smokey

As a rule of the thumb, what % is considered a reasonable offer on a property in a falling market?

For example on a £400K property, would it be taking the piss offering £380K?

pa_sjo

I'd go in at 350k in the current climate!

Farmer Giles

yeah, start low.

they can only say no can't they..

Twellsie

iTrader: (1)

depends what position you are in yourself, ie cash buyer, no chain etc, but deffo go in low, there is no harm in trying and can always increase your offer, but you cant decrease

wayne thomas

Depends how badly you want the place and how badly they need to sell, if your too aggressive you can turn the buyer off to further increased offers. 10% is about right in my book.

Twellsie

iTrader: (1)

have a look on here http://www.nethouseprices.com/index....d-House-Prices if you know what they bought it for it may give you an indication as to what you may be able to get away eith asking

Cossy Mike

iTrader: (4)

I went in low with mine and it was accepted. I should have gone in even lower!

However, the estate agents wont like you phoning up all the time upping your offer by a grand.....

CraigoScott

iTrader: (1)

the estate agent should be doing everything they can to help you out in th current climate! if that means that you pester them with new offers then so be it!

ive heard a saying recently, that if you do not think that your offer is embarrasing, then its not low enough!! start low and work up! if they accept it straight away, it was probably not low enough!

Twellsie

iTrader: (1)

have you been talking to Shings?

nigel b

estate agents work for the sellers,not the buyers
never believe an estate agent as they always tell you what you want to hear

m3cosworth

depends on the individual property. if it was priced competitvely or not and how desperate they are to sell.
if its up for 400k doesnt tell us much. it cud be worth 500k and your already getting a bargain.
do the research find out prices for similar property.
but i agree start way lower than you think they would accept. dnt seem too eager but let them know youve got the money and are serious on buying something.
also once you agree a price make sure you tell them that it was subject to survey and any faults that come up get them to drop the price.
not many people can get mortgages coz u need big deposits. very difficult to sell at the mo. only buy if its a really good bargaing and if it dropped in value by 10% it was still worth it!

DaveZS

I should be completeing on my house purchase tomorrow. The house was up for £187k last year, then was reduced to £165k, I went in at £145k and a deal was done at £150k.
The house next door sold for £180k in september 2008. Average selling price for the road in 2007 was £210k.

smokey

Thanks Twellsie. A good website.

The 400k house I got my eye on was sold for £336K in 2006.

It's Czech Mate

I'd go in much lower if it were me!

dojj

iTrader: (3)

go in at £300k then

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Fudgey just sold his house for about 6% less than he bought it for, and I think that he bought in about 2006

so 300K is probably about right!

Twellsie

iTrader: (1)

my first bid would be 340k then, lol

_SpeedX_

iTrader: (1)

my sister looked at a property for 1.3mil and they said they would accept 800k!! so u can get some bargains if you look and people are desperate!

dojj

iTrader: (3)

but he needed to move and not miss out if i remember?

if it's part of a chain though, they may be banking on getting a certain return in order to invest that money in their next property so going in lower, no matter how low you go, might not do the trick

Ian M500COS

Id wait til it drops to that anyway. Or until it gets repossessed and the bank slings it in an Auction to get a bit of it back.

Dont believe what an estate agent tells you. They are shitting their pants at the moment and if you look hard enough you will see the sweat forming on his/her brow. Take control. times have changed fortunately and the smarmy bullshitting arseholes dont have it all their own way now. Dont believe the shite...there are fewer buyers with genuine money to buy at the moment so dont believe it when an agent says theyve had higher offers.

Id go in at £340k and tell them to stop insulting your intelligence!! And say thats your final and only offer and give them a deadline to accept or you will spend elsewhere with another agent!

There is nothing more desperate than a greedy but hungry estate agent!

dojj

iTrader: (3)

i gave my estate agent a deadline as to when i wanted to be in the house i bought in the august and was still waiting for something to happen in the december

there was a youngster giving it the big "but sir, we couldn't possibly do that for you sir" with hands trembling and sweat pouring out of his face
his voice going up to a high pitched squeak also told me somethign was troubling him

his boss then came over and tried to explain that there was not enough time in the offer i had bought tot he table and that it would not be possible to complete

"my soliciter has promised to only charge 50% of the fe's if this falls through, i finish work that day at around 2pm, if i don't have a call from you to say "hello sir, you may come and collect the keys" i will be off to him with a cheque for his services"

i got up and left, feeling like a bit of a cunt, but i dind't turn back and they sorted the deal within the timeframe

Ian M500COS

Apologies to those of you who are or related to estate agents...but the ones that I know are slime, gunge and offensive anal secretion. And along with Goldon Clown, are one of the main reasons that property rocketed beyond most peoples ability to buy!!

It gives me great pleasure to see them grovelling now and I for one wont laugh when I see my local estate agent owner or manager busking in the street or begging with a hat or working in McDonalds!

kjc300

iTrader: (1)

Those prices on the website are not the prices of what the house was sold for, they are the prices of the mortgage on those properties. So *may* not be an accurate guide. Checked my house and the value stated is the amount of my mortgage - 70k less than the value of the house.

C4llyT

Heard experts say offer 20% lower.

Twellsie

iTrader: (1)

but it at least gives you a rough idea at how much they may owe on a property

Elvis

iTrader: (1)

Still alot of misguided people in this market in my opinion.

We bought our house for £470k, its detached 4 bed, with a garden and 3 off road parking spaces, But last september a house 30sec from our house that is a semi, looks nice from the outside, so we looked it up on the estae agents website, it was up for £850k looked big in the photos. had 4 bedrooms and a basement,

I spoke to the wife about this, and decided that because we like the area we could move just down the road, but, we got there, and i was like WTF, the rooms where not much bigger than ours, the garden was smaller, and you could not stand up in the basement.... and you could only get a mini in the garage they built, why build a garage thats half the length of a normal car?

ours is a new build and that is a victorian house,their house had loads of visable damp, and cracks in the walls, they had it on the market for over a year and i beleive me and my wife where the only ones to view the house

dojj

iTrader: (3)

but victorian houses were made from stones and limes and stuff, not bits of matchstick and dental floos like modern houses are

The Youth.

iTrader: (1)

my house was 240k back in 2006 the seller then knocked 20k off for a quick sale to 220k and we offered 210k and got knocked back they then cam back to us and said meet halfway(215k) and it's ours..job done!!

steve

Cam

No rule of thumb really but if you are a cash buyer with no chain you have far more bargaining power. A 400k property thats new to market *should* be priced realistically so an offer of less than 375k would be rejected unless they are desperate or you are in a position to complete quickly (no chain etc..) .
Properties that have been on the market some time are worth bidding 20% under sale price and 35% if you can offer a fast transaction.
The absolute best investment at the moment is building land. I recently aquired a plot that was valued at 475k with full planning for 16 houses for 280k cash as the vendor was into the bank for a fortune and needed some cash.

Phil

iTrader: (1)

Mine comes back at the sale value and not the mortgage value!

Cam

That site uses the land registry sale value which is often manipulated by sellers offering deposit paid, cash back and other offers.
Build 12 houses the same design and sell the first couple with 20% deposit paid means on the Land Registry record the property sold for 240k when it really sold for 200k. When a valuator somes to value to other 10 properties he will refer to the land registry and see that similar properties sold for 240k so he says 240k is a fair price. You bid 220k and think you got a bargain!

dojj

iTrader: (3)

that's a fairl common scam mate

people are lured into buying houses because the sellers will give you your 25% deposit, you go to the bank to ask for a loan for the remainder, the bank gives you the loan as you have already "paid" the 25% deposit, you think you are onto a winner

then you find out that this "bargain" you got as a buy to let property is only rated at half what it's valued at so you are only "earning" 66% of what's you paid for it

then you try to sell it and you find out that it was overpriced by 100% so you are fucked several ways till sunday in 25 years time

Fil

a family members just bought a new build up for 205k, 165k accepted 2 weeks ago.

thats a 2 bed flat, looking at past sales dec 07 a 1 bed in the same block sold at 225k !

Fudgey

iTrader: (4)

chip, your almost right lol

bought the place in may 05 for 126500, and accepted an offer 2 weeks ago for 119950

asking price! was on the market for 3 days lol

i wanted to put it on for more, but the estate agent put it on the website etc before we had signed the paperwork and told them of the changes we wanted.

anyway, if we had put t on for 123k, we would have probably taken 120k lowest anyway.

we are now struggling to find a house we both like tho

s, say we like a place up for 170k, and offer 155k, thats not taking the piss?

one place we liked is up for 175k and offered 160k, they said no and had already turned down 165k on it...

cfoster

My house was up for £285k and i went in at £200k!!!!! (first time buyer etc!!), eventually we agreed £220k so thought I did well!!

Cam

I wasn't meaning buy to let over valuations as that has been addressed by the mortgage companies after the Morris Properties scandal.
Its common practice to bump up the land registry sale price on ALL property transactions so using the free online price checkers for reference is something I personally wouldn't recommend.

Elvis

iTrader: (1)

our one is pretty well built

we lived in a victorian house before this and cost a fortune to maintail,

pissed so much money away on that place, i will never move into a OLD house again.

AJ_ERST

Id wait as the market is going to get alot worse... house prices have all been based on bullshit mortgages by unregulated commission hungry bankers & mortgage advisors which people cant afford, which along with greedy estate agents has inflated house prices. now the banks have learnt their lesson they are only wanting to lend at safe realistic rates which is now dropping the housing market like a stone. I still think there is a long way to go before the market levels out.. last recission it took a couple of years before the houseing market bottomed out and then it spent a few years flat before it started to climb again... and this time round were even more in the shit

dojj

iTrader: (3)

most of the peole i listen to who talk about how long it's going to last before bottoming out talk along the lines of it being at least 9 months down the line before there is a leveling out

also heard that london prices are falling further than other places, but that's probably because london prices were so high to start with

Fudgey

iTrader: (4)

righto, looked at a place today that he missus and i both liked

its up fo 160k at the mo, but came on the market in october at 175k, so he has already dropped it 15k

now, he has turned down 2 in his words 'silly' offers, but wouldnt say what they were

we will more than likely make an offer in the next day or 2, missus is going back tomoz with her mum for a 2nd look.

now we were thinking of going in for an offer of 150k

what do you reckon?

hes split with his missus and house is to big for him on his own. so not sur how desperate he is to sell.