Under offer

timeism0ney

What is the limit of a reasonable under offer? Presumably if you offered 50K below the asking price, it wouldn't really help anyone including the buyer (who will probably still want to deal with other sellers and agencies and doesn't want to come across as a loon). What substantial under offers have you heard of / come across?

davidmcn

It's probably better to talk in terms of percentages rather than actual figures - we don't know whether you're subtracting £50k from £100k or £1m.

timeism0ney

Yes you are right, I'm looking at houses in the region of 200K so 50K in scenarios relevant to me would constitute 25%.

badger09

timeism0ney wrote: »

What is the limit of a reasonable under offer? Presumably if you offered 50K below the asking price, it wouldn't really help anyone including the buyer (who will probably still want to deal with other sellers and agencies and doesn't want to come across as a loon). What substantial under offers have you heard of / come across?

How long is a piece of string:cool: Depending how reasonable asking price is and how much vendor wants to move

£50k offer below asking price 750k = probably accept
£50k offer below asking price £500k = consider
£50k offer below asking price £250k = get lost time waster

EDIT slow typing - just seen your response!

timeism0ney

Badger09, so by this logic 20K is about the limit of a reasonable under offer for a 200K property. Does this sound right?

phill99

There are no hard and fast rules about how much to offer. It depends on how desperate you are for the property, what your available funds are, how long the property has been on the market, it's condition etc. There are too many factors to take into account.

middleclassbutpoor

I think you will find the circumstances of the seller probably dictates this more than any rule of thumb %.

10% may be an offer that doesn't make you come across as a complete loon but they price that is acceptable is unlikely to be determined by anything other than whether the seller can afford to sell at that price, how long they have been on the market, the need to sell, whether they have found something themselves yet, how much they need from their property to still afford what they want.

If its probate then you need to factor in having to deal with multiple people dealing with it etc.

Work out what you think it's worth and then place your opening bid below this so you can at least work up to that. If your 'what its worth price is 10% under asking then you should start lower..

badger09

phill99 wrote: »

There are no hard and fast rules about how much to offer. It depends on how desperate you are for the property, what your available funds are, how long the property has been on the market, it's condition etc. There are too many factors to take into account.

And

How asking price compares to similar properties on the market, or any sold recently

How desperate vendor is to sell

What your position is - cash buyer? FTB? something to sell? etc

KatieDee

We agreed on 5.5% less than asking price on our property, but it is in an area where properties don't often come available. The circumstances were acceptable, the owner was only selling due to moving to a retirement home, so we knew there were no underlying reasons (neighbours, massive disrepair issues, etc).

I would be quite concerned if somebody would take a 10% or more hit on a property selling for only £200,000. Perhaps the upcoming Brexit will cause lower offers to be accepted while it's a buyers market and people are hesitant.

One of the things I've learnt since entering the house buying process is that the average seller wants exactly what they're advertising the house for, if not more. You might be able to get them down slightly due to your position as a seller, or if the house is taking longer to sell than anticipated, but generally sellers have high expectations that are difficult to lower.

If you're looking for a long term home rather than a buy to let or stepping stone, I would advise looking for houses you really want, rather than looking for a bargain. If it's the latter, then there's probably a reason for it. And if you're always making ridiculously low offers then you might miss out on a property you really want, for the sake of a few grand.

Not to say you should offer at asking price though! The whole thing is a business transaction, at the end of the day.

Ally_E.

Our property was originally listed at 450k, dropped down to 425k a month later and we offered 400k. It was rejected at first, but the vendor changed their minds and agreed to 400k the next day.

timeism0ney

We are FTBs and just trying not to do anything silly before the rates go up.

There's also a risk of a down valuation from the bank: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06fh4ww

That wouldn't be fun and makes me wonder if it makes sense to be skeptical about asking prices to start with!

Appreciate everyone's responses!