[Closed] House buying - negotiating

If £150K is your max, just tell them that.
Make the offer and leave them in no doubt that if it's not accepted that you're walking.

£163k is a strange amount, reckon they are looking for at least £160k

has been on the market long or a new instruction?

Be honest, go straight back in at 150k making it clear that that is the max and offer something else as the deal swinger, e.g. no chain.

explain that 150 is the most you can finance, and you don't have access to any more funds. If the EA has said it needs to be much closer, I doubt you'd get it for 150k. Tell them you're a first time buyer, no chain, and funding in place, might help, but I dunno if the other owners will take a 25k haircut (it may be that they can't afford to do this - if they were first time buyers too, for £150k they'd probably not have enough to pay off the mortgauge)

Depends if you still think it's worth £150k. If so, tell them that's all you can afford and either take it or leave it. If the house has been on the market a while, they might be very happy with that offer.

Tell them your budget and that you are looking @ another house which is cheaper,worked for me 2 weeks ago 25K under asking price.

I'm a first time buyer with morgage approved. I think the house is worth £150k but not the £163k they are asking. It's been on since July but originally for £170k which is way off the mark IMO.

I think £150k final offer is my best bet

150 best and final. Ensure the estate agent is fully aware if your position. Also book a few property viewings with the sellers agent. That always helps to chivy things along.

You're doing the right thing.
Stick to your guns

£150k or walk away, there will be others and if you think its only worth £150k then you shouldn't pay anymore.

£144k, and tell em it'll keep dropping by a grand a week 😆

£144k, and tell em it'll keep dropping by a grand a week

What worked for us was an 'unusually specific' offer and a story that suggested we'd scraped around to max out our finances to try to swing them. example in your case might be £149650.

Even if rejected,let the agent know the offer still stands if the buyer changes their mind. It's a difficult market to sell in a lot of places, don't pay over the odds (mortgage companies seem to be very cautious with optimistic valuations too.....)

Just remember, the estate agent is working for them, so don't tell the estate agent you will offer £150k but can go to £155k, as he'll just recommend the sellers to reject the offer 🙂 You need to convince the agent as well as the seller that you are scraping the barrel with you final offer.

Also, beware that if you decide to offer just that bit more, when the mortgage company do their valuation, they will refuse to lend if they think you are paying more than its worth. On our first house the mortgage company said we either needed to get some money off or the existing owner had to rectify some issues to make it a safe security. The sellers wouldn't budge so we bought a near identical house 10 doors away for the same price, five years later they are still trying to sell.

Do you have the number for the vendor? Give them a ring or make another appointment and go talk to them, that worked for us. Turns out the house we wanted, the vendor had bought somewhere else and although he didn't want to just let it go, he didn't want it sat empty. We were first time buyers, mortgage approved and ready to move.

It was up for £160k, we went in at £141,300 and told them that was all we had, we settled at £143k including all electrical White goods and carpets. The latter part made no odds to us, but meant we have spares of everything. By doing this, it meant the estate agent was really a formailty.

Whatever the price of the house, it cost us another £3k for a rewire, plastering, decorating, etc. It was all done by me & qualified mates too.

A house is worth what someone will pay for it. If you think it is worth 150k to you then offer that best and final. I've bought and sold a bit of property and sometimes if there is a big gap in price and I am cash unconditional i tell them that is the highest cash offer i can make before i drag something else into the deal i.e.e create a chain on another property. What that says is that you might pay more but the risk is on them and it is then their decision between quick cash sale and lengthy drawn out process where nothing could happen for 5k more say. Both times i did that they snapped the cash offer up almost straight away !!
EDIT: And both times i was being economical with the truth !

Well hit them with what your prepared to pay Also your a first time buyer
That means a hell of a lot.
Also get a feeling of them, will they guzzump you if they get a better offer if so walk away.

Your first offer was 145k

Now offer 140k

While the house is worth what someone will pay, for you its probably what the mortgage company decide its worth.

I've always offered the asking price but said it depends on the valuation. Once you've the valuation you can then offer (maximum) what they say its worth (plus any cash you want to put in) - at the most.

And you can always pull an offer.

135k...

What NZcol said.

If it was me, I would go in at £148k first, then £150k as last final ever offer, with much handwringing. Basic psychological warfare, people need to think they have got the better of you.

Don't recommend sending a chopped off ear tho, that can be misinterpreted.

130k

I'm walking...

OP, also really worth remembering that this is not the only house for sale. Don't get overly hung up on it, there is fairly good chance that with a limit of 150 you just can't afford it. Sometimes it goes like that.

Now on a more positive note...the owner paid 175 for it 4 years ago. Its likely they are going to find it hard to accept that it may be worth much less now, and of course they may not be able to afford to sell it for much less. But, fingers crossed, with time, they may come to accept the lower value. No need to rush them, sometimes these things pan out over days or even weeks. Go up to 150, but only if your certain it's worth it for you. Once your there tell the EA thats as far as you can go. Then either sit back and wait, or more sensibly get out there looking for somewhere else. Good luck 🙂

I'm trying to sell a house I bought four years ago for 175k -- not the one you are looking at, but let me know if you want a place in Manchester. . . . 🙂
in our case we couldn't possibly drop to 150 as we owe much more than that.
an asking price of 163 isn't odd if they still owe close to that amount.
tough times to be selling a house. good time to be buying -- so don't think they're necessarily out to make shedloads of cash off it!

Personally I'd have been cheekier and gone in lower but congratulations you had your first offer rejected so you pitched it right and you've now established a starting point for negotiation.

I like the suggestion of going to £148k and then if necessary making them think they're dragging you kicking and screaming to £150k. If you think that's all the house is worth then stick to your guns and be prepared to walk away.

Remember the first rule of real estate. Don't buy anything you don't think you'll be able to sell.

Out of interest what do these sites value it at?

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/
http://www.mouseprice.com/

That's it! 120k

FINAL OFfeR - You KnoW You WonT get BETTER..

Zoopla and co all value it at over 170k but their estimates are way off.

Second rule of real estate...there is no such thing as value. A property is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, right here right now. A vendor may choose not to sell for that price, but that doesn't mean it's worth more than what someone is willing to pay.

EA's are all too willing to talk about higher prices in the past, higher prices in the future or the mythical family with kids ready for the local school blah blah blah. But in reality, unless there's an offer on the table its value is zero.

I'm in a similar situation. Seen a nice place which was on the market in April for 220. They got nowhere so put it on recently for 205. They had one offer around 200 which fell through, and I've just gone back to them, first of all with 180. I was pretty sure that would be rejected, and predictably admitted I'd go as far as 185.

The EA came up with all sorts of guff about "It'll need to be 19 on the front to be taken seriously", and buy-to-letters swooping in etc. but I have played up the fact I'm a FTB, renting so no chain, can move whenever I feel like it, and that I've got plenty of time to look around.

Now I wait.

Of course it depends on whether you are in a good position, ie do you have anything to sell? Cash buyer? What is their situation?

You need to be clear-headed and walk away if you have to.

Good luck, I've just bought and sold for the second time in three years! Never again.

Offer 150k, and be prepared to walk away, there are plenty more houses out there.

150 and wait it out, this is the wrong time of year for them to get other offers, tell EA to keep in touch, I reckon 3 weeks and it'll be urs, it really is a buyers market you've just gotta stick to your guns

Having slept on it I think I'm doin the right thing and to me it's worth 150k and I'd be happy if I got it for that.

Prob going to wait a day to put the offer in so it doesn't look like I'll go up again too easily.

I'm going to buck the trend a little, because you are getting a lot of bargain hunting views and that is missing an important point taking this into account.

" I really like the house and its far better than others I have seen."

Can you pay more than 150? Because if you can't that’s probably the reason why this house is much better than the others you've seen (presuming the others are in budget) …. You'll always find houses that are just, just, over your budget that are much nicer than those in budget.... Grrrr.

If however you can pay more than 150, how will you feel if a sold sign goes up outside?

Don’t miss this house for a couple of grand, in the long run it really will not make a massive difference....

Pay up and be happy... 🙂

I'm sitting in a place that was valued at near on 700k more than I paid for it. Moonbeam valuation but the vendor wanted 400k more than we offered as cash, unconditional. We went up a token 10k and sat it out. 2 weeks, us saying any more meant we would have to sell a house and boom they went for it. Quite frankly this was the only house we had seen in two years that we fancied !! Don't panic, offer what you can afford, what is fair market value and what will be will be

The others have been on the market for £160-£170k with my view I can bring them down into may budget or at least try. Some where 'nicer' but not as practical for my needs. I don't think in these times trying to knock 8-10% off the price is unrealistic.

The absolute max I would pay for the house is £152k but I'm not telling the estate agent that. £150k this afternoon as a final, this is all I can afford offer. If it hasn't sold in a few more weeks I'll offer 150k again.

If the sold sign goes up it wasn't to be, not worth putting myself in financial difficulty.

Your in a different league NZCol!

Absolutely not, never, especially in this economy. I have a colleague who lives on the bones of his arse to afford his house.

NZCol - did you buy Jonah Lomu's house or something ??

It's nz dollars mind so not real money 😉

I think the best way forward is to go in with the 150k and an arm full of reasons to explain why you're not going to pay 170k. You are not part of a chain and can exchange contracts today, that a 160k house has a new 20k kitchen, that the other higher priced houses have better spec, better location, that the house you want will need 30k spending to bring it up to the spec of the other, etc.
You are, I fear, going to have to do some (home)work to get the 20k discount you're looking for.

I'm looking for a 13k discount, not 20k. The fact that is was up for £169 initially makes no odds IMO - it didn't sell or attract enough interest at that price.

You could try substituting 20k for 13k then, but the idea's the same. Equally it's quite difficult giving advice without knowing the vendor as different people react differently to suggestion when it comes to money and properety valuations.

What something is advertised for and what it sells for are often completely different despite what agents try and tell you

People do fool themselves about what their house is worth. Confusing value with what they paid or the number on their mortgage. If they are motivated to sell they will take your money, if they aren't then they won't.

The longer it has been on the market the better for you. As an example, the house next to mine was up for £148k and attracted not one single viewer in 3 months, and this is straight from the owner so more fact than rumor. The house next to next door, and exactly the same, sold for £110K and the sign was up for about 3 days.

MRanger, stick with what you've decided; it's perfectly sound and reasonable in the current market. To you the house is worth what you can [sensibly] afford. If the vendors reject it then, as you say leave it on the table and carry on looking. If they need to sell, then they will probably come back to you, if they can afford to sit it out and think they may get better, well fine. Either way your position is clear. It's a silly game this house buying stuff, but you will get there in the end!

As an example, the house next to mine was up for £148k and attracted not one single viewer in 3 months, and this is straight from the owner so more fact than rumor. The house next to next door, and exactly the same, sold for £110K and the sign was up for about 3 days.

Our neighbours house was up at £290k last year. They eventually sold it this year for £240k (they had a deadline to move to the new house)

My neighbours flat is up for sale - I desperately want to buy it. Asking £260 000, 1 view no offers in 6 months, won't accept £230 000.

Don Simon - I spoke to the owner when I saw her (rental flat) and asked her how it was going. They won't sell for less than they paid for it was her response, when I queried if perhaps the price had put people off.

As an estate agent a lot of what has been said is good points. But my advice would be go and view some other properties and put in some silly offers. There are a real shortage of buyers out there and if they don't want your money some one else will. Dont go jumping in on one of the first houses you fall for. Think of it as a business decision and separate your self a little.
If this is the house for you. Then go back for a second viewing before you put in another offer with the agent not the vendor. And rip the place apart, make notes on every thing that will need to be done and then your going to cost them up to be sorted. Get the closer price from the agent, some times though they will not know the end price the vendor is after.Then wait for them to chase you !

Depends on lots of factors, but essentially if you want to play hardball with the price, be prepared to lose the sale.
You can say, I will *not* go over 150K but if they have a mortgage for more than that, they aren't likely to accept your offer.

As for the BS that it's a buyers market; from personal experience* it might be if you aren't that picky. However if you are, then lack of decent properties definitely evens the field out, as if you miss a good one you could have to wait months for the next decent one to come along especially considering the time of year, and the fact that most people are sitting tight, just incase.

* In the last 2 months, I have sold 2 flats, and bought 1 house, both flats sold in < 48 hours for over the asking price; due to the lack of decent properties around. Viewing started at 7am, first offers were in by 9.30am, just to qualify my opinions

Don Simon - I spoke to the owner when I saw her (rental flat) and asked her how it was going. They won't sell for less than they paid for it was her response, when I queried if perhaps the price had put people off.

i still think you really need to get to the bottom of why the vendor is selling. Have they just found somewhere else they like and are moving? Have they split up? Are they in a rush to move?

If they bought the house for £175k i can totally understand why they don;t want to sell it to you for £150k unless there is a definite reason why they need to move / sell.

If they are moving to a new property, if they can chip their vendr by £13k its all relative, if not, i wouldn;t sell it for £150k either. 8-10% might not seem unreasonable to you, but if you were circa £25k in negative equity, you might not be able to afford to sell it for that either.

Persoanlly, i would be prepared for them to say no and find something else. You never know, they might come back to you in a few weeks.

Well it seems a waste of time to try and sell a house unless you actually want to sell it !! They did take it off the market in the end, having kicked out a perfectly good tenant and lost 9 months rent.

Another house in my street (terraced so they are all the same, and I always have a nosy at the ad) went for £120k after a couple of months, so the £110k was a bargain but they obviously needed the money, and actually wanted to sell the flat, not just waste a few peoples time with unrealistic expectations, not to mention making one of the local firemen homeless.

They may just be testing the market.

Another factor may be, that buying around that time they MAY have managed to get a 95% or 100% mortgage... or worse, at a rate of 5% or 6%. The chances are they may have only paid of £10k or less of what they borrowed. They will have a minimum they can accept before they are in negative equity.

2007 was a really shit time to buy!

Just to clarify that it was actually the house next door (the attached, identical) that sold for £175 in 2007. The current owner of the one I want paid £125 in 2004 ish. They are both recently built houses and identical in every way.

They rented it out and I'm guessing they are not desperate to sell but do want to hence lowering the initial asking price.

We bought our house for 101k, asking price was 115k so I think it's possible that you'll be able to get it at 150k but as others have said, a lot depends on the vendors and their reasons for selling.

Our first offer was rejected, when I made the second offer I emphasised our position as first time buyers, various work that needed doing, recent sale prices of more or less identical properties. EA asked if it was the max we could afford, I told them it was the max we were willing to pay for this particular property, offer accepted same day 🙂

If that's your maximum, tell the agent, and leave the offer on the table.

Took the vendor of the house I bought a few months 6 weeks to accept my offer, a couple of times i nearly buckled and went back with *another* offer, but Im glad I held firm.

If anyone else puts in another higher offer, the agent will ring you, as they will want a bidding war.

i bought my first house back in june

was on the market for 118000 no takers so they reduced it to 112000 (the house valued at 115000)

I went to see it and my advisor had told me earlyer in the year that as i was a first time buyer with secured finance that any house i liked regardless of the "offers over - Fixed price" guff to simply offer 10% less than the figure

i made an offer of 100000 and the seller asked for an extra 500 quid, im guessing as a token gesture and the house was mine. now happily moved in a loving the new life

house was on the market for 3 months before first price reduction and then a further 3 months till i bought it

and these are real scottish pounds im talking about!!

+1 for RichC.
ll the hype about it's a buyers market has not been true for me. Been trying to buy a house (any house, any condition, wide area, realistic budget, currently renting a room in a shared house, large deposit) and every house has been overpriced because the sellers won't sell for less than they paid at top of the market. I have made 8 offers and each one has been for more than the Zoopla value.
Every one has been rejected, even after me increasing my offer in some cases.
Every one of those houses is still unsold more than 3 months later. One had been for sale, empty, for two years! In every case the agent has been calling me almost daily to pressure me into increasing my offer, despite there being no other offers or any interest.
Sellers are just refusing to sell and prefer to sit on their properties.
In the end I have found somewhere and given the vendor what they wanted, just to have the whole hideous process over with!
So my advice is, if you see one you like and the vendor looks like they won't mess you about, try to meet them half way. Once you're in your house and happy, hopefully you won't regret it.

Tell the estate agent if you get it for £145 then you'll let them sell you a mortgage (let them do a quote & apply for you) estate agents are mercenary and the prospect of another grand in commission will have them advising the vendor that 145 is a great price in no time.

Thats not a bad shout petrieboy. They have tried to advertise the mortgages they can offer.

[url= http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/ ]www.housepricecrash.co.uk[/url]

See the above for some useful stats. Perhaps offer 145k again, and based on the Land Registry info of a current rate of decline of 2.6%/year in average prices, state that your offer will be reducing at a rate of ~900/month (~2.6% a year on 160k).

There are plenty of other houses out there. Vendors should start getting real! 😀

estate agents are mercenary and the prospect of another grand in commission will have them advising the vendor that 145 is a great price in no time.

Hmmm, kinda against the law though!

I've been trying to buy, loads of offers rejected, I'll keep putting them in though. Give it another year or so hopefully sellers will become more realistic!

The reality is house prices won't go up for a decade, wages are lagging behind inflation, houses have to get cheaper as we have less disposable income.

If it was me I'd be looking to offer them lower or the same in a couple of months time.

6-8% below the asking price is a fair offer, and I accepted just such for a proceedable cash buyer in 2010. You are in a strong position. Tell the agent that 150 is your maximum. We did this when we bought and, after three months, the sellers accepted our offer.

There are plenty of other houses out there. Vendors should start getting real!

However from personal experience, there aren't a lot of *great* houses out there; so if a vendor has a decent one then its worth hanging on. If you aren't that picky, then the advice about making a silly offer might work.

Chasing a bargain is fair enough, however if it means that you buy something you don't ultimately want, its going to cost you a hell of a lot more in the long run.

The reality is house prices won't go up for a decade, wages are lagging behind inflation, houses have to get cheaper as we have less disposable income.

If only that logic held true. It might up North, but in the South I doubt this is going to happen (mind you everyone is an expert). Again from personal experience; the place I sold increased in value by 22% in the last 5 years. Good places always sell easily and make money.

Hence its worth investing a bit more for the right place; as if the property has been on the market for months/years when you are buying it, it will more than likely have the same issues when you come to sell it, unless you are going to invest a lot of time and money to get over its shortfalls.

Offer in - 150k, final offer. The EA said they thought this would be too low and I doubt it will be accepted. If not ill offer again in a months time if its still available.

In the meantime the search continues.

my top tip: never believe an estate agent when they 'suggest' prices of properties to you. they are working for the Vendor, not you.

offer what you think is a fair price and take into account EVERYTHING in your offer - Items that need attention in the house, Legal, surveys, moving etc.

If you get this place it will feel like a STW collective purchase, invites will be necessary! 😉

Feel free to chip in for the deposit.

*Update*

The EA mortgage advisor rang me to ask 'qualifying' questions'. At least they seem to be taking this offer more seriously. Fingers crossed.

ahh watch out for that. If you talk to their advisor its for 2 things

1 : to get comission from selling you a mortgauge
2 : to figure out how much money you have to spend and push for that much

get an agreement in principle from a lender, for the figure you need the mortgauge for, and take it in.

£150k rejected.

Will the vendor not make a counter-offer ? That is what happened when I bought my house, I put in a cheeky offer, they came back higher we met in the middle - job done !

(I said you should offer £148k !!)

Anyway good luck with the search, must be frustrating.

never believe an estate agent when they 'suggest' prices of properties to you. they are working for the Vendor, not you.

Theoretically but in reality they are working for themselves.

Say they're on 2% commission, on a sale of 150K that's £3,000. If they can push you to increase to eg 152,500, that will get them an extra £50 in commission. Really worth an extra month of go-betweening / risking the sale and having to start again from scratch? Or would you rather have the £3000 today?

They'll do their best to get the best price possible in the shortest timescale, imho.

MRanger156 - Member

£150k rejected.

Never mind. Unrealistic sellers - there is a few around. Remind the estate agent of your offer when its still not sold in Feb.

"Anyway good luck with the search, must be frustrating."

And this is why I said pay up and be happy.

Sorry but you have been/are getting lots of one way advice... there's always another side.

"The reality is house prices won't go up for a decade, wages are lagging behind inflation, houses have to get cheaper as we have less disposable income."

This is undoubtably true if the only buyers of UK housing was it's population. But just like any other market its free and it's open which means its becoming increasingly globalised.... Whole blocks of flats, in london, are being snapped up off plan by over seas buyers.

I realise that a Chinease soveign wealth fund is not going to be interested, with respect, in 170k worth of house but it's only a matter of time before their actions start having an effect along the whole of the housing market price range.

We've been selling out our companies to foreign buyers for years, for example how many Premiership football cubs are UK owned? What makes you think that the global market will stop investing in "cheap" Britain and buy everything that it's nailed down.

Pay up and be happy is only really an option if you've got a big cash deposit. Most first time buyers will be relying on a mortgage, the bank aren't going to lend more than the house is 'worth' just because you really really like the house.