offering less than an asking price?

Ask - if they don't want to accept they wont! We offered 20k less than the asking price of the house we're in now (and before that it had been on for 20k more than that)

If you don't ask, you'll never know!

Thanks, Were you in a position to move? Ours still hasnt sold and I wondered if that would hamper a lower offer?

If you're not embarrased by your first offer, it's too high. But if you're not in a position to move, they may be reluctant to consider it.

WTS. We offered 25k under the asking price for our house, they declined. We offered 20k less, they said they'd accept 15k less so that's what we agreed on. Go for it!

I like the first bit ?. I never thought of it that way. The second bit I thought might be the case. The problem is if they wont take a reduction we cant afford to reduce the price on ours. Its a catch 22.

Gah, I hate selling and buying houses!

Thanks, It makes me cringe but as you and others have said if you dont ask you dont get!!

x

well, youre not in a position to make any offer at all tbh. there s no point until you k now youve sold yours (assuming you need to sell yours prior to purchasing another). to make an offer now is simply wasting their time.

All depends on the percentage that 15k is of the asking price really.

If you're offering £15k under the asking price on a £1million house, then it's not going to make much of a dent to them. If the house is only on for £80k, then it's more of a big deal.

If you see what I mean?

I agree with Nick, no one is going to accept an offer from anyone who cant proceed

Hi Mattdonna,

We were recently in a similar situation in that we hadn't sold our house but had found the house we wanted, but needed to have an offer accepted in order that we could then reduce our house to sell. We put an offer in and it was rejected based on that fact we hadn't sold, we asked out estate agent to explain our position and that we would reduce our house to sell if we thought they'd take our offer. We did this and sold our house leaving the offer on the table - we then when back to them as soon as our house had sold and they accepted our offer.

We had reason to believe that they would accept our offer as their estate agent had hinted - otherwise we perhaps might not have done it - but it worked out and our estate agent was very helpful and said that things are being done this way more and more at the moment as people are reluctant to reduce until they know they can afford to buy still.

Our house sale did then fall through but we manage to find another buyer (cash this time) and the sale seems to be going through (we were lucky in that we were able to continue with the perchase by means of an emergency loan from the ILs).

Good luck with it - it's not a fun time to be buying and selling, but I think things are improving (we had about 20 viewings on our house in the last 3 weeks).

they could accept it but it would be meaningless, since it would remain on the market until someone with the funds could proceed. its a waste of time making an offer now, totally pointless <shakes head>

The house we bought was on the market for £245k then it was reduced to £220k and we put an offer in for £200k and it was accepted. They then accepted £198k as we had to take a cut on the house we were selling as the survey downvalued it. BUT, as NickJ said, we had received an offer on our house from a FTB so it meant a quick sale for them. The house was then STC on Rightmove.

Before this happened we put an offer on another house but it didn't change to STC as we didn't have an offer on ours at the time.

It is cheeky and can't hurt but they will either say no or accept but leave it on the market unless you have an offer on your place.

xxx

I understand this completely but if we made the offer and the property was left on the market and someone proceedable came along in the meantime surely it would at least give us an idea. It would obviously be a risk on our part. But I dont understand why you feel it is so pointless.

The house started out at 185k and was reduced to 155k. We were thinking of offering £140. (it does need a fair bit of updating.

Why a risk for you? you could lose it anyway in the time that yours doesnt sell. I understand your logic, but its flawed tbh. i think the best you could hope for is to tell the agent that youre interested, though youre not in a position to proceed, and when you are, you ll be looking at an offer in the region of x. they will then tell the vendor, and if its in the ballpark or not they ll tell you anyway. so either way youre not losing out on anything, and it ll give you an idea of how receptive they might be. if and when you sell yours, you ll have no chain and hence be more attractive to them anyway. and if prices continue to fall, you d look like a pair of real dicks to offer now when you cant proceed, only to find out that they would take say, 130 for it in 9 months time if the market falls further. if you offer now and the market falls, you ll want to reduce the offer anyway, thereby makig the vendors feel bad. see what i mean?

I'm reading this with interest as I've only ever bought not sold.

Ours has just gone on the market and we looked at somewhere on Sat which was stupid really as we want it now but need to sell ours first. I didn't think you could make an offer unless yours was sold. I've not even told our agent we're interested in it as I didn't see the point.

you can make an offer, but its meaningless - a good agent (are there any?) will explain that you arent in a position to make an offer, but they will talk tot he vendor and tell them how you feel. a crap agent will push you and say "are you makign an offer? are you? are you?" and then they will write to the vendor to tell them you ve made an offer, and they think it makes them look good because they have "got them an offer" which is balls frankly.

Totally WNS

We were in a position to proceed separately but the vendor made us jump through hoops to accept our offer. She wanted the us to pass onto her letters from our IFA and our bank account copies to prove we could afford it! We soon told her where to jump and she quickly accepted

I chose the least twatty/full of bullshit estate agent of the three who valued our place. We've bought through him before and he doesn't seem to go in for chatting crap to people. He valued it the lowest but we're probably still being optimistic on the asking price.

Theres a house we would love to offer on but wont until we get an offer on ours. Until someone offers on ours then we are actively looking but not in any position to offer on anything else. I ceetainly wouldnt accept an offer on ours if the buyers hadnt had an offer on theirs, our house would remain on the market. My thought is, we are prepared to take a reduction then whatever we offer on will need to take a reduction too. Its a matter of sitting and waiting Im afraid.

Thanks everyone, Nick I see your point now. Perhaps lodging an interest is the way to go. I understand the property would still be up for grabs but at least we would have an idea of the minimum the vendor would be after. Thanks for the advice

x

I'd have to agree with this too. We've just put our house on the market and have been viewing other properties. We've not made any offers on houses that we've seen as we feel as though we're not able to do this until there is some interest in our own property. If we can get a buyer for ours then we'll be looking at going and putting silly offers in on some of the houses we've seen as i feel that we'd have more of a bargaining tool if our house is pretty much sold and we're ready to move.