Should I withdraw my offer on a house?

pluto261

I made the classic mistake of falling in love with a house (I know, I know) and I've now spent 10 days waiting for the vendor to respond to the offer I made. It was a strong offer, within 3% of the asking price, and I'm a first-time buyer with a 40% deposit and no chain. However, the vendor at first made excuses about why she wasn't ready to make a decision yet, said she'd make a decision this week and still hasn't, and the estate agents haven't been able to reach her on the phone the past couple of days.

The house has been on the market for over a year now with the price being reduced in increments, and it's been at its current price for 3 months. As far as I know there hasn't been an offer on it since February, and that was considerably less than what I've offered. Given the circumstances, I feel like the most likely explanation for her ignoring the offer is that she's unmotivated to sell and/or is waiting around indefinitely for someone to offer over the asking price (which is still above market value, even with all the reductions).

At this point I'm tired and stressed out from all the waiting, but I'm still holding on because I love the property so much. During the wait I went for a second viewing at another house that I'm ready to make an offer on, but I don't want to mess those sellers about by having two offers out there at the same time, and backing out if my offer on the first house gets accepted.

Should I just give up and withdraw my offer outright, or should I stick a time limit (24-48 hours) on it to try and light a fire under the vendor's bum?

Octothorpe

It doesn't sound like she's serious. 
And I'd worry about whether she'd just withdraw her house from the market later on after you've incurred fees.

NinjaTune

Have you done a second viewing of the house you've offered on?  If not I'd ask for a second viewing to make sure it's really what you want.  Go in with a business head on, make sure you inspect it closely - you may find you are less enchanted with it after all.

If they don't agree to a second viewing then I'd probably just withdraw the offer and keep looking elsewhere.

pluto261

NinjaTune said:

Have you done a second viewing of the house you've offered on?  If not I'd ask for a second viewing to make sure it's really what you want.  Go in with a business head on, make sure you inspect it closely - you may find you are less enchanted with it after all.

If they don't agree to a second viewing then I'd probably just withdraw the offer and keep looking elsewhere.

I've been for a second viewing at the house I've offered on already. It needs a bit of love in terms of painting and decorating, but it doesn't have any major structural problems that I could see.

I think the vendor has based her asking price on a similar neighbouring house which sold a couple of years ago, but that had been newly renovated and nicely staged before it was sold, whereas this place is empty and the walls/floors are kind of scuffed up. The opportunity to decorate from scratch was actually one of the things that appealed to me about it.

sammyjammy

I'd just inform the EA that your offer remains on the table for 7 days at which stage it's withdrawn, you'll fall in love with something else!

niceguyed

If it's been on the market that long in a overheated market then safe to say it was overpriced. Either they're not serious or once your offer came in and they realised they needed to look themselves they've suddenly found a rather small pool of housing stock.
I personally am not a fan of leaving offers on the table. If it was me I'd withdraw the offer and look elsewhere, but as a happy medium you could give a deadline to accept and make clear it's a final offer.

pluto261

niceguyed said:

If it's been on the market that long in a overheated market then safe to say it was overpriced. Either they're not serious or once your offer came in and they realised they needed to look themselves they've suddenly found a rather small pool of housing stock.
I personally am not a fan of leaving offers on the table. If it was me I'd withdraw the offer and look elsewhere, but as a happy medium you could give a deadline to accept and make clear it's a final offer.

Thanks for the advice. I couldn't face another weekend of stressing about it so I decided to bite the bullet. I withdrew my offer on this place and put in an offer on the second house. Even if my first offer had been accepted, I have a feeling I would have been in for an absolute nightmare of an exchange process with that seller.

GDB2222

This sort of thing happens where there's a divorce, and one party doesn't really want to sell, but you said it's empty. So, that's very strange.

Irishpearce26

I think it was pretty obvious that your offer wasn't accepted. I would have contacted the EA and said that your offer remains for the next 24 hours otherwise you'll be making an offer on another property.

NameUnavailable

pluto261 said:

niceguyed said:

If it's been on the market that long in a overheated market then safe to say it was overpriced. Either they're not serious or once your offer came in and they realised they needed to look themselves they've suddenly found a rather small pool of housing stock.
I personally am not a fan of leaving offers on the table. If it was me I'd withdraw the offer and look elsewhere, but as a happy medium you could give a deadline to accept and make clear it's a final offer.

Thanks for the advice. I couldn't face another weekend of stressing about it so I decided to bite the bullet. I withdrew my offer on this place and put in an offer on the second house. Even if my first offer had been accepted, I have a feeling I would have been in for an absolute nightmare of an exchange process with that seller.

You don't really need to withdraw an offer that's not been accepted and there's nothing to stop you offering on 100 properties if you wanted to. I'd have just left it and if/when they come back you tell them then that you've offered on something else instead.

However, the seller sounds like they aren't really keen on selling, for whatever reason, so you have done the best thing.

hippocrates1

Sounds like she is not a serious seller and could pull out and leave you with expensive fees to pay.