We've had an offer, opinions please.

Kelinik

Right we've been on the market 3 weeks. EA valued us at £180,000 and put us on at £182,500 initially. It was also agreed at the time that after 3 weeks we'd go to open house at offers over £170,000, which seems to be the new 'thing' round here. We'd had 7 viewings in the 3 weeks and 3 turned up to the open house yesterday, one of which was a second viewing. The second viewing made us an offer of £165,000 yesterday afternoon, EA says they are FTB in a good position, large deposit etc and want to move quickly. We said it was too low and my other half is holding his nerve but I'm wavering. I didn't expect to get £180,000 as I'm aware of what is happening with the market but I honestly didn't expect to need to drop below £170,000, especially this early on. Hubby took a bit of convincing (by me) that £170,000 would be reasonable and absolutely won't go lower but I'm really worrying that we might have made a mistake saying no. :undecided

Obviously any drop will give us less deposit for the next house than we'd thought but we can still afford the lower end of the next 'rung'. Is £165,000 still fair given the market or am I just getting the jitters prematurely?

Doozergirl

It's a first offer. Not many people expect to get taken seriously on the first offer. Hope, perhaps!

It sounds like a bit of a panic offer if they put in directly after the open viewing. I'd refuse it and wait to see how quickly they up their offer. Let your EA play on the fact that you are waiting on feedback from the other viewers before accepting any offer if you are too nervous to point blank refuse.

Kelinik

Which is exactly what OH says, thank you Doozergirl.

carpmaster

Let us know if they decide to put in a higher offer, or whether you end up chasing the market down and getting £120k for it in several months time.

mr.broderick

carpmaster wrote: »

Let us know if they decide to put in a higher offer, or whether you end up chasing the market down and getting £120k for it in several months time.

Hehe the voices of doom...Markets booming round here houses going 10-15% over value.Think people waiting for the crash might have missed the little trough of opportunity before christmas when bargains could be had, onwards and upwards from here i believe.

PasturesNew

When you first put a house on the market, all existing buyers looking for somewhere will rush round to view it. Hence a lot of viewers.

One might put an offer in straight away, because they have been actively looking for many months, so know it's what they want.

After that, you are restricted to new potential buyers viewing, as they appear.... which means things will slow down. If a new potential buyer views your house, they might not feel they've seen enough. It might be that your house is best but they won't know that until they've looked around for another month or more.

Don't think that because you had an offer so quickly that you will get more in the coming weeks/months. I am not saying you won't, but just be aware that when you put your house on the market it hits the existing pool of potential buyers, which will be larger than the number signing up.

As for if it's a good offer. I've no opinion.

Kelinik

PasturesNew wrote: »

When you first put a house on the market, all existing buyers looking for somewhere will rush round to view it. Hence a lot of viewers.

One might put an offer in straight away, because they have been actively looking for many months, so know it's what they want.

After that, you are restricted to new potential buyers viewing, as they appear.... which means things will slow down. If a new potential buyer views your house, they might not feel they've seen enough. It might be that your house is best but they won't know that until they've looked around for another month or more.

Don't think that because you had an offer so quickly that you will get more in the coming weeks/months. I am not saying you won't, but just be aware that when you put your house on the market it hits the existing pool of potential buyers, which will be larger than the number signing up.

As for if it's a good offer. I've no opinion.

Thanks for this, luckily I'm already aware as EA explained it all and (I believe lol!) I have realistic expectations. I was just about to reply to carpmaster that if they don't come back higher and no other offers come from yesterday (need to at least wait until tomorrow surely?!) then we'll have to talk about it again.

My question has been answered really hasn't it, wait a few days to see if they come back/anyone else offers and then seriously consider taking the £165,000.

Thank you all for replying.

Nenen

If I remember rightly (please search and check) the average difference between asking price and actual selling price is around 8%. At 165/180 they are offering you 8.3% less which is pretty close to average! Of course a lot depends upon your area as average selling price is very dependent upon this. How buoyant is the market in your area and what have other similar houses sold for in the last three months?

We are looking to buy at the moment and when we've put in low offers we've always been prepared to go up a bit more if we get some indication from the vendors (usually via EA) that they will negotiate. Often we put in a low offer and they just say 'no, they are looking for neaer the asking price' without any indication of how much nearer we've got to go. At that point I usually give up as i assume they are looking for about 99%+. If you want to keep them interested and are prepared to drop, I'd get the EA to say you'd be prepared to drop to such and such (somewhere between 173-178) to see if you can get them to come up a bit more and maybe meet you halfway.

When we sold our house it was on for 199,950; our buyers initially offered £170,00 and so we said we would drop to £190,000. They upped their final offer to £185,000 and we accepted. Good luck.

Running_Horse

carpmaster wrote: »

Let us know if they decide to put in a higher offer, or whether you end up chasing the market down and getting £120k for it in several months time.

Maybe we're unusual, but looking at Rightmove, in our area there are more houses sold STC than there are still for sale, with all three houses sold in our road, and at prices higher than this time last year. But then I've been predicting the top of the market every year for the last five years.

slipp_digby

IMO only, the opening offer is usually a tester to see if you will negotiate immediately and split the difference half way between their offer and your offers above/asking price.

if they are an inexperienced FTB they may well jump and offer a couple of thousand more if you refuse the opening offer - at which point you should consider accepting if they are in a position to proceed.

As doozergirl has suggested you can reject it in a way which doesnt put them off and maybe ups the competitive element to get an offer you want fromn this buyer.

Please let us know how you get on, if only to prove the doom mongers wrong!

mr.broderick

Running_Horse wrote: »

Maybe we're unusual, but looking at Rightmove, in our area there are more houses sold STC than there are still for sale, with all three houses sold in our road, and at prices higher than this time last year. But then I've been predicting the top of the market every year for the last five years.

I'll tell you why that is. It is because we are strange animals.
We will mortgage ourselves up to the hilt,borrow 6 x incomes, buy interest only just to BUY a house (Rent from bank) just for the security a house you have purchased brings, this is why there will be no crash, people will still continue to buy at these insane prices, then again i may be wrong and they may halve overnight.