Cheeky offer?

jimbog

Herzlos said:

inigma said:

MobileSaver said:

inigma said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Depends how much you love the property. 

When we viewed our current house we knew as soon as we walked in the door it was for us. Ticked all our boxes and more. We went straight it at asking price.

I'm holding on till next year or the year after when the flippers and landlords are desperate and you can offer a lower price.

One of the more infamous posters on this forum had the same idea and it backfired in spectacular fashion. 

Instead of their predicted property crash, fifteen years on they're still renting a flat and paying their landlord's mortgage while prices are now 66% higher than they were then...

Oh dear, well I got my property in 2011 for £170k and they wanted £240k.  Mortgage free for a couple of years now.  Like I said there is a lot lining up for prices to fall, unemployment rising, government debt rising...

A drop in house prices doesn't actually mean that houses will become more affordable to most people who need to get a mortgage. 

True. Even though mortgage interest rates are falling now doesn’t always mean they will always remain at this level long term

Herzlos

inigma said:

Herzlos said:

inigma said:

MobileSaver said:

inigma said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Depends how much you love the property. 

When we viewed our current house we knew as soon as we walked in the door it was for us. Ticked all our boxes and more. We went straight it at asking price.

I'm holding on till next year or the year after when the flippers and landlords are desperate and you can offer a lower price.

One of the more infamous posters on this forum had the same idea and it backfired in spectacular fashion. 

Instead of their predicted property crash, fifteen years on they're still renting a flat and paying their landlord's mortgage while prices are now 66% higher than they were then...

Oh dear, well I got my property in 2011 for £170k and they wanted £240k.  Mortgage free for a couple of years now.  Like I said there is a lot lining up for prices to fall, unemployment rising, government debt rising...

... affordability checks tighting, banks being less likely to lend, etc. 

A drop in house prices doesn't actually mean that houses will become more affordable to most people who need to get a mortgage. 

Yes, agree which is why I say smart money will be buying bargains when prices fall.

The trick is to buy at the bottom. 

But for those without psychic abiliity, it's probably better to just buy when you find one you like. 

inigma

Herzlos said:

inigma said:

Herzlos said:

inigma said:

MobileSaver said:

inigma said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Depends how much you love the property. 

When we viewed our current house we knew as soon as we walked in the door it was for us. Ticked all our boxes and more. We went straight it at asking price.

I'm holding on till next year or the year after when the flippers and landlords are desperate and you can offer a lower price.

One of the more infamous posters on this forum had the same idea and it backfired in spectacular fashion. 

Instead of their predicted property crash, fifteen years on they're still renting a flat and paying their landlord's mortgage while prices are now 66% higher than they were then...

Oh dear, well I got my property in 2011 for £170k and they wanted £240k.  Mortgage free for a couple of years now.  Like I said there is a lot lining up for prices to fall, unemployment rising, government debt rising...

... affordability checks tighting, banks being less likely to lend, etc. 

A drop in house prices doesn't actually mean that houses will become more affordable to most people who need to get a mortgage. 

Yes, agree which is why I say smart money will be buying bargains when prices fall.

The trick is to buy at the bottom. 

But for those without psychic abiliity, it's probably better to just buy when you find one you like. 

Well summer is the boom time for house sales and we just had a flat summer, let's see what happens over the autumn winter to the market, mortgages and bills still need paying on those empty properties, let's see how things start look when the default rates rise, we are at a similar default rate to 2006. 

People got greedy the market is the great equaliser, at the moment putting your deposit in a 1 year or 6 months bonds makes more sense, at the moment it would out perform house prices.

As I said

Only when the tide goes out you will see who was skinny dipping

I don't see the tide flowing in at the moment.

Herzlos

It's still a pretty big gamble, because none of us can tell the future. It's an easier gamble if you've already got somewhere suitable to live and a lot of cash to use though.

Anecdotally, I bought my first house just before the 2007 crash happened, got completely hosed on it. BUT if I were to try and buy the same house in 2008 for the new price, I wouldn't have been able to get a mortgage on it. So I still won overall because it was a great house. That's also assuming an equivalent house was even up for sale later. 


Isn't spring the boom time for house sales, rather than summer?

inigma

End of summer is when you see the peak, then people can't be bothered to see houses over autumn and winter. Spring to summer it kicks off again, but if houses haven't sold this year they are put on the market with all the new issues.

Like I said I'm happy to watch, especially with the renters reform bill coming in, seeing a lot of HMOs suddenly appear.

Anecdotally the area I'm looking has a house flipper (grey carpet yellow furniture) trying to sell for £390k and a few houses down 2 houses trying to get £590k for the same spec.  If they don't sell at £390k and they have to wait another 6 months for spring that will be a lot interest and council tax they have to pay.  Bring on the great repossession!

ReadySteadyPop

Herzlos said:

I don't know why you're inferring there's something special about 'this' market, or why that indicates that sellers would be foolish to not automatically accept the first offer they get no matter how low it is. Plenty of properties still sell for asking price (or above).

ReadySteadyPop said:

inigma said:

Download the property log extension in chrome, see how long it has been on the market and how frequently they have dropped the price.
Workout mortgage costs using the 30 year UK gov yield (over 5% now)
If the seller is desperate be considerate (unless they are a landlord or house flipper then it is fair game).  Seen a few houses that were purchased a year ago, renovated and had their prices dropped to the price they purchased for.
Market is weird at the moment I'm holding out a bit longer before I go bargain hunting.

Remember:

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

Warren Buffett

Good advice.

Interestingly, I've only seen one poster on here mention the property log extension, or gov yields (though you forgot to mention bonds?). 

That app and others get mentioned all the time, nearly all house buyers are using them now. Bond yields obviously relate to the level of offers that will be taken seriously as I`m sure many forum users understand.

ReadySteadyPop

MobileSaver said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

MobileSaver said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

MobileSaver said:

theartfullodger said:

Offer whatever you like.  Causing offence is entirely legal... 
I offered iirc about 20% below asking price in early 2000s.  Got the rudest, bluntest ever rejection... 
Made exact same offer 1 week later via solicitors.  Accepted.  Owned it about 20 years.

Conversely when a buyer tried that with me they were absolutely gutted when I accepted someone else's offer and refused to entertain them raising their initial low-ball offer.

The successful buyer was over the moon and over the next ten years I sporadically received letters telling me how much they loved living in what was a really nice property.

So there is no right or wrong answer. If the OP is not fussed whether they get this property or not then low-ball every time. On the other hand if this is a property that ticks all the boxes in a market where choices are few and far between then going too low could be one of the biggest mistakes they ever make...

Most people would find that strange if not highly unlikely, can you share some of what they said to you? 

It was because I was tardy in changing my address details for one particular financial organisation. Every year or so the buyer would very kindly forward me mail that was still going to the old address and they'd always include a note saying how much they loved the house.

ReadySteadyPop said:

This is a different market today, sellers trying for aspirational prices just sit on the market for months or even years.

You've been saying it's a different market for well over a decade now...

Of course what you're missing is that many sellers will be thinking "so what?" if they have to wait months longer if that means they're going to make an extra £20k, £30k or £40k or even more!

I doubt many sellers would chase a serious buyer away in this market for 40k, average 40k out over "months", it really isn`t worth the stress hassle and wasted time of trying to find new buyers, and what happens if the next offer is even lower!

Seriously?!? You don't think a whole load of people would be more than happy waiting four or six months or longer to earn an extra £40k? That may not be a lot of money to you but to most people that's not an amount they'd throw away just like that and yes it would be worth the stress, time and hassle.

Obviously there'll be a range of different sellers at any one time; some will be desperate and will bite your hands off even if taking a £40k haircut, some will compromise just so they can move on with their lives and some will be in no particular rush and wait as long as it takes to get top dollar. Same as it ever was basically and little different to how the market has been for my entire adult life.

It isn`t "earnings" though, they are not guaranteed to get it, they may get less the longer they try to play the market and their buyers. The higher the house price the less value there is in risking a sale for 40k, many buyers are more than happy to walk away now as they have loads of choice.

ThorOdinson

Offer what it's worth to you, not some percentage of what the seller thinks it's worth.

MobileSaver

ReadySteadyPop said:

Herzlos said:

Interestingly, I've only seen one poster on here mention the property log extension, or gov yields (though you forgot to mention bonds?). 

That app and others get mentioned all the time, nearly all house buyers are using them now. 

Sorry but that's utter tosh. PropertyLog has been around for seven years and has something like 100,000 users. In the same timeframe there were around 7,000,000 property sales. You do the maths, only a relatively small number of buyers use such apps.

ReadySteadyPop said:

MobileSaver said:

Obviously there'll be a range of different sellers at any one time; some will be desperate and will bite your hands off even if taking a £40k haircut, some will compromise just so they can move on with their lives and some will be in no particular rush and wait as long as it takes to get top dollar. 

they are not guaranteed to get it, they may get less the longer they try to play the market and their buyers.

Agreed, that doesn't change the fact that as I said some will simply not sell if they can't get what they want.

I'm sure I must have posted before about my friend's dad having his house on the market for over ten years, wasting numerous buyer's time and money in the process. In that case the seller kept disappointing buyers because he couldn't find his perfect next property but the principle was the same; he was in no rush and was only going to sell on his terms, no-one else's.

MobileSaver

inigma said:

Herzlos said:

inigma said:

Herzlos said:

inigma said:

MobileSaver said:

inigma said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Depends how much you love the property. 

When we viewed our current house we knew as soon as we walked in the door it was for us. Ticked all our boxes and more. We went straight it at asking price.

I'm holding on till next year or the year after when the flippers and landlords are desperate and you can offer a lower price.

One of the more infamous posters on this forum had the same idea and it backfired in spectacular fashion. 

Instead of their predicted property crash, fifteen years on they're still renting a flat and paying their landlord's mortgage while prices are now 66% higher than they were then...

Oh dear, well I got my property in 2011 for £170k and they wanted £240k.  Mortgage free for a couple of years now.  Like I said there is a lot lining up for prices to fall, unemployment rising, government debt rising...

... affordability checks tighting, banks being less likely to lend, etc. 

A drop in house prices doesn't actually mean that houses will become more affordable to most people who need to get a mortgage. 

Yes, agree which is why I say smart money will be buying bargains when prices fall.

The trick is to buy at the bottom. 

But for those without psychic abiliity, it's probably better to just buy when you find one you like. 

at the moment putting your deposit in a 1 year makes more sense, it will increase in value for the spring when prices will lower.

Do you have the cash right now to buy your next property or will you need a mortgage or need to sell your existing property first? 

Trying to time the market is a mug's game. Of course some people might get lucky but you're more likely to be on the wrong side of any price changes. Similarly, if there is a downturn, all other things being equal it's the not so good properties that take a haircut while the better ones are more likely to simply wait it out until the market improves again.