Making an offer before selling

victoriavictorious

mktuk88 wrote: »

So I spoke to them today, since there's a lot of interest and it's only been on the market less than a week, they will only accept full asking and will only give us 2 weeks to secure a sale on our property. We are happy to pay full asking price, but after speaking to the EA selling our property I don't feel confident we can secure a sale in 2 weeks without dropping our asking price down to a point where we couldn't afford to buy this property. It's sad, but I think we will have to let this one go.

I think lesson learned here is we can't really start looking to buy until we have an offer on our property, the properties we are looking at seem to be moving significantly quicker than the property I'm selling. What's really starting to worry me is the market (London & SE) appears to be on the brink of a small crash and I could find myself trapped in my current property

It's all too easy to get yourself into a tizz about your property possibly not selling, but don't worry, it will sell as long as the price is right.
Of course as you say, the price you achieve may indeed mean you can't afford this particular house.
This is why I would never advocate viewing anything until your own property is under offer - it just adds to an already stressful situation.
So for the moment, relax, just concentrate on getting an offer on your place, and forget the 'deadline' to get it sold in a fortnight. If you do, then great, but if not, there'll be other houses!

hazyjo

Copying what I said on another post to someone else:


"Offering when not proceedable just results in several things:


- The vendors will now be deluded that people will be queuing round the block to buy their house.
- They are less likely to reduce the price if little interest as you are hanging on offering full asking price or more.
- The house is now MUCH more appealing to others. It forces their hand. They will be told there's an offer on the table which hasn't been accepted yet (they prob won't even bother saying you're not proceedable, they just play one off against the other). Plus it makes it look like a good deal and they'll prob say there's been lots of interest. Human nature to want something that someone else does.
- Doesn't give you any wriggle room on your asking price.
- They're less likely to agree a reduction.


Loads of other reasons, but these are off the top of my head.


I know it's hard, but for anyone reading in the future, if they say no to an offer (if you insist on offering when not proceedable), take your offer off the table and action your own sale ASAP. When you have a buyer, go back and offer again (although if you did offer before, it'll be hard to come back with a lower offer!). "

victoriavictorious

Our first offer came after a week on the market- from an unproceeable viewer who offered full asking.
Interest noted but nothing could go ahead as their property had not yet sold.
Fast forward 2 weeks and we get another offer, this time from a proceedable buyer. Our agent had told them there was a full price offer on the table, which I think induced them to up their offer to just below asking - which we were happy to accept.
The original viewer's property still has not sold (imo it's overpriced) and it just ended in disappointment for them as they'd had their heart set on this house.
So by all means express an interest but try not to get emotionally involved and set yourself up for disappointment.
We've only ever looked at properties from the outside until we became proceedable. Saves a lot of stress.