What constitutes a 'realistic' offer?

SuzySu

As mentioned on a previous thread, we are selling our house to clear our debts. It has been on the market for about 8 weeks at £275,000 - mid range of 4 EA's valuations (they valued it between £260K and £290K). We really need to get as close to this as we can without turning away serious buyers. We have had about 10 viewings and our first offer came in today at £250,000. There's no way we can go this low as it would not pay off our mortgage and secured loan. The lowest we could go would be £265,000 and this would only pay off mortgage, secured loan, EAs fees and HIPs. Not having done this before, how do we go from here? Should we tell EA what we would be prepared to accept or 'do the dance' and wait for the offer to creep up in £5,000 instalments?

I don't want to mess the buyers around (don't even know if they are serious buyers yet - they might have offered on more than one property to test the waters) but we really need to sell asap as we aren't even making our monthly repayments on our mortgage.

Any advice from all you experienced folks would be very welcome - thanks.

brit1234

Go for £265K your lowest value, you really don't want to chase the market down over the next few months below that. Thats if people can even get mortgages that high after the last couple of weeks.

Doozergirl

If a house were on the market at £275,000 I'd offer £250,000 as well. And I wouldn't go higher. I'd get used to it as people are terribly loath to fork out 3% Stamp Duty that comes with paying more than £250,000. If this buyer comes back with any higher offer then I would take it very seriously indeed.

In almost any market.

SuzySu

Thanks for the quick response!!

Should we be upfront with the EA and say "if you can get us £265,000 you have a deal" or do we wait for them to talk to the prospective purchasers and keep coming back to us with tiny increments? My instinct is to say now what we want.....what do others think?

Doozergirl

I always play my cards close to my chest, even with the EA. I won't let on how much I want until someone is very, very close - and even then only if I am directly asked and can see that we're several offers in and they're not stretching the full way to asking price.

the longer you leave it before you move, the more you are likely to get. Tell them now that you'll take £265,000 and they may well offer less. Just ask for nearer to asking price and see what happens.

Bearing in mind still that the Stamp Duty threshold will hinder your ability to fetch more than £250,000 from many buyers.

merlinthehappypig

SuzySu wrote: »

Thanks for the quick response!!

Should we be upfront with the EA and say "if you can get us £265,000 you have a deal" or do we wait for them to talk to the prospective purchasers and keep coming back to us with tiny increments? My instinct is to say now what we want.....what do others think?

As a potential buyer I'd much rather the seller was up front about what they would take following a refused offer than have us both ping-ponging back and forth between the agent with small increments.

Bottom line is that the seller knows what they want and the buyer knows what they will pay. No amount of negotiating is going to change that.

I'd go back and say you will accept £265000 if that is your lowest amount.

I'd have to say that I agree with Doozergirl on this one. There is now way I'd pay over £250000 for a house on at £275000 because of the stamp duty either.

benood

I agree with DG you will struggle to get offers over £250 due to the SDLT threshold.

Can you come up with a long list of items like carpets and curtains to put a high (but realistic) value on as they aren't subject to stamp duty?

baileysbattlebus

Regarding stamp duty, it depends where you live how likely the 250k threshold will affect you. Where we are you wouldn't get anything much under 250k if you wanted a decent family home, so for most people here stamp duty is more or less a given. If however you live in a part of the country where there are lots of decent properties below 250k you might well have problems.

And I agree with the poster who said they would rather know up front about what you're prepared to accept, I couldn't be **sed with ping ponging either

good luck

Strapped

I have to agree with what other posters have said, that you will be VERY lucky to get a buyer willing to go over the £250k threshold. If, as you say, you are not even making your mortgage payments at the moment, I would think very carefully about accepting £250k (with maybe +£2k fixtures & fittings). I know that that will leave you with a debt, but how much worse would the situation be if you are repossessed?

Spire128

Hi

Well you could always go back to them with your asking price of 275 but offer to pay the stamp duty, if my calcs are correct you should come out with a bit more that 265 doing that way.

SuzySu

We are in Essex, 10 mins walk to the mainline station with trains direct to London (20 min journey). I like the idea of Spire 128 but if we offer to pay their stamp duty (£8,250 on a property of £275,000) will this come out of the proceeds of the house, or must we pay this first?

In response to Strapped, unfortunately we would not be allowed to sell at £250,000 as this would not cover our mortgage and secured loan - we need to sell for at least £265,000 to cover these.

We could charge for some fixtures and fittings, but not a lot as we are probably moving into unfurnished accommodation so we would not be leaving much behind. We have wooden blinds on the windows, but it's all hard flooring so no carpets.

Thanks so much for all your replies - there are some very good ideas out there! Keep 'em coming....