Offering over asking price

Jet

I "sold" my house a few months ago to a first time buyer. I found a place to buy within a few weeks but had to pull out after the survey results. Luckily my buyer is hanging on for me, but I realise he won't wait forever.

I've been looking at lots of houses although there are hardly any actually for sale in the town I want to move to; I've widened my search to the next nearest town although that's going to be difficult for me to find childcare enabling me to carry on working which I obviously need to do to pay a mortgage! (I'm a single parent).

Anyway, i found a lovely house and viewed it twice over the weekend. I put in an offer this morning for 2.5k under the asking price, the agent phoned me back 30 mins later and told me that someone else had offered the full asking price. I said I would match the offer and pointed out that my the mortgage I need on the property will only be 13% of the value of the house and the rest is cash. I will be porting my current mortgage (same amount, same provider).

To be fair the other potential buyers are first time buyers although I can't comment on their ability to get a mortgage.

The vendors decided to accept the offer from the first time buyers, which is fair enough.

My gut instinct is to up the offer by £500 to see if I could get them to sell it to me. Not sure if this would be enough to sway them or if in fact, it's a good idea. I do really want the house, but I don't want to be a mug either! :rolleyes:

Running_Horse

Why not rent for six months, so you are ready to move quickly for any good houses that come on the market.

Jet

Hi,

I have considered it but ruled it out due to the cost (probably about £6k assuming I found a house within 6 months) including 2 lots of removals and the necessity to be living in the right school catchment area.

kingkano

Im not sure if £500 will make a difference. Essentially you are offering them a chain sale. Where the FTB is offering a chain-free sale (basically its just them at the bottom - nobody else to pull out (your buyer) or cause problems for them).

You can try but I'd take a FTB over £500 any day!

Your mortgage being small makes no odds I think. As long as someone has 10% deposit it doesnt really matter what % the rest is in mortgage terms. Its the same work for the solicitors.

Jet

kingkano wrote: »

Im not sure if £500 will make a difference. Essentially you are offering them a chain sale. Where the FTB is offering a chain-free sale (basically its just them at the bottom - nobody else to pull out (your buyer) or cause problems for them).

You can try but I'd take a FTB over £500 any day!

Your mortgage being small makes no odds I think. As long as someone has 10% deposit it doesnt really matter what % the rest is in mortgage terms. Its the same work for the solicitors.

I've done some thinking and think that it's all very well offering more - even if it was 2k more, but if the first time buyer can match it, they will always win over me.

As for the mortgage, the point I was trying to make is that I definetely have the funds to buy the house whereas a first time buyer might have an agreement in principle but when it comes to down to actually applying, sometimes things don't go to plan.

I think I'm going to let it go. I'm sure something wonderful is just waiting round the corner for me!

FairyElephant_2

You can try it - after all, what have you got to lose? and 'All is fair in Love, War & House-buying!!!!'. I think you'd have to up it by more than 500 though - that probably wouldn't even cover their legal fees.....

We desperately wanted a house which friends of friends were selling - they had 2 offers of the asking price already, and we had to wait for sale of my house to go through (which was really long-winded as tied up with my divorce), so we offered them 3k over the top if they would hold on for 3 months, which effectively covered their legal and house moving costs, so they said yes. The estate agents were not happy, but at the end of the day the vendor told them 'tough, it's my house and I'll sell it to who I like!'.

mr.broderick

Running_Horse wrote: »

Why not rent for six months, so you are ready to move quickly for any good houses that come on the market.

This is rubbish advice, i rented for 12 months last year, do not do this.
There are too many members offering this advice, it is not cost effective.

Jet

mr.broderick wrote: »

This is rubbish advice, i rented for 12 months last year, do not do this.
There are too many members offering this advice, it is not cost effective.

Yes, I estimate it would cost me around £5,000 minimum to rent for 6 months. I might as well offer £6000 over asking price and save myself a lot of upheaval.

movilogo

might as well offer £6000 over asking price and save myself a lot of upheaval.

Because of this tendency, probably we have ludicrous house prices noadays

Sellers usually prefer FTBs. A FTB, with mortgage sorted, worth at least 5% of the house.

I bought a house recently. My offer was 7% below asking price and it was accepted by seller just because I was a FTB. They had some offers better than mine, but they were all tied up in chains. The house was empty - so seller was losing money every month. So FTBs were god send to him.

Running_Horse

mr.broderick wrote: »

This is rubbish advice, i rented for 12 months last year, do not do this.
There are too many members offering this advice, it is not cost effective.

Yes and no; it might be more cost effective than losing a buyer, and would give you the status of FTB. Our vendor was messing about so we threatened to go into rented, and would have to avoid losing our buyer, which is even more of a factor now the market has slowed. It would not have been an easy option, but then moving never is easy.

gfplux

Jet wrote: »

Hi,

I have considered it but ruled it out due to the cost (probably about £6k assuming I found a house within 6 months) including 2 lots of removals and the necessity to be living in the right school catchment area.

Hello jet,
Is the £6000 based on £1000 per month rent. have taken into account interest you will earn on your cash and also the mortgage payments you will not pay for 6 months.