[Closed] Anyone bought a house recently?

Yup, initial offer 30% under with us settling on 10% off. If I was less fussy about the precise area (there are only five houses in the place where I want to be) a better bargain could have been had.

I'm thinking 15% under for the initial offer, there's plenty on the market but little in this price bracket and it's not a house that's easy to compare to others.

think it depends where I am plenty went for under asking price ut they were overpriced. i paid 10% over for mine but it was still 20K cheaper than another one in same street that was better decorated. I really wanted it though and so did someone else.

While vendors are not keen to be exploited nor move for a galling price, there are so few buyers I don't think it hurts to go in lower. Do you have any idea about their circumstances?

House has been for sale since the google streetview car came round these parts 2 years ago (maybe not continuously it's now on with a different agent) sold in January but fell through as the chain broke below them. It's already had the asking price reduced by 15%. They've been their 14 years so unlikely to have negative equity to consider

It really depends on the area - our place in Kent sold (still STC - touch wood!) in under a week at about 10% below what it was advertised at but we had priced it realistically for a quick sale. We've bought a new build in Devon at only about 5% below the asking price after steadily working down from about 30% below. It was a real struggle to get the developer to accept even 5% below asking, but I understand that's often the case with new build.

Depends massively on the house. We were about 5% under. WE missed out on one because we went in at only 10% over and someone went in at 15%. Massively undervalued though for what it was. We were a bit confused as a simple internet search would have told the owner/estate agent that.

We went in on one at 10% lower and they said no. IT eventually sold for that but after they reduced the price. Sometimes people get defensive if you just put in a low offer and refuse to sell on principle.

NO I HAVEN'T JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE RECENTLY AS SOME TOOL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CHAIN HAS MISLED EVERYONE AS TO HIS FUNDING STATUS AND AS A CONSEQUENCE MY ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD IS IN STORAGE. AND I'M BUSY PHONING EVERY TOSSPOT LAWYER AND ESTATE AGENT TO GET THE * TO GET THE * DEALS DONE COS IN THE MEANTIME ME MRS NORTH AND BABY NORTH ARE IN ONE BEDROOM AT THE INLAWS WITH NOTHING BUT THE CLOTHES WE STAND UP IN

IF THIS *** COMPLETES I AM NEVER EVER EVER MOVING AGAIN.

****ERS

yes but what price is the house they want to buy. they make make a healthy profit but that does not meant they will undersell. You have no way of knowing if they think the price is relaistic and are holding out for that. My advice pay what you are willing to and walk away if it goes above this. If they reduced by 15% recently thhey do want to sell but may not go lower.
I dont knwo if mine was fair or over priced but I am happy with it... not many houses have space for an inside bike shed 😀

Do a bit of research first, check out http://www.mouseprice.com/ or http://www.zoopla.co.uk/ first to find out what the vendor paid and what the house prices in the area have done over the last year. Ask the local estate agents what the local market is like, look for similar properties and ask how long they have been on the market.
Outline your position; are you chain free, mortgage in place, etc

Then make your first offer based on the facts you uncover and tell the estate agent what you have based your offer on.
Don’t be afraid to say ‘best and final’ if you are prepared to walk away.

Zoopla is a waste of time in my experience and the vendor bought too long ago to find land registry prices online.

And I wouldn't trust anything the local estate agents say about 'the market' 😀

Prices in my area are dropping monthly. According to my estate agent, far too many people were asking a high price and then couldn't understand why it wasn't selling.

To be honest it really depends on circumstances. I received an offer on mine (had dropped a few times) said no then they met full asking price. They had nothing to sell. Vendor of the house I liked were end of the chain and wouldn't accept offers unless it was a small chain.

I went in with a silly offer, they said no but go a couple of K higher which I did.

Edit: yes, check out price history. Also, do you know their circumstances? I've seen quite a mixture - people divorcing, people downsizing, first time buyers etc.

If the house is or has been listed on rightmove, I would recommend installing the [url= http://www.property-bee.com/ ]property bee[/url] toolbar extension for Firefox.

Ensure you click 'join a bee' in the options and it will show you all the listing changes the house has had which have been seen by other users. In reality this covers pretty much all rightmove properties as some property bee users run huge searches weekly to catch all updates.

Land registry figures for the East Midlands give a monthly change of -1.9%

Already got property bee installed. The changes can be quite amusing.

I'm waiting for an update that corrects the "This property is like a tardice" spelling on a listing I keep seeing 🙂

Ridiculously subjective question

but...

Do you think now is a good time to buy a flat? (first property) assuming I can get the mortgage

Hmmm, well apparently some lenders are offering in principle then withdrawing offer.

People still need to move for so many different reasons.

well apparently some lenders are offering in principle then withdrawing offer.

Keep hearing this and it makes me nervous.

Conqueror - I was in the same position as you, and albeit in a different country, I'm now in the process of buying.

The price that I have paid is the best part of 20% less than was paid for an identical flat in the same block ( but not on the top floor ) in 2008.

A combination of low interest rates and much reduced property prices would seem to make it a good time to buy ( if you can get the mortgage - I understand things in the UK are still pretty tricky in that respect ).

Completed last October, paid about 5k less than the 178 asking price, but it had a lot of features I wanted and to be honest I've yet to see a house for sale for more than a month round here.

It was in good enough decorative order to live in without needing to do much for the next few years, kitchen is good, and it had a nice garage, off-road parking and close to a traffic free commute into my office and the wifes so I guess what I'm saying is how much do you want it?

Low offer, what is the worst they can say - "No" then you either leave it or try again.

It's not the 'perfect' house, but then nothing is likely to be in our price bracket!

Work out what is important, whether it be house or location. Do you want to spend valuable bike money/time doing DIY or extra time commuting particularly with current fuel costs?

There will always be half a dozen things that aren't ideal!

The loan in principle you hear about more and more- explain, a friend really needs a house purchase to go through (buying her soon to be ex husband out) and this really wouldn't help things.

Plus this would really shell a lot of house deals

loan in principle go to a mortgage broker see what you can borrow that is it takes 20 mins need id - photo and two utilities + last 3 wage packets - it is free and they can print this out for you /give to estate agents.

I think OMITN needs a hug. Hang on there fella!

Just completed my purchase last Friday 🙂

We sold our place last year and moved into rented so we could be cash buyers. It was on the market at £395k and we accepted £370k.

Spent six months looking (which included one purchase that fell through) then were the first people to see a property new to the market. It was priced at £450k, we offered £425k which was rejected and eventually settled on £435.

The loan in principle you hear about more and more- explain

[url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/just-been-turned-down-for-a-mortgage/ ] Just been turned down for a mortgage[/url]

It's also happened to some people I know.

Approx. half the houses we have looked at have been sales that have fallen through because the buyer can't get the finance in place - either because a mortgage has been refused despite an agreement in principle or the mortgage valuation hasn't been high enough and the sellers weren't willing to reduce.

Just accepted 4k under asking price for mine, bought new property for 5k under asking price.

I'm happy *touches wood*.

Best bet I found (in my limited experience of 1 purchase) is to act like you don't give a sh*t. Put in a low bid, don't chase it at all. If they get a higher bid, they'll come back to you to see if you can beat it.

You chase them = you're keen = you'll pay more.

Tell them you've seen other places that you are interested in, point out all the bad points about the property, then put in a v low offer. You can always increase it later. If necessary view other properties with the same agent - the agent will prob mention this to the seller, which might make them panic and accept your offer.

I put in a low offer, of 110k on a property listed (cheap in my opinion) at 125k. They declined but dropped 5k off the asking to 120k. I increased my offer to 114k and said final offer, take it or leave it.

Heard nothing for a week, they then contacted me to say 116k. I said no, even though I'd have paid the original asking of 125k.

They then phoned a couple of days later and said they'd accept 114k, but it would be nice if I'd make a gesture of paying 115. I kinda laughed at paying an extra grand for no reason, and said 114, which is what we eventually agreed upon (took 6 months for the deal to go through with chain breaking).

If you act like you don't care, then they're more likely to accept a lower offer, than if they cotton onto the fact that you actually love the property.

The estate agent just wants a sale - a few extra grand to them on the sale price is nothing to them in commission - a cheap sale for them is far better than telling the seller to hold out for a higher price and risking losing a buyer.

KINGTUT - Member

Just accepted 4k under asking price for mine, bought new property for 5k under asking price.

I'm happy *touches wood*.

Wow - house buying really does it for you ay! I never get [i]that[/i] excited by it.

heh..

Joeydeacon - those figures are fairly similar to what we're looking at.

I'm not desperate at all but that's more first time nerves about buying a house as much as anything.

To me it looks reasonably priced already but there's this niggling doubt that if it was such good value it would have sold already

Are you able to ascertain whether any potential buyers had a survey done on it? Or have neighbours put in planning applications for extensions or something like that?

I think the sale that fell through was before the survey stage.

I know the area well, no neighbour planning applications and on really any potential for applications that would affect the house in the future. It may just be that there are very few buyers around.

I think OMITN needs a hug. Hang on there fella!

Cheers. Sadly, the situation isn't getting any better. Seems some people have been telling porkies....

omitn - that must be so frustrating for you all, particularly with a little one. 🙁

Surely the estate agent had seen proof of his funding?

We moved in December from rented. Offered 20K below asking (220K) and agreed 10K under. After survey settled on 12.5k under asking.

What part of the country is that Sidney?

We completed two weeks ago on a house we bought in 2005. It sold for 7% less than we paid for it, and that's not counting tax and costs, but we needed to get out (long story).

Our final selling price was 17% less than the asking price. This price was itself reduced from buyers' initial offer at the last minute, after their bank reduced their maximum mortgage value specifically because the housing market is in decline. We didn't really have much choice and had to just take the hit.

It took over eight months to complete, and eighteen months to sell all told, despite there being no chain - much of this is down to the buyers being complete ******* flakes, and their idiot solicitor who left everything to the last minute. But their mortgage companies (they went through two) were uncooperative to the point of active hostility - banks simply don't want to lend money if they can help it and seem to be looking for excuses to make sales fall through. As a rule, selling houses right now isn't much fun, don't bother unless you really have to.

[Edit: ah sorry, I see you're buying. Be as cheeky as you like, play it cool and provided you can squeeze the money out of the bank, you'll nab yourself a bargain. Have fun! It's your market...]

We've got an agreement in principle for the maximum we'd want to offer but of course until you've actually had the mortgage approved the banks can still say no. I don't like the idea of offering on a house and then finding out we can't borrow the money but I can't see that we can do anymore than get the agreement in principle. And of course if the bank says the house is only worth x amount we have to go with that figure because as first time buyers we need to make sure that our LTV ratio is still met.

Even in a buyers market, I can't envisage any of the process being anywhere near fun...

Thats in Chelmsford, Essex.

Even in a buyers market, I can't envisage any of the process being anywhere near fun...

Yes, it's unlikely to be an enjoyable experience, I was being a bit flippant and bitter, sorry. Best of luck. 😉

Whereabouts in the country was your house mintimperial?

We've just put ours on the market, so we've got all the 'fun' to look forward to. arrrgh

outskirts of notts if anyones interested.....

Outskirts in which direction?

Whereabouts in the country was your house mintimperial?

West Yorkshire, near Huddersfield.

Offered 10% under as our highest offer. Were ignored for two months then they came back an accepted 9% under on recommendation of the agent. We were probably the only proceedable cash buyers in Windsor, as all the houses we viewed and offered on are still for sale.

We've just put our house on the market too... 😯 the market is very different to the last time we moved (2003/4) so will be very interesting to see what happens..

west, not far from j25 - pm if you want the right move link, its around your price I think

Wrong direction for us, thanks anyway.

First offer made and rejected 🙂

Even in a buyers market, I can't envisage any of the process being anywhere near fun...

Yes, it's unlikely to be an enjoyable experience, I was being a bit flippant and bitter, sorry. Best of luck.

*Thanks lucky stars in a non-Jenny Talior way*

That said, I probably shouldn't tempt fate.

I probably shouldn't have tried to post on here, have a chat and do some work at the same time - that last post made less sense than normal.

I'm shocked at some of the tales of problems on here, I'm a first time buyer and the place I am buying is ex-rental, so I've not had any chain type experience. The only problem I've had is signing the mortgage offer and at the same time discovering that the apartment hadn't actually been valued yet - just a couple of days delay.

*Thanks lucky stars in a non-Jenny Talior way*

*Thanks lucky stars in a non-Jenny Talior [b]waving[/b] way*

Ebygomm - if your first offer isn't rejected then you didn't do it right. 🙂

We bought in October at -20%ish, flat above just went on market at +35% more than we paid, albeit a new roof and paint job on the building over the winter, IF it sells at that, then we have done well. It is investment, rented out flat in central Scotland.

Feel for you OMITN. We moved end of Jan. Would have been last october but for a total bastard timewaster who put an offer in on our house, then got shirty about the price and wanted money off, then disappeared off the face of the earth and refused to answer phone calls (and blanked us in the street when we bumped into him) which almost resulted in us losing our house and did result in us having to accept a lower offer than we'd have liked to progress the purchase of our new place.

Anyway turns out the prick was lying about being in a position to purchase in the first place.

Anyway we accepted around 15% under on our house sale but knocked around the same (maybe a little less) off the place we bought.

In the longterm getting the place you want is what really matters. It would have been nice to make a bit of extra money on the deal but it's not that important really.

Second offer made and rejected, back to the drawing board.

We've had ours on the market for three weeks and had one viewing two days after it went up and that's it. The wife has already seen the house she wants and we're now in the horrible position of waiting. We've put ours up at almost 10K below the other houses in the area in the hope of getting a bit of interest but nothing.

yossarian - we're not in such a bad place, but there are definitely lies being told..!

Am not happy being homeless... 😥