I can’t wait till next year though, I have to move out end of August!

We made an offer [cheeky one, but the only one they’ve had] on a property that’s been on the market for nearly a year, offer was made on the 17th of July and we’re still waiting for a reply.
I sent EA an email on the 23rd just to jolly them up.

Making cheeky offers is fine but be careful as more likely to get gazumped, in reality cheeky offers will mostly get rejected if the market is strong enough so if they’re accepted can mostly stick. I last bought in 2007 as things were getting quite boomy, 1st offer was rejected but still ended up paying under the asking price – not bad as someone then tried to gazump me with an asking price offer but vendor was a decent chap who I’d put in the effort to develop a decent relationship with.

Yeah I have thought of that, nothing I can do really as my maximum amount is just that, can’t go much higher!

One slight issue is that they don’t have an EA to advise them. The company they used to get their house on Rightmove are just an advertising company, not an EA, so I will be negotiating with the sellers myself. I would assume an EA would have advised them on the price for a start (what they have asked is a bit high) and maybe sold us as great buyers to them (we have already sold, don’t really have a chain as we are moving in with friends in the meantime). I think they are clever enough to realise all aspects of a offer are important but you never know.

A friend of mine accepted a great offer on a house of theirs and rejected all other offers but it turned out the great offer wasn’t backed up with a mortgage in place – they had to pull out quite quickly but the other interested parties had moved on and found something elsewhere.

Hi mudshark, why would i need to be careful? i’m a cash buyer so they can take it or leave it, but would like to know either way.

I suppose the best thing to do is make sure people take their property off the market if they accept an offer. If they don’t I would ask them why and explain that it would be hard for me to invest in legal stuff/searches/surveys if they might be looking for a higher offer (and therefore would result in me being gazumped).

They haven’t replied to my offer yet – the wait is killing me!

twinw4ll – if you’re a cash buyer you can move quickly, especially if you forget about a survey. Thing is to make sure the vendor moves quickly too. Other than that explicitly ask the vendor to take the property off the market as part of accepting your offer, I did this and still had an attempted gazumping from someone who’d already seen it though.

I cringed when we made an offer on the house we’ve just bought. It was over asking price and nearly twice what we paid for our last one.

Still, when the other half has decided it’s the one they want, you’re pretty stuffed.

Better to get the right house at the wrong price than the wrong house at the right price 🙂

sold our house through an agency before it even made it on to rightmove. The agency had someone on their books who was looking, and then made an offer at the full asking price.

Singed contract with agent on the Friday, a couple saw the house on Monday, made an offer on Tuesday which we accepted. House appeared on Rightmove on Wednesday marked as Sold STC.

Now we just have to find a place. Agencies will always seem to give first refusal for new properties to people who have sold though them.

This is pretty much how we bought ours. The agent had literally just written the details and gave us an address to meet up at! Never even made it onto rightmove.

Better to get the right house at the wrong price than the wrong house at the right price

Probably what we paid, I suspect there’s a lot of scope to add value to it, in the first instance just by doing the decorating, then there’s room to extend, add en-suites etc. But I suspect if you did all that you’d only make your money back not any profit.

Still, it’s still about the cheapest house on the street, and not the smallest by a long way!

The house I put an offer in is the most expensive house on the street. I don’t like the fact they aren’t using an EA at all as it makes it very difficult to know what’s happening

The house I put an offer in is the most expensive house on the street. I don’t like the fact they aren’t using an EA at all as it makes it very difficult to know what’s happening

Indeed, you need to get a line of communication open via email or something else. You can then say to them, something along the lines of:

‘I really don’t want to pressure you, as I realise these matters take a great deal of consideration. However, we have another house we are interested in and although yours is our preferred option, if we can’t get it within our budget, then we need to make a move on this other house. Therefore, if you could let me know your thoughts asap, we’d appreciate it.’

In April the government imposed capital gains tax on the sale of properties that are not the primary residence. I would expect thats affecting the housing market too as its certainly stopped me selling up.

In April the government imposed capital gains tax on the sale of properties that are not the primary residence.

Hasn’t that always been the case?

Hasn’t that always been the case?

Maybe in part, i left the UK to work abroad a few years ago and before April would not have had to pay capital gains on selling my house in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/residence

Quite a sensible change then, makes it less beneficial to stuff overseas money into UK property.

Yeah, i can see why they did it, i’m just bitter that i wasn’t aware of the change before it happened 😀
Right now its better for me to keep the place rented than to sell it, due to the tax.

Better to get the right house at the wrong price than the wrong house at the right price

Agree 100% on that. (Generally speaking) You have to live there!

robdob – fancy moving to Hebden Bridge? Ours on the market for under £160k. Great spot, nice features, 2 bedrooms (easily converted to 3). Riding galore on your doorstep.

Thanks for the offer but too far away for us, we want to stay around Huddersfield. 🙂

Ha, no worries. Huddersfield’s great too – massively underrated. Good luck with buying.

It looks like we are moving out on Friday! This would be cause for celebration however we haven’t got another house to move to. Thankfully staying with friends but it’s going to be tough for a while. 🙁