How to respectfully negotiate down

TractorFactor

Say a house is wroth £400,000.
If the survey comes back and it says it's only worth £375,000, can you use that to ask for a reduction?

Hoenir

You can ask. What the response will be........

youth_leader

Do you mean a mortgage survey?  If a mortgage lender values the house below asking, the buyer may accept a negotiation based on that. 

Alternatively, they might hold out for a cash buyer who will pay the asking price.  

DullGreyGuy

You can use that, a random number generator, the fact it's a Wednesday or anything else you want to claim as a reason to renegotiate before you exchange. How receptive the seller will be to renegotiating will depend on their position, their priorities etc. 

Some may be more understanding to the need to renegotiate if you are dependent on a mortgage and the survey says the price is too high but if they need the full £400k to afford the property they are moving to being understanding won't change their response. At the same time if they're needing to emigrate and want to have it all wrapped up before they leave and their new job starts in two weeks and on the day of exchange you tell them you've decided to drop your offer as you fancy a new rolex  they may accept as they consider it better than having to restart the process remotely. 

FlorayG

What DullGreyGuy said. I've accepted a £15k low offer before now and I've also said a flat NO to an offer only £5k below my asking for a different property. It depends on the sellers circumstances - in the first case, I knew it was going to have to sell to a 'special' person because it was more than a bit out of date and in the second, I was at full stretch to afford the place I was moving to and couldn't afford to take less
Just offer and see what they say

ButterCheese

We tried offering £310k on our house (advertised for £315k).  The seller refused all offers, stating that he would rather rent it out if he didn't get the amount he was asking.  It's all to do with how badly the seller wants to sell, and what interest they've had on it previously, and what other options they have e.g. renting it out.  If like us this is the house for you and there are no others around in your budget, then be prepared for them to reject your bid and you will end up paying full price if you really want it.

Lots of people go on about going in with a low offer, or a cheeky offer, but in our experience it doesn't always work these days, given that there are always people looking for houses.  Unless it's been drastically over-priced.  Estate agents are part of the problem; we were told our old house would sell for £350k "all day"....we ended up accepting an offer of £310k as we'd had 7 views and no offers and were eager to move out.  The agents want it to sell for as much as possible to earn maximum comission, up to a point, they also want to sell quickly.

Albermarle

 It's all to do with how badly the seller wants to sell, and what interest they've had on it previously, and what other options they have e.g. renting it out. 

You could also add that the personality/experience of the seller will come into play. Some will take any price reduction request personally, and will not negotiate even when there is good reason to. 
On the other hand a seller with some business/negotiating experience may be happy to discuss in a more rational way, but in reality will do their best to give as little as possible away.
Plus many other variations when you are dealing with human beings.

theartfullodger

Wroth of g*d ? ?

No requirement to be respectful.... Both approaches each have benefits...

A property is worth different amounts to different people with different circumstances.