Selling our house - potential buyer, but unsure how to proceed

RelievedSheff

As others have said what you paid for the house and what you have done to it and spent on it are largely irrelevant.

It does sound as though other houses in the area have sold for slightly higher prices in the last 12 months but that does not mean that yours is worth more. How has the market in your local area reacted recently? Are there lots of people dropping their asking prices for example?

If you think the offer is too low then reject it. Personally given this chaps negotiating "skills" I think I would have already done so. I like to get a deal done at a fair price for all without all of the haggling and back and forth.

le_veilleur

You should accept this offer since it's probably the highest you're going to get.

AdrianC

Schro wrote: »

I am not sure how you can claim my house is over-priced.

Ignore him... It's Crashy. EVERY house is overpriced.

If you waved a freshly-refurbished Belgravia mansion at him for £100k, it'd be overpriced.

Cakeguts

Schro wrote: »

How long have you been on the market? 2 months now
How many viewers? Around 10-15
How many other offers? One other that was rejected by the agent
What are the recent sale prices of comparable local properties? Our neighbors house (same floorplan, garden size, and same allocated parking space) sold for £255k a year ago. Another property that was slightly worse then ours sold for £245k, and one that was slightly better sold for £265k (both these were within the last 2 months).

If you want to wait and see if another offer, perhapshgher, comesalong, will you lose your purchase? Are they in a hurry? Are they in a chain? Is the chain complete? The house we want is having the same issues as us. They are also not getting offers, though apparently one other potential buyer might offer more then us.


As for the kitchen, we installed it 8 months ago (the other kitchen was ancient and needed replacing). Though we had no illusions that it would increase the property price by much (which is why we didn't seek a higher valuation). The price is more based on our neighbors house and other properties in the area. £260k was a fair valuation when we put it up considering our neighbors house sold for £255k a year ago (as well as other houses at comparable prices).
So a drop to £240k as an offer seems personally laughable to me. Our agent is not saying whether it's a good offer or not, and is not pressuring us to take it. He also thinks we could get the property we want for cheaper and doesn't think it has been priced right (but like us, if they don't want to budge that is purely up them).


This is purely a personal thing, but the attitude of the potential buyer is not helping matters. I also am wondering, if he is so certain he can get a house for cheaper, then why hasn't he?

There are lots of things about this that really don't make sense to me and which I can't decide about because you haven't given enough information.


You have compared your house to others and mentioned allocated parking. This coupled with this being a one bedroom house makes me think that it is not all that long since it was build in which case I can't see why the kitchen was ancient. There isn't a lot of point in spending £15k on replacing a perfectly good servicable kitchen with a new one just because the old one was out of fashion. Your £15k one is probably out of fashion now as well as being second hand. Changing the kitchen has not increased the value of the property.



Where the allocated parking is can make a difference to the value of a house. The further away from the house the parking is the cheaper the house will be. I have no idea how your allocated parking space compares to what the other houses have.



The position of a house also affects its value. Two houses can have identical gardens, floor space and allocated parking but the actual position of the houses can make one worth less.



New housing being built in the local area with help to buy available can affect the value of existing properties especially one bed houses which a lot of people don't want.



What I suspect may have happened is that you paid too much for the house when you bought it. It may have appeared to be cheap for the prices two years ago with what was on the market then and you may have thought that you could increase the value by changing the kitchen for a more modern one.



There will be a top price for a 1 bed house. Any more than this and people will buy a 2 bed instead.



Some people make improvements to houses that actually devalue them. For example putting in a kitchen that makes the space look smaller to viewers will devalue the house. The original kitchen would have been carefully designed to make the space of the kitchen look bigger. If yours just shows how small the kitchen area actually is this will be putting people off.


2 months on the market and no offers near your asking price means that people think it is overpriced. There is something about your house that is putting people off it. The fact that in two months you have only had two offers both that are quite low means that many people do not want to pay the price you are asking for it. You cannot force people to pay more than they want to.



If no one is making offers around your asking price there is no point in your advert saying offers over so you can remove that.

LittleMax

pinkteapot wrote: »

Agree with everyone else above, buuuutttt.... I'd have the same gut feel about this particular buyer. They fact they tried a cheeky £210k and then immediately went to £240k would put me off and make me think they're the type to try dropping the offer after the survey or close to exchange. On balance I'd probably accept it but be nervous!

Surely it depends on what the EA said to them. EA had to pass on the initial offer to the vendor, but presumably went back with No and an indicator that if they could get closer to the £250 the vendor might accept. No point stepping the way up to £240 - just get the deal done.

Schro

Cakeguts wrote: »

There are lots of things about this that really don't make sense to me and which I can't decide about because you haven't given enough information.
You have compared your house to others and mentioned allocated parking. This coupled with this being a one bedroom house makes me think that it is not all that long since it was build in which case I can't see why the kitchen was ancient. There isn't a lot of point in spending £15k on replacing a perfectly good servicable kitchen with a new one just because the old one was out of fashion. Your £15k one is probably out of fashion now as well as being second hand. Changing the kitchen has not increased the value of the property.
Where the allocated parking is can make a difference to the value of a house. The further away from the house the parking is the cheaper the house will be. I have no idea how your allocated parking space compares to what the other houses have.
The position of a house also affects its value. Two houses can have identical gardens, floor space and allocated parking but the actual position of the houses can make one worth less.
New housing being built in the local area with help to buy available can affect the value of existing properties especially one bed houses which a lot of people don't want.
What I suspect may have happened is that you paid too much for the house when you bought it. It may have appeared to be cheap for the prices two years ago with what was on the market then and you may have thought that you could increase the value by changing the kitchen for a more modern one.
There will be a top price for a 1 bed house. Any more than this and people will buy a 2 bed instead.
Some people make improvements to houses that actually devalue them. For example putting in a kitchen that makes the space look smaller to viewers will devalue the house. The original kitchen would have been carefully designed to make the space of the kitchen look bigger. If yours just shows how small the kitchen area actually is this will be putting people off.
2 months on the market and no offers near your asking price means that people think it is overpriced. There is something about your house that is putting people off it. The fact that in two months you have only had two offers both that are quite low means that many people do not want to pay the price you are asking for it. You cannot force people to pay more than they want to.
If no one is making offers around your asking price there is no point in your advert saying offers over so you can remove that.

House was built around 1970 to my knowledge, there was a lot of wear and tear on the kitchen and needed replacing. We did not redo it with the intention of vastly increasing the value. The value of £260k was what the 2 valuations said. The allocated parking is less then 3 meters from the house also.
The neighbors house (ours is a semi detached), is identical in almost every way and sold for £255k a year ago. There is also no new developments being built nearby, so this has probably not effected things.
Some people have been put off by distance from town (a 15 min cycle), others has looked at houses that are cheaper but in a worse state.
Other estate agents have approached us to get them on their books. They believe they can get the asking price. But I am not sure whether it is all talk *shrugs*.
On another note, I can send the details of our house to you if you wanted to look, but I want to keep it off the forum itself.

LittleMax wrote: »

Surely it depends on what the EA said to them. EA had to pass on the initial offer to the vendor, but presumably went back with No and an indicator that if they could get closer to the £250 the vendor might accept. No point stepping the way up to £240 - just get the deal done.

We did tell the EA when we dropped the price, that we would only consider offers that were £250k, but we have no idea what they actually said to the potential buyer. But they also were oh so certain that they would sell our house for £260k in a week.
In terms of an update to the situation, we have not taken the guys offer yet. We personally are not in a hurry to move tbh. We would like a bigger house to start a family, but we don't mind waiting. Also our EA is certain we can get a deal with the house we are interested in, as he believes a similar reduction in price is warranted. The seller of the house we are interested in also has not outright rejected our offer yet, and I heard they are also speaking to the seller for the house they are interested in for a similar deal.

Crashy_Time

AdrianC wrote: »

Ignore him... It's Crashy. EVERY house is overpriced.

If you waved a freshly-refurbished Belgravia mansion at him for £100k, it'd be overpriced.

No that wouldn`t be overpriced, but without a link there is no way to tell if the OP`s house is or not, the link can just be the general area, it doesn`t have to be the actual house or street.

Schro

Crashy_Time wrote: »

No that wouldn`t be overpriced, but without a link there is no way to tell if the OP`s house is or not, the link can just be the general area, it doesn`t have to be the actual house or street.

I am happy to send a link of the house to people over PM, I just don't want it posted on the forum.

Crashy_Time

Schro wrote: »

I am happy to send a link of the house to people over PM, I just don't want it posted on the forum.

Fair enough, I was meaning just general area though, for example if I stayed in Stenhouse Edinburgh or wanted to buy there, and told you that online, you could then investigate house prices and transactions for similar houses but would be very unlikely to find out where I lived or wanted to buy?

Crashy_Time

Using PropertyLog there seems to be some price cutting going on in your area, but apart from one really substantial reduction on a particular property people are knocking 5k and 10k here and there off their asking prices, so the guy offering really low may have been jumping the gun a bit in this instance.