Help with making an offer

firsttimebuyers_2

My partner and I are first time buyers and have a max budget of £160K. We have seen a house we like which is on sale for £170K.

Propertysnake shows that the house has been on the market since July 2007, originally at £180K.

Today we have made an offer of £153K, which has been rejected. The EA said that they have already received an offer in excess of this, but did not say what. She said that she thinks she could twist their arm into accepting £165K, which is unfortunately above our budget.

Whatever happens, we cannot go above £160K. Do you think it is worth us pursuing this? If so, what sort of strategy do you think we should use? Ie should I go back and say what our max budget is, or should I go back with an offer of say £156K? How long should I leave it before I get back to the EA? Any help/advice anyone can give would be greatly appreciated as we are new to all this!

Thanks folks!

Markinjapan

If you don't try you'll never know!

Go for 156, keep raising by 1k as needed and if they say no when you get to 160 at least you'll know you tried!

Good luck!

pamaris

Just today I had an offer accepted... It was on at "offers over 150k"... last year similar houses were selling for 165k, and there are still a few on at 165k. Basically, this one estate agent is the only one with reasonably priced listings; their listings stand out in the price range.

My first offer was 141. Rejected of course. Yesterday I called and said, listen my husband and I are considering putting in another offer but we already know that we can't do "offers OVER 150k" so we don't want to waste our time if the vendors are not going to be flexible.

The estate agent said that there is flexibility there but he can't see them taking less than 147k. I said OK we'll offer 147 (as this was my walk away point anyway). This morning the estate agent rang and said the offer was rejected but they can do 149k. My OH said no way, they're playing games. So we said ah too bad.

5 minutes later, vendor will accept 147,500. OK OK they won here. We agreed to this.

I am sure that if we had the time and the patience, better deals could be had, but we don't have those luxuries. We're not thrilled, because it still is a LOT of money, but we're pleased.

cajef

The property market has slowed down and at the moment it is a buyers market, I noticed in our local paper that builders are now offering extra incentives to sell houses.

I would keep increasing your offer gradually, couple of thousand at a time, if you have to go to your maximum of £160K emphasize to the EA that it is your final offer and you are not prepared to go any higher, the way the market is going if you miss this one there will be plenty more in the coming months.

firsttimebuyers_2

Thanks for your advice everyone. I'll leave it for today I think, and phone back tomorrow offering £156K - they can mull it over during the weekend then!

If they do not accept that, I'll offer £158K, then my final offering of £160K.

Why can't all this be simpler!!!

gordonstights

firsttimebuyers wrote: »

Today we have made an offer of £153K, which has been rejected. The EA said that they have already received an offer in excess of this

Wish they'd mentioned when that higher offer came in! If it was a long while ago you may get the house for under 160K.

firsttimebuyers wrote: »

She said that she thinks she could twist their arm into accepting £165K, which is unfortunately above our budget.

I bet she could! They'd probably rip your arm off for that! I think you are right to make the offers you've stated, and finish at 160K. Don't be disheartened by anything the EA says to you, like "they really won't accept any lower than blah blah" or similar. Make your offers firmly and state your position if you're a first time buyer and have the ability to get things moving quickly without delays. And don't do what I did once by saying that's my final offer then going higher out of desperation.

Good luck!

firsttimebuyers_2

I guess one good thing about our situation is we simply cannot go above £160K even if we wanted to!!!

otter1_2

Yes, don't be fooled by the agent's comments. I bid £25k under and was told they wouldn't accept any less than the asking price. I later upped it to £20k under and was told they were looking for something more like £10k under. Next day they accepted my offer of £20k under. Stick to your guns.