Negotiation with the vendor/estate agent - WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

andre3000

Hello everyone

First time buyer.
House advertised "offers in excess of £130,000"
Made an offer for £132,000

Got a call from the estate agent telling me the vendor asked if this was my best offer or if I could increase the price? I asked if there was another offer from another buyer, she said no.

I have a maximum figure of £135,000 but obviously I'd like to pay less if possible obviously.
How would you negotiate this?

maninthestreet

Call their bluff - reiterate your offer, reminding them it is £2k over the asking price. Don't be surprised if the EA suddenly invents a new prospective buyer that has just offered more than you...

Grenage

Getting into a bidding war with yourself is clearly madness.

I would be tempted to say "No, my offer is now 130k", but probably not if I really liked the house, and I thought it was a fair price.

veryworried12

Well if it were me I'd have started lower than the OIEO price. They'll likely say no, but I'd treat the listed price as the maximum I'd be willing to pay. So in other words I'd go in at £128k, with a view to not paying a penny over £130k. That is what the agent told me when they were valuing my house, the vendor sets that as the price they will accept, anything above it is a bonus.

OIEO doesn't mean anything really, you can start lower and people buy houses much lower than the OIEO price.

DaftyDuck

Same here, I'd have probably offered something like £127,600, lower than the asking price {obviously depending on what I thought the property was actually worth}. I'd certainly not be offering more just on the ask of the agent.

I would also be pointing out that that was my offer, and it was on the table for a limited period, as I had other properties of interest to follow up on.

Penelope_Penguin

Never bid against yourself

You've bid £132k. IMO, it's now up to the vendor to come back with a counter sum, say 135k, and you can then stick to your guns, meet in the middle, or something else.

They've asked for OIEO £130k and you've obliged with an OIEO, so it would be cheeky of them to ask for more :cool:

Bossworld

Is it not just all semantics (in terms of 'offers over', 'offers in the region of' type text)?

We wanted as much as we could get for ours (obviously), but had a figure in mind.

Put it on as offers over X, slightly taken aback when the first offer came in right on the X price.

This whole house price dance goes both ways, so we ultimately declined their first offer, they re-iterated it, we then went back via the agent to let them know what we wanted (X + £2k to clear the EA's fees), which they accepted.

Could have put the house on at a price of x + 10k (without the 'offers over' text) but would have ultimately arrived at the same result. By putting a lower price on but 'offers over', it comes up on a lower band on RightMove.

Assuming it's not overpriced, I would stick at your 132 at least one more time and see what the vendors come back with. They're probably after the 135 you mention.

AdrianC

andre3000 wrote: »

I asked if there was another offer from another buyer, she said no.

Irrelevant.

but obviously I'd like to pay less if possible obviously.

And, equally obviously, the vendor would like to receive more.

So... which of you is going to blink first? Are you prepared to lose the house over £3k? Is the vendor prepared to lose a buyer over £3k?

andre3000

Thanks everyone - the vendor accepted my offer

hazyjo

Congrats - ta for the update!


Jx