House Buying

markwilliams82

markwilliams82

markwilliams82

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1,548
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Birmingham
Evening all, I'm looking to move house to buy one that's listed as offers in region of £355,000 that's in good condition, been listed since March this year, has had other offers rejected for being too low and is offered with no upward chain.

What do you understand from the term offers in the region of and what's a sensible offer to make?

Obviously the agents aren't giving anything away about any previous offers

Thanks
 
See what similar properties in the area are worth/selling for and/or get a 3rd party valuation.

Could be people offering silly low offers (we had a lot of that on my grandad's place recently) but more likely the sellers are difficult with unrealistic expectations and just not worth the hassle of dealing with.
 
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I've had a look at other houses in the area but this is an older cottage whereas the other houses on the road are newer builds so difficult to compare against.

The neighbouring cottage that mirrors it has no sale history so sounds like it's been lived in for a while
 
Want to understand the offers around terminology whilst the estate agent said they'd accept lower so trying to get some helpful feedback based on anyones experience
 
My view - Just make the offer of what ideally you want to pay for it, i.e. going quite low to begin with. Don't worry about making a low offer, because it's just that, an offer, they can always decline and counter. The property market is slowing and will probably weaken further.

Just give your low number and then take it from there. Negotiation starts with you saying your low number, that you are prepared to pay (i.e. you would go through with it), and then you take it from there. I don't think verbal offers are legally binding anyway, so just be aggressive (in a polite manner) and hit them low and then see what happens. You are literally just saying a number, once given they have it, there is no reason to justify it to them whatsoever, just state the number as an offer.

Hope that helps.
 
markwilliams82 said:
What do you understand from the term offers in the region of and what's a sensible offer to make?

Obviously the agents aren't giving anything away about any previous offers

Thanks
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OIRO basically means they're hoping to get around £355k for it - but, the key thing is, they haven't got it yet, which means you can offer well under that figure as an opening offer, as they haven't been able to sell.
 
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radderfire said:
OIRO basically means they're hoping to get around £355k for it - but, the key thing is, they haven't got it yet, which means you can offer well under that figure as an opening offer, as they haven't been able to sell.
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Offer under.. But not too far under to be insulting.

Ours we bought was OIEO 250k. Which was no fun.
Estate agent said they tried to sell at 275k. Got a buyer actually. But bank declined.

We had to go over. Went 261k, initially got rejected, some weird stuff happened, and then got accepted. The house had a lot of viewings and an open day,and estate agent said needed to go over 257. I think they were probably telling the truth as it has that buyer at 275.


This offers **** caused us much stress. And finding a detected house with a garden for 260 near Cardiff was hard. Maybe paid too much. But no regrets.
If the house is rare or you love it. I wouldn't mess around over a few k.

I'd have been ****** if had found out it sold for 262 and we offered 260 for example
 
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If you'd pay 355 for it offer 325 or 330. I think region of just means be close aka not a joker offering 300. If the house needs some work refer to specific points in your offer and you might get some concession from the seller
 
It's a tough one, and all this stupid terminology is used to try and confuse buyers around what is an acceptable offer. IMHO it just needs to be banned. There should just be a listing price for what the seller is after, at least that way a buyer can make a better guess on whether an offer would be accepted.

We've got a neighbour who put their house up for sale a few months ago for 100k more than we paid for ours 3 years ago (a small build of a dozen identical layout houses - so perfect indicator of how much ours would be worth). I assume they weren't getting any viewings as two weeks later they changed agents. Now about 2 months later it's been dropped in price by 15 grand and still hasn't gone SSTC. With the market going a bit stale I'd be surprised if they don't just pull the house and wait for prices to increase again.
 
This whole haggling culture does my head in.

Don't just try to get a deal no matter what, offer what it's worth to you, taking in to account the market. The idea of attempting to begin what is likely going to be one of the most stressful experiences/largest financial burdens of your life on a footing of squeezing the seller in to selling for less than the house is really worth is mental to me. I understand the idea is that houses are priced higher than they actually want, but it isn't because there's a standard amount known to be offered under that, every house is different and asking us is pointless.

:edit: hmm, I don't really mean that last point. Obviously there's stuff to be taken from others POV, but I get the feeling people end up pushed in to this situation where they feel like they need to play a game.
 
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Zefan said:
This whole haggling culture does my head in.

Don't just try to get a deal no matter what, offer what it's worth to you, taking in to account the market. The idea of attempting to begin what is likely going to be one of the most stressful experiences/largest financial burdens of your life on a footing of squeezing the seller in to selling for less than the house is really worth is mental to me. I understand the idea is that houses are priced higher than they actually want, but it isn't because there's a standard amount known to be offered under that, every house is different and asking us is pointless.

:edit: hmm, I don't really mean that last point. Obviously there's stuff to be taken from others POV, but I get the feeling people end up pushed in to this situation where they feel like they need to play a game.
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Don't like the price don't sell. Don't like the offer dont accept it. No one is forcing anything so don't get worked up about it. The whole point of negotiating is to settle on a number both parties are happy with
 
gazref said:
Don't like the price don't sell. Don't like the offer dont accept it. No one is forcing anything so don't get worked up about it. The whole point of negotiating is to settle on a number both parties are happy with
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I agree but it's missing my point entirely. My point is that people end up acting in ways that are unnatural to them because of the perception that this is just "how things are", even though the reason it is this way is because people tell themselves it needs to be. One can simply list a house for the actual price it's worth, and one can offer at the actual value. Doing some stupid dance isn't actually required, and I don't think many people even consider this. I've seen both sellers and buyers lose out on things because they were so caught up in ensuring they didn't bid too high too early, or declined an actually acceptable offer simply because it was the first one made by the prospective buyer.
 
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Zefan said:
I agree but it's missing my point entirely. My point is that people end up acting in ways that are unnatural to them because of the perception that this is just "how things are", even though the reason it is this way is because people tell themselves it needs to be. One can simply list a house for the actual price it's worth, and one can offer at the actual value. Doing some stupid dance isn't actually required, and I don't think many people even consider this. I've seen both sellers and buyers lose out on things because they were so caught up in ensuring they didn't bid too high too early, or declined an actually acceptable offer simply because it was the first one made by the prospective buyer.
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100%. I know I am a total bell but the next house I am buying, I am almost 100% I am gazumping them because that just seems to be what you should do.
 
413x said:
We had to go over. Went 261k, initially got rejected, some weird stuff happened, and then got accepted. The house had a lot of viewings and an open day,and estate agent said needed to go over 257. I think they were probably telling the truth as it has that buyer at 275.
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My old neighbour put theirs up at "offers around 500K" but apparently wanted over 500K - someone offered 490K and they snootily turned it down, their tenant offered 380K which was at the time a bit low but realistically more what it is worth and got laughed at. Joke was on them as between market downturn and getting into money troubles and being desperate they had to accept an offer at 240K eventually.

By all accounts he was incredibly difficult to work with, loads of people pulled out - his wife in the end forced it through because of their financial situation.
 
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Rroff said:
My old neighbour put theirs up at "offers around 500K" but apparently wanted over 500K - someone offered 490K and they snootily turned it down, their tenant offered 380K which was at the time a bit low but realistically more what it is worth and got laughed at. Joke was on them as between market downturn and getting into money troubles and being desperate they had to accept an offer at 240K eventually.

By all accounts he was incredibly difficult to work with, loads of people pulled out - his wife in the end forced it through because of their financial situation.
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This is the thing. 490k buyer missed out on the house because they were turned down, however honestly what are the chances they couldn't afford to push it 2% to 500k? The sellers missed out because they used silly wording and we're not being clear about what they wanted. Why do we force ourselves in to these sorts of situations :o
 
Zefan said:
This is the thing. 490k buyer missed out on the house because they were turned down, however honestly what are the chances they couldn't afford to push it 2% to 500k? The sellers missed out because they used silly wording and we're not being clear about what they wanted. Why do we force ourselves in to these sorts of situations :o
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They were having a conversation under my bedroom window after she was shown around - she almost certainly floated 490K to get the ball rolling, he was being a bit of a dick so she in a polite way told him to go do one and left.

EDIT: Reminds me - a few years before that a developer bought the field behind our houses to build on and were offering 600K (which at the time was very generous) to buy his house so as to put in an access road and he messed them around wanting way more money so instead they went with another option.
 
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