House Offer

[bladesuk1]

it's all about knowing the situation and timing it right. drop in the phrase 'vendor sales incentive' and as them to pay a 10% deposit as one of those. some mortgage companies will take that 10% as part of your deposit, although others just drop the value of the house to suit.
in your case, you know that they've no vested interest for themselves, so put in your offer and sit on it. if you want to be really cheeky, and they come back to accept say you've found somewhere else but you'd give them a bit less for it

[hindle8907]

Offer Declined, Just got a call from the estate agents, too low.
I said ok and left it at that for now.
Trying to think what the next best step would be ? Raise my offer to 125,500 ?
If that gets declined I go away for a week tomorrow, so I could hold out putting another offer in for a week and let them sweat?
They have had no offers on this house at all and its been on since February.

Originally Posted by hindle8907

Offer Declined, Just got a call from the estate agents, too low.
I said ok and left it at that for now.
Trying to think what the next best step would be ? Raise my offer to 125,500 ?
If that gets declined I go away for a week tomorrow, so I could hold out putting another offer in for a week and let them sweat?
They have had no offers on this house at all and its been on since February.

It's been a while since I bought a house, but vaguely remember getting some feedback from the estate agent on offers - i.e. ask how far off the mark you are and try to gauge it a bit? Clearly the EA will try to get you to up it a fair bit but in the context of it being sat on their books since Feb they might want to give you enough info to get shut.

[bladesuk1]

let them sweat. tell the estate agent that you're not going to raise your offer, and that you're going away for a week. when you come back, give them a call and see if there's been any interest. if not, your call: you could either put in a higher offer (although i'd make it an odd value like £123,680 as that'll make it look like you're stretching every penny) or leave it standing there. if they reject that offer, walk away as you're not going to get a deal out of them.

at end of the day, what's the house actually worth to you? are you bargaining just to get it cheaper, or is it genuinely all you can afford? these sorts of things make a difference. also, what game is the estate agent playing? are they trying to sell, or trying to inflate the price? if the estate agent wants rid as well, then that's in your favour.

in our case, we were stretching and near our limit, so we played hardball knowing the situation the seller was in and the fact that we could easily find other houses that we liked every bit as much elsewhere for the same or less. we also knew it had been on for a while, had one sale fall through, and that the estate agent was on our side. we ended up getting a great deal as a result.

[L3nny]

It's a buyers market at the moment, I doubt they have been inundated with offers but as I said before if they can't afford to sell it for what you can afford to pay then they wont.

Leave it till you get back, call the estate agent, say you are still interested, the offer still stands and you can maybe offer a little more and see what they say.

Going through estate agents is the most frustrating way of doing things, it would be so much better if you could just meet the seller and discuss offers face to face. The whole thing would be settled in 10 minutes rather than spending days going back and forth through a third party.

[hindle8907]

Originally Posted by L3nny

Going through estate agents is the most frustrating way of doing things, it would be so much better if you could just meet the seller and discuss offers face to face. The whole thing would be settled in 10 minutes rather than spending days going back and forth through a third party.

See I was thinking this, but would the estate agents do this "give me the vendors details" ?
After all this is what they are being paid for right ?

[Sir Trev]

EAs do a lot more than some realise. If they're good they earn their commission by helping the offer process along sure but they also help in the gathering of info and making sure the legal side is ready to go. You can go direct and cut them out but is it really worth the hassle? They're specialists and generally provide a good service.

Oh, and without trying to get into a my-area's-more-expensive-than-yours argument let me simply say that my four bed detached, big garden, garage, was the price some of you are talking about...when I bought it ten years ago. No wonder I'm skint!

[L3nny]

I am not sure exactly how it works, however when I bought my house I pulled out of one deal because the estate agent was messing us about and not forwarding our offers on quickly enough. But that was years ago when houses were selling themselves and they were probably busy with other deals.

Remember the agent doesn't really care about you or the seller, all they care about is themselves.

I suppose you could always just go and knock on the door and have a chat with the seller. Or arrange a second viewing and say you want the vendor to be there as you have a few questions you want to ask. If they are anything like me when I was selling they will be more than happy to meet you.

You can be as mean as you like with your offers in a quiet market. My parents bought a house years ago that had been brought by a developer but had then stood empty for nearly two years. The process started with a REALLY low offer which was rejected. After a couple of days the offer was raised by £500. After a week and a bit of this, an offer was accepted. My parents were the only people putting in offers and I think the slow small increases eventually ground the vendors down.

One thing that affects "terminal sales" is that the death duties (if applicable) are based on HMRC's valuation of the property, not what the market is actually willing to pay. This puts families selling in this situation in a really nasty position as they need to get as much cash as possible from the sale to fund the taxman...

When I bought my house a year ago, the estate agents (Romans in Berkshire) were horrendous. The seller wanted to sell, we wanted to buy, but every time we asked a quesiton, the agent put it to the seller as if we were being rude. In the end I googled the sellers name and contacted her directly, was polite and we got to an agreement far easier. When I come to sell, I think I'll try a site like housesimple where you can miss the estate agent out, save thousands of pounds and make life easier.