making an offer

divadee

There used to be a loophole on stamp duty - no idea if it has been closed. Probably. People were selling the house for £1 under the stamp duty limit but then charging, say, £50,000 for fixtures and fittings.

Anyone know if this is still possible?

no its not possible anymore, the inland revenue have clamped down on this big time. Now you have to fill in a tax form stating fixtures and fittings if they think it was excessive they will investigate for fraud :-/

yvonnechristina

I think you have to be very brave to be putting in offers in the current market. Unless of course you are moving down and cashing in.

If the person didn't accept 250k it must be a very exceptional property if they didn't accept an offer of 10% below then I would conclude that they aren't that interested in selling. There is quite alot on the market currently, I would look around, I would think that getting 10% off is the minimum you want. My parents recently got their house valued at 250k and were told to expect offers to come in about 220k....

If you can wait to move, I would wait.

TerryJeffery

I would certainly not let that house go without another go! The agent ought to have put the offer forward regardlesss of whether a higher offer had been refused - the other people may have been in a worse selling position and if the other offer was made a while ago it might not still be there at the same level.

I am trying to sell my house - reduced it from £370k to £360k in July and considering reducing again now, but considering its about £40k more than last years suggested value, I'd still be happy with a relatively low offer - we've all read the press reports about what's happening to the property market, but we have to move, we've been trying for over 18 months and have had two sales fall through so far. I'm not sure how low we'd go, but it would certainly depend on the buyer's position (we still have a buyer in the wings, but they can't sell theirs now). Basically if someone came along without anything to sell, we'd bite their hand off, so 10%'ish off might not be out of the question.

I would look to offer 5-10% off the asking price of a property now anyway, especially in the light of a very flat market, but would only do so when we're in a strong buying position - hence our decision to rent for a while first.

Good luck and don't leave the estate agent in control of things!

Han_naH

You know you could try emailing all the local estate agents with a pic and description.

Say that you will double their fee if they can put a suitable buyer forward who completes.

This (double) fee is still much less that the amounts you are talking about knocking off the house.

Be proactive! Hammer those estate agents!

Do or Die! House price crash! Maybe.

pjm_3

On the subject of making an offer. I have just made an offer on a house which was accepted without my wife seeing the property. She subsequently doesn't like the house. Would I be able to pull out of the deal. I am a first time buyer and clueless on house purchasing. Help!! ???

MarkyMarkD

A house purchase isn't legally binding until you exchange contracts. An offer is not binding on you at all - you can walk away when you like and so can your vendor.