Help with making an Offer

Yaverland

Hi,
I'm a long time lurker and have learnt so many valuable things over the years!

We're currently in the process of buying a new house.
We have sold our house, to FTB, and have found a lovely house we'd like to make an offer on.

The house has been on the market with various estate agents for 3 years! It is over priced which is why it hasn't sold in that time.

The house was listed with Emoov but obviously disappeared from the market the day they went into administration. As soon as we sold our house we went to the house to drop in a letter expressing our interest, the owner was home and after speaking to them we have had a viewing today. We are keen to make an offer tomorrow.

It is a 5 bed house and was listed with Emoov for £370k

We have done extensive research into local sold prices.

In the local area no 5 bedroom house has sold for more than £300k (with one exception but it had a lot more land). Two houses in the same road sold for £274k and £280k in the last year.

To us the house is worth more than these sold houses due to size, style, layout, finish etc but is not worth the asking price.

We are thinking of going in with a starting offer of £312k - which I expect will be rejected.
Ideally we don't think we would be happy to pay more than £330k, given the sold prices nearby. Although could maybe could go a bit higher at a stretch.

There is no onward chain. So the chain would be ourselves and our first time buyer.

Obviously we don't know what she would be willing to accept but does our offer sound reasonable?

We do not wish to overpay but don't wish to cause offense.
Don't want to miss out either!

Thanks in advance for your advice/thoughts.

Cakeguts

It has been on the market for 3 years because not only is it overpriced but the vendors will not accept a lower offer.

martin1959

You can’t ski uphill......

If you offer £330k and they accept it, you will always think they may have accepted less.

Start low, but justify your offer, don’t just chuck a figure at them, and expect it to be rejected.

Hopefully they will come back with a counter offer which will tell you whether they are likely to go anywhere near what you want to pay.

Yaverland

CAKEGUTS
It has been on the market for 3 years because not only is it overpriced but the vendors will not accept a lower offer./QUOTE]

That may well be true!
But we won't know until we try.

lookstraightahead

They sound like nightmare sellers to me! Give it a go but be prepared to walk away as they are in fantasy land.

Yaverland

My apologies, I don't seem to be able to.quote properly on my phone!

MARTIN1959

Thank you for your advice.
We will let them know that we've carried out our research and will mention the two sales in the last year to justify our offer.

Fingers crossed that they do come with a rough idea of what they will accept.

Is it acceptable at any point to ask what this may be? For example if they reject a couple of offers but have not provided this information already?

Slithery

You can ask them whatever you want. There's absolutely no guarantee that you'll get either...

a) An answer.
or...
b) A truthful answer.

Yaverland

Very true!

I'll think we'll go ahead as planned and just see what happens. Nothing to lose and I guess you never know!

quantumlobster

Some sellers are almost inconceivably obstinate. We have a friend whose house has been on the market for five (count 'em!) years at the same price. She absolutely will not lower the price.

Offers received?

Nil.

getmore4less

Talk to them about the 3 years and why it has not sold.

have they put the property with someone else yet, its been over a month since emoov went down.

You need to assess how motivated they are(not very) and set their expectations in line with the local market before dropping a realistic low offer in front of them.

It might even mean walking away without a figure if they show no signs that they realise that £370k is way over the top.

If you have been looking for a while have you had dealings with any of the agents they have used in the past try to get some feedback from those.