Offering under asking price

pinkshoes

Regarding the second property, then at 17% below it might mean the vendors couldn't afford their onward property with a price that much lower, so wouldn't be able to afford to accept. 

If you go throwing around low offers on properties that you're not all that interested in then the EA will start to think you're a time waster and you won't be on their list of people they call when something good comes on the market.

We had some people look round our previous property who offered £180k (asking price £220k) and came across as arrogant and they were doing us a favour! They then "upped" it to £190k. We sold it for £220k (3 offers at asking price) and then these low offer people offered £222k, but we turned them down as if they that badly wanted the property they would have offered something more sensible to begin with.

TheJP

To be honest you're a house sellers nightmare, FTB entitlement. 

There is no discount for speed as you cant guarantee it, your opinion on the house price is irrelevant all that counts is how much you want to pay. If its out of your budget or its not comparable with similar houses then walk away.

The EA will have told the sellers about your offer, the seller like i did would have briefed the EA on things that would be rejected outright.

Snookie12cat

user1977 said:

kisaki757 said:

I feel there should be a significant discount for speed. 

How much of a discount do you "feel", and how quickly do you think the average FTB can actually complete? They're the buyers most likely to have problems with their mortgage applications, and (because they've never done this before) the most likely to get flaky or be difficult to negotiate with. 

Ha ha - I am working with a FTB now and 100%. Slow and painful from the person buying and the person selling. The only people getting close to 20% discounts on property are those 'we buy any house' and they can buy it in a matter or days. This FTB really isn't in a position to get 17% off. I mean they want to sell, but not at any cost I imagine.

[Deleted User]

kisaki757 said:

Property A has been on the market since Sept and reduced once in Oct. I made an offer that is about 10% lower than the reduced price. EA immediately told me this is the lowest offer they received so far and won't be accepted. But he never confirmed the owners actually rejected the offer. He strikes me as a bit dodgy...

That's a common scam at EAs use.

They are legally obliged to relay offers to the owner. The only way to get around it is to discourage you from making an official offer. They will tell you it's too low and won't be accepted, and then claim you didn't make a formal offer. So you have to be very clear with them that it's an offer and you want to put to the owner.

It may be that the owner has unrealistic expectations or needs a certain amount to buy the property they want, but often it's just the EA holding out for a better price.

Snookie12cat

 I feel there should be a significant discount for speed. 

Um.... you are not going to move as fast as you think. If you had the cash in the bank, no searches and no survey and could complete in a week then maybe they would consider a 'significant discount for speed'. I don't think you are in as good a position as you think. 

TheJP

[Deleted User] said:

kisaki757 said:

Property A has been on the market since Sept and reduced once in Oct. I made an offer that is about 10% lower than the reduced price. EA immediately told me this is the lowest offer they received so far and won't be accepted. But he never confirmed the owners actually rejected the offer. He strikes me as a bit dodgy...

That's a common scam at EAs use.

They are legally obliged to relay offers to the owner. The only way to get around it is to discourage you from making an official offer. They will tell you it's too low and won't be accepted, and then claim you didn't make a formal offer. So you have to be very clear with them that it's an offer and you want to put to the owner.

It may be that the owner has unrealistic expectations or needs a certain amount to buy the property they want, but often it's just the EA holding out for a better price.

There is no gain for the EA to do this as the fee will be either fixed based on the marketing price or % which would be minimal. I think its the FTB that has unrealistic expectations in this scenario.

17% below asking on my last house (sold just over asking) is £50K. The FTB needs to give themselves a shake and approach this with open eyes.

Thrugelmir

kisaki757 said:

Thrugelmir said:

kisaki757 said:

Hi, I am a FTB and I need some advice about how to negotiate with EA's

It's not the EA's property. The EA will merely relay your offer to the vendor. The EA's role is to try and bring the parties together to reach an agreed price. 

All the EA wants to do is achieve a sale and as that's what they ultimately get paid for. The price is pretty irrelevant as the commisson on a few thousand pounds is neither here nor there. The EA isn't paid until the sale eventually completes which is some months away. 

Thanks, that was my understanding too! But so far in both cases, the EA hasn't even told the vendor about my offer, they just dismissed it straight out. I realize it's low but that's the whole point of a negotiation: you start low and go up. How can I do that when the other party isn't even aware?

The vendor may have set a bottom line price. The EA is effectively relaying this to you. No one is going to waste time. When there's other productive work to be done. 

 On this one, I made an offer that's 17% lower than the asking price because, first, I feel that the asking price is waaaay too high 

Doesn't matter what you think.

TheJP

From looking at your previous posts you state you wont pay more than 70% on the asking price. Going to be a long slogg for you i think.

theoretica

The EA is working for the sellers. If the sellers have told the EA they don't want to discuss offers below a certain level there is nothing you as a buyer bargain hunter can do to make them.  Other than, of course, make higher offers.

mattyprice4004

I'd rather have my EA filter out silly offers than disturb whatever I'm doing with an offer 17% under asking.
If I wanted 17% less, I'd have listed it for closer to that price. 

Also, being an FTB is actually not always a good thing - my first set of buyers were FTBs and the amount of silly questions, objections to completely normal things on the survey combined with the process of having their mortgage move painfully slowly due to the amount of checks etc was tedious. 

Cash is king, and moves things along well in most cases - if you're a normal FTB with a mortgage, you're no better than anyone else I'm afraid.