation is that we put an offer in at the weekend on a ideal house. The estate agents are saying that they will not put our offer forward to the vendor unless we have a AIP. I have explained that i do not want to apply for another one as i fear will affect our credit rating. They also keep asking is that our 'best' offer, but surely they dont expect us to increase it before we know our first offer is rejected? (The offer we have made is not a silly one, it is just slightly under asking price)

Does anyone have any advice? We are finding trying to buy a property increasingly difficultly and fear we never will. It seems to be so hard, especially with ever increasing house prices!

To me, you have two issues.

Whilst I empathise and this is not a direct response to your AIP question, if the above is happening then why are you offering below? You may not think it's a silly offer, but evidently you are out of the running on price alone so the rejected offers/AIP expiry may occur again.

You can get all the AIPs in the world - even the soft search ones as suggested in a post above but where will it get you if your strategy is still like this?

The objective is to secure a/the property - your actions seem somewhat at odds with that for the example/ones you are attempting to buy, given your own analysis as you are not even at asking in what appears to be a sellers market.


You are not making things easier on yourself with this purchase model - perhaps you have read somew/here that you should offer 10% below asking etc - but it seems that is not working in the area you want to buy in- you have tried this strategy through two AIPs.

Time to rethink? You must have some idea of what you can lend so stay within the average of the spectrum of that and once accepted supply a written confirmation from you solicitor that you are able to afford the amount offered.

You could always offer to suppply said AIP within 3/5/7 days on acceptance but even if you hada lifelong AIP - you are being out bid, imv.

Annisele

casson2006 wrote: »

They also keep asking is that our 'best' offer, but surely they dont expect us to increase it before we know our first offer is rejected? (The offer we have made is not a silly one, it is just slightly under asking price)

I also think your problem is likely to be underbidding.

Your strategy would work fine in a buyer's market (i.e. a market where loads of people wanted to sell, but very few wanted to buy). In those circumstances, once a buyer makes an offer it's very much in the seller's interest to try to persuade that individual buyer to increase that offer.

In a seller's market (which it looks like you're in), there's no point in a seller asking you to increase your offer. It's much easier for them to find a new buyer who's prepared to offer more straight off than it is for them to persuade you to increase your offer.

casson2006

Well the offer we put in on the first house was slightly below asking price, then we went up to asking price but it got rejected, the second offer we put in on another house was slightly above asking price but got rejected (this house ended up selling for over £15,000 more than asking price)

This offer we have put in on the current house is around 2% below asking price. We have based this on other properties that have sold in the area recently etc.

I was meaning it more as in the estate agents have been encouraging a biding war, but for the houses we didn't feel they were worth over asking price i.e. head rule the heart.
Plus by them asking is this our best offer- we are not going to just go up to asking price before the current offer is rejected.

amnblog

Using a broker will deal with this issue. We regularly manage a Estate Agents on behalf of our clients.