Viewing and offering on houses over budget

bluebetty

I am looking at houses of no more than £70000, I would be reluctant to pay more than that.

Is it unreasonable of me to view/ houses with an asking price of £80000 with the intention of offering lower?

As I'm doing my research into similar properties for sale and recent sold prices some just seem so over priced.

Theres two houses for sale in an area I like, one is in great condition- new-ish kitchen, bathroom etc, the other needs at least a new kitchen, bathroom and general updating, but they're both asking for the same price.

walwyn1978

No, but you may well find that you fall in love with a place bid your maximum and don’t get it, which will be frustrating and use up time.

Barny1979

bluebetty wrote: »

Theres two houses for sale in an area I like, one is in great condition- new-ish kitchen, bathroom etc, the other needs at least a new kitchen, bathroom and general updating, but they're both asking for the same price.

Potentially more wriggle-room on offer price with latter

Hutch100uk

I don't see why not. I'll be doing that when I start viewing houses. My max is £120k but my search goes up to £130k. I would avoid any that says 'offers over £130k' but I assume possible wiggle room on the others.
It depends on how desperate the sellers are to get rid and how much interest they've had.

hazyjo

Well, it's more than 10% reduction which I would say is pushing your luck. But with such a low asking price, I can't see them being hugely popular and the areas may not be that desirable (sorry!) so probably less buyers which may go in your favour.


Worth a try, but I would make it very clear that your offer is a one-time offer with no chance of an increase (presuming that's how you play it. In your shoes, I really don't think it's worth going in under that in the hope of rising to £70k).


I would certainly be looking at up to £10k over too, but, as above, be prepared to not get what you might really want.

Crashy_Time

walwyn1978 wrote: »

No, but you may well find that you fall in love with a place bid your maximum and don’t get it, which will be frustrating and use up time.

Unlikely in this market IMO, most houses are not that unique anyway.

Mossfarr

It depends on the property you are looking at. If its rented out then the landlord may be in a hurry to offload it and may accept lower offers.
If its a much loved and cared for family home the vendors are unlikely to drop the price as they probably need as much as they can get towards the deposit on their next home.
I always found it useful to establish how long the property has been on the market. If its been up for sale for a long time you may be able to offer lower. Depends how desperate they are to move on, the house may not be selling because its overpriced and the vendors are refusing to accept lower offers.
Ask loads of questions of the estate agent and the vendors when you view to try and establish the position of the vendors.

lookstraightahead

As a percentage prices are pushed up that much anyway in my opinion - you have nothing to lose

OldMusicGuy

We've been looking for 18 months. Whenever I made it clear to EAs that we were looking at houses up to £XXX, they always included houses that were a bit over our budget on the basis that a) we might fall in love with them and stretch ourselves a bit and b) most vendors will consider an offer close to the listed price.

We've just put our house on the market and agreed a price that we would like to try to achieve (and that seems reasonable for the market in our area) but we will consider offers under the asking price.

So I don't think it's unreasonable at all.

hazyjo

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

We've just put our house on the market and agreed a price that we would like to try to achieve (and that seems reasonable for the market in our area) but we will consider offers under the asking price.

So I don't think it's unreasonable at all.

Pretty obvious, yep.


But -12.5%? Would you take that off your asking price? I'd say it's priced way too high if that's the case.

stripeyfox

There's nothing unreasonable with viewing something which you can't afford (potentially), just the same as you might view items in shop beyond your budget.

But of course the seller may not be interested in lowering the price by that percentage. You might get lucky, or you might end up wasting your time I guess