Very low offer from buyers

ahfat41

My son in law is selling his mother house probate. On the market in Kent for £600,000. Recently reduced to £585,000. They have a buyer who offer £555,000, low offer but they decide to accept as it will 1 yr since house has been empty. Now the buyer wants another £10,000 without even a survey been done. I told him to say no. The buyers know they are desperate to sell but not that low. His older brother is keen to sell.

Flugelhorn

I would try saying no, quite possible they are just trying it on to see what the lowest they will accept is. Might be different if they had had a survey. 

RelievedSheff

So just say no if you don't like the offer. 

theartfullodger

Reply thank you for your kind offer, but not at that price.

Alternative, the hard-ball approach, "Oh, didn't realise the price was flexible - it's now £10k higher..."

Marvel1

No, as they will probably drop it again after the survey.

Hoenir

What's the Agents view? 

lika_86

ahfat41 said:

My son in law is selling his mother house probate. On the market in Kent for £600,000. Recently reduced to £585,000. They have a buyer who offer £555,000, low offer but they decide to accept as it will 1 yr since house has been empty. Now the buyer wants another £10,000 without even a survey been done. I told him to say no. The buyers know they are desperate to sell but not that low. His older brother is keen to sell.

No, but anticipate that they will try the same thing after survey. 

Bigphil1474

When we were looking a few months ago, a lot of houses at that price range had come down a lot since the beginning of 2023, even some down by £60-£70k, so I don't think it is necessarily wide of the mark. Depends on local market and the property of course. If nobody else is interested he might not get more than £550k for it. On the other hand, we put an offer in on a house that had been on the market for 7 months, offered about 5% below the asking, the seller said no, and a few days later they got their asking price and we missed out.

He might be keen to sell, but they might equally be as keen to buy - up to him, but personally I'd tell them to do one and say it's going back on the market then - the market has definitely picked up where I am. If both brothers are executors it might cause disagreements, but if just one is, then they can do what they want to.

penners324

Then they'll offer £495k just before exchange.....

Bigphil1474

Yes, definitely sounds like they'll try it on all the way until exchange. They probably regret offering what they did originally, or maybe the seller accepted too quickly - we deliberately waited a couple of days when we agreed on a price for our house so we didn't seem too keen, as we accepted £10k below asking. (We were very keen to accept the offer).

tacpot12

I would always reject an amended offer if the purchaser didn't provide any rationale for the amendment. Without a rationale they are just being lazy.