What to offer based on 'recent' sold prices?

BarelySentientAI

warby68 said:

ThisIsWeird said:

warby68 said:

It is something of a game with shifting goalposts. Sure is!

I would however disagree with justifying your offer.* Too much room for offence and quibbling and makes you sound less confident. A common response would be to tell you to offer on one of those better houses. A simple 'that is what I am offering ' PLUS your good points as a buyer is better in my view.

£265k is only around 5% below asking so well within a generally accepted, 'reasonable', non offence causing, serious offer.

* I respectfully disagree. But with caveats.

The 'justification' shouldn't be laboured, shouldn't be 'offensive', but should be couched in fact, and be succinct. This info does/should get fed back to the vendor, and if the EA keeps saying the same thing, then the vendor will be better informed. "Why hasn't my house sold?" "Well, a couple of viewers thought it overpriced compared to other recent sales in the area".

I see no reason to not include an explanation. This is a relationship between the buyer and the vendor, via the EA. You be a (largely) open and honest broker, and the EA will/should respect you for it.

5% below asking is a decent and normal (proportion wise) offer - it doesn't actually need a justification.

No need for a justification, just like there is no need for any negotiation or for the seller/EA to see you as anything other than someone just looking for a cheap deal.

When it takes no effort to provide a justification and is useful for both sides, why wouldn't you?

warby68

I think assuming its useful (or welcome) for the vendor and will make them friendly towards you is mistaken. They have access to all the information you have gathered too. In any case any 'education' on price should be the agent's job. Let them take the stick.

5% below asking is not looking for a cheap deal, 20% maybe but not 5%. 5% is right in the ballpark most times to start things off unless a very hot sellers' market.

Opinions always differ on this board. Residential property sales can be fraught because although its a business transaction its quite unique in that more often than not it also involves a lot of personal, not necessarily logical, feelings. Trying to point score on who's researched better could easily trigger the negative ones. And of course I will respond if I am sounded out a little more by the agent.

RHemmings

One thing that can be done is look up sold house prices on Zoopla in the area. When looking at hold house prices, for some houses it will tell you both the price it was listed at, and also what it sold for. Sometimes these prices are quite different. I'm not sure how Zoopla handles price reductions during the life of a listing.

What this shows is an idea of what sort of offers may be realistic. And, of course, the actual sold prices are not the first offers, in many cases. 

I agree that the offer doesn't need to be explained or justified. Just say that this is what you feel the house is worth, and it's up to them to decide to accept the offer or not. (Don't say the latter bit in those words of course. Maybe something like awaiting their response.)