Best and final offers - advice needed please

Unicorn_cottage

Sorry Crashy I blocked you ages ago.

Crashy_Time

dani17 said:

you will never know if there are really other bidders or no. don't fall in the trap of the blind auction . offer what you think is the right value. and Remember, there always a risk of having crazy people offring above the market.

Banks are putting a stop to that now, you might get the odd deluded cash buyer, but very unlikely IMO.

Mutton_Geoff

Unicorn_cottage said:

At the end of the day to rent the house I bought would of cost me at least £800 a month. My mortgage was cheaper. If I had waited any longer I would have been priced out the market.

The two figures are like comparing apples and bananas. You forgot to factor in maintenance, repair and servicing costs and an SVR mortgage interest rate.

Unicorn_cottage

Mutton_Geoff said:

Unicorn_cottage said:

At the end of the day to rent the house I bought would of cost me at least £800 a month. My mortgage was cheaper. If I had waited any longer I would have been priced out the market.

The two figures are like comparing apples and bananas. You forgot to factor in maintenance, repair and servicing costs and an SVR mortgage interest rate.

Not really. If we had rented a similar property we would have paid out at least £54,000 in rent and fees. The value of the house has gone up £47k without talking into account how much we have paid off including overpayments. Prior to this house.my partner was paying £650 a month to live in someone's lean-to in Twickenham and that was cheap. When the microwave broke so asked the landlord if he could provide her with another one and he pulled out a filthy old one from his shed. The landlord shortly after sold his property for over £1 million. Glad to be out of that mug's game. We wanted our own home that we could maintain, repair and service ourselves. We no longer wanted to pay for someone else's mortgage. We will not be going on SVR so that argument is out the window. In fact we are just about to remortgage to a rate that is a whole percentage below what we are paying now. We have done a lot of renovations ourselves including building a porch, renovating the back garden, redecorating and rebuilding garden walls. Would not go back to renting unless forced to and am sure the majority of renters would switch to owning if they could.

Crashy_Time

Unicorn_cottage said:

Mutton_Geoff said:

Unicorn_cottage said:

At the end of the day to rent the house I bought would of cost me at least £800 a month. My mortgage was cheaper. If I had waited any longer I would have been priced out the market.

The two figures are like comparing apples and bananas. You forgot to factor in maintenance, repair and servicing costs and an SVR mortgage interest rate.

Not really. If we had rented a similar property we would have paid out at least £54,000 in rent and fees. The value of the house has gone up £47k without talking into account how much we have paid off including overpayments. Prior to this house.my partner was paying £650 a month to live in someone's lean-to in Twickenham and that was cheap. When the microwave broke so asked the landlord if he could provide her with another one and he pulled out a filthy old one from his shed. The landlord shortly after sold his property for over £1 million. Glad to be out of that mug's game. We wanted our own home that we could maintain, repair and service ourselves. We no longer wanted to pay for someone else's mortgage. We will not be going on SVR so that argument is out the window. In fact we are just about to remortgage to a rate that is a whole percentage below what we are paying now. We have done a lot of renovations ourselves including building a porch, renovating the back garden, redecorating and rebuilding garden walls. Would not go back to renting unless forced to and am sure the majority of renters would switch to owning if they could.

Well you have done a good job of convincing yourself anyway.

blue_max_3

Unicorn_cottage said:

Mutton_Geoff said:

Unicorn_cottage said:

At the end of the day to rent the house I bought would of cost me at least £800 a month. My mortgage was cheaper. If I had waited any longer I would have been priced out the market.

The two figures are like comparing apples and bananas. You forgot to factor in maintenance, repair and servicing costs and an SVR mortgage interest rate.

Not really. If we had rented a similar property we would have paid out at least £54,000 in rent and fees. The value of the house has gone up £47k without talking into account how much we have paid off including overpayments. Prior to this house.my partner was paying £650 a month to live in someone's lean-to in Twickenham and that was cheap. When the microwave broke so asked the landlord if he could provide her with another one and he pulled out a filthy old one from his shed. The landlord shortly after sold his property for over £1 million. Glad to be out of that mug's game. We wanted our own home that we could maintain, repair and service ourselves. We no longer wanted to pay for someone else's mortgage. We will not be going on SVR so that argument is out the window. In fact we are just about to remortgage to a rate that is a whole percentage below what we are paying now. We have done a lot of renovations ourselves including building a porch, renovating the back garden, redecorating and rebuilding garden walls. Would not go back to renting unless forced to and am sure the majority of renters would switch to owning if they could.

This is an interesting comparison. It doesn't mean it's not nice to own, just not as bad to rent as it appears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwl3-jBNEd4

FrugalCat

Unicorn_cottage said:

My experience of sealed bids. I offered on my house in the summer of 2015. Bristol was a very very buoyant market then and still is I believe. I had offered on a few houses but had missed out as all went above asking price by some way. The house I wanted was on the market for offers over £200k. Before I left the house after the viewing I put in an offer of £205k thinking that this was fair and would seal the deal. It didn't and it went to sealed bids. I thought long and hard about how much I could stretch myself financially and how I could get the property. I had read some advice somewhere about putting in an offer of an odd amount. I made the assumption that someone had also put in an offer of £205k so I worked up from there in £2.5k increments. I assumed it would easily go to £210k and would start to hit a peak at around £215/£217,500 therefore I went for an offer of £217,679.89 thinking that the odd offer would get me the house by the skin of my teeth. Thankfully I got the house. I asked the Estate Agent what the next highest bid was and he said it was extremely tight and I had got it by about £100 or so so I assume someone went in at £217,500.

Funnily enough when talking to my neighbours 2 doors about my buying experience they said they had done similar.

@katiee1994 I would try speaking to the Estate Agent, (for any intelligence!), and try sussing out if it is common to go to sealed bids in the area and if so how much are people paying over. Any bit of information can help Best of luck.

I've heard this story a few times. The agent that originally thought it up was a great salesperson - it makes the buyer proud and happy with the outcome: "I can't believe my luck, I won by a few (hundred) quid".

The "best and final" is a quick way of getting a keen buyer to increase their price to whatever they can afford. If it meets the sellers expectations, the deal is done within days. If it doesn't, they tell the potential buyer there's a higher offer/ more attractive buyer and try to find someone else.
It also stops the EA having to approach their vendor with offers under the value the EA told them they could get - thus avoiding any negative feelings on the sellers side.

The best way to buy a house: Don't be emotional about it. Fix your target price, stick to it and negotiate hard, but fair. If the seller is unrealistic about the value of their house, don't let that be your problem.
If you can't to that, get a buyer's agent to do it for you.

dani17

@Crashy_Time if you have 20% deposit the bank will not really care if you are buying a house 10% above the market. Agree with you that we should have less people ready to go above, but when you are buying "one" house in "one" time it will be always a risk to have "one" crazy buyer in front of you and even if there wasn't, the EA will try to convince you there is.
Honestly, i really hate this type of sale . if i want to play a bidding game, i will go for a real auction at least i will see how much other people are offering . that's why when i see offers above, unless the guide price is really below the market i will just ignore the property.

Crashy_Time

dani17 said:

@Crashy_Time if you have 20% deposit the bank will not really care if you are buying a house 10% above the market. Agree with you that we should have less people ready to go above, but when you are buying "one" house in "one" time it will be always a risk to have "one" crazy buyer in front of you and even if there wasn't, the EA will try to convince you there is.
Honestly, i really hate this type of sale . if i want to play a bidding game, i will go for a real auction at least i will see how much other people are offering . that's why when i see offers above, unless the guide price is really below the market i will just ignore the property.

The bank`s valuer probably won`t be valuing anything "10% above the market" nowadays.

Unicorn_cottage

FrugalCat said:

Unicorn_cottage said:

My experience of sealed bids. I offered on my house in the summer of 2015. Bristol was a very very buoyant market then and still is I believe. I had offered on a few houses but had missed out as all went above asking price by some way. The house I wanted was on the market for offers over £200k. Before I left the house after the viewing I put in an offer of £205k thinking that this was fair and would seal the deal. It didn't and it went to sealed bids. I thought long and hard about how much I could stretch myself financially and how I could get the property. I had read some advice somewhere about putting in an offer of an odd amount. I made the assumption that someone had also put in an offer of £205k so I worked up from there in £2.5k increments. I assumed it would easily go to £210k and would start to hit a peak at around £215/£217,500 therefore I went for an offer of £217,679.89 thinking that the odd offer would get me the house by the skin of my teeth. Thankfully I got the house. I asked the Estate Agent what the next highest bid was and he said it was extremely tight and I had got it by about £100 or so so I assume someone went in at £217,500.

Funnily enough when talking to my neighbours 2 doors about my buying experience they said they had done similar.

@katiee1994 I would try speaking to the Estate Agent, (for any intelligence!), and try sussing out if it is common to go to sealed bids in the area and if so how much are people paying over. Any bit of information can help Best of luck.

I've heard this story a few times. The agent that originally thought it up was a great salesperson - it makes the buyer proud and happy with the outcome: "I can't believe my luck, I won by a few (hundred) quid".

The "best and final" is a quick way of getting a keen buyer to increase their price to whatever they can afford. If it meets the sellers expectations, the deal is done within days. If it doesn't, they tell the potential buyer there's a higher offer/ more attractive buyer and try to find someone else.
It also stops the EA having to approach their vendor with offers under the value the EA told them they could get - thus avoiding any negative feelings on the sellers side.

The best way to buy a house: Don't be emotional about it. Fix your target price, stick to it and negotiate hard, but fair. If the seller is unrealistic about the value of their house, don't let that be your problem.
If you can't to that, get a buyer's agent to do it for you.

@FrugalCat As explained previously one size does not fit all when it comes to buying property. Bristol is an incredibly competitive market. If you don't live in an area like then you couldn't possibly understand. I already said that I had put in an above asking price offer which was rejected. Rentals were even going to highest bidders. I have no issues with the EA trying to get the best price for there client that is their job. At the end of the day we got the house we wanted, we knew it would go up in value significantly which it has and that's all that matters.