Alright then:
I'm a first time buyer and am thinking about making an offer on a house.
Its on the market for £140 000 and is open to offers.
Needs some work (mostly decorating).

How low could you go without looking like your taking the pi$$?

Your first offer should be taking the piss – that's the point. Been told by two ex-estate agents that I know privately (can I admit that?) that you should be embarrassed by your first offer 🙂

The point is that the first offer will be rejected, you then plan what steps to go up to in stages. If there is someone else interested, this might go out of the window though. Look at houseprices.co.uk to see if theres anything similar sold recently, cost the work up roughly and deduct that, then take off a fair bit more and you have a 1st offer!

Have a look at Zoopla to try and guage what a fair price would be, then offer a bit less than that to start off with 😉

That should be Zoopla

I think 😉

Cheers – will check them out and prepare a silly bid!

I've just had my offer of 15% below asking accepted 😯

Nothing wrong with taking the piss- its called negotiation. If your first offer is accepted then it was too high. Go in at least 10-20% under the asking price.

if you take the piss it can get their back up though so be prepared to walk away if needed,if someone offered 20% off my house I probably wouldn't even negotiate tbh,10% would be more realistic imo

,if someone offered 20% off my house I probably wouldn't even negotiate tbh,10% would be more realistic imo

Why wouldn't you negotiate? Its an offer if you don't like it just make a counter offer. I'm afraid that's how business works.

make a low offer, like £123.5 k, and make you final offer an unusual figure – like £137,740 – which suggests its the absolute most you could finally gather together

When we bought our place our initial offer was double the difference below what we were prepared to pay for it from the asking price. In the end we got it for within a thousand pounds of what we wanted.

All depends on the market in your area…got to do the research to gauge supply of similar properties and whether there are selling. I'm just at this moment buying a property and hoping to get to exchange soon. We went in at the full asking price and were lucky to get it at that…sold on first day on the market and we weren't the only people to make a offer. 😯

To be fair though, the house we were selling sold a day before it was even put on the market offically.

'Why wouldn't you negotiate? Its an offer if you don't like it just make a counter offer. I'm afraid that's how business works.'

if someone offered me 112k for a house I had on the market at 140k I would just say no with no come backs nothing making it quite clear they are nowhere near,I'm trying to tell him everyone is different,some seller's will be expecting to get within 2k of asking especially if the house is mint,other sellers might let him have 15% off or something but you have to way it up,has it been on the market a long time or something or some reason they are desperate to sell,you can quite easily offend the seller who will then dig his heals in and it will cost more to get it than if you were sensible in the first place

i'd be surprised if anyone actually got upset enough that they didn't want to sell their house. if so they could bloody keep it. i like idave's idea of the funny number. also, see if you can get them to throw in a fridge freezer, washing machine etc. assuming they're not too grotty. it's all money you don't have to spend then.
presume you have mortgage agreed in principle and are ready to do teh deal asap? that puts you in a very strong position. offer based on the survey not throwing up any nasties though, of course.
we bought a washing machine and got a free house… 😀

if someone offered me 112k for a house I had on the market at 140k I would just say no with no come backs nothing making it quite clear they are nowhere near

Yes, of course you would (unless it was massively overvalued!). Then he'd come back with a slightly more sensible offer and you take it from there. This time last year, houses were selling around 9% under asking price IIRC, so for a first offer to be 10% under would generally be wrong. Obviously every situation is different, if there are others bidding or the place is priced to sell then tactics change.

I'd think anything above £115,000 wouldn't be taking the piss, maybe £120,000. The key is to find out why they're selling. If it's about to be repo'd, take the piss all you like, they aren't in a position to pick and choose. If they can afford to wait for the asking price (and it's a fair one), you're going to have to go close to it.

Traditionally, houses sell for about 93% of asking price. Though this may not still be the case, let rip with a low offer – whats the worst that can happen?!?!?! Go for it!

As an FYI I just had an offer of 8% under asking accepted. My first offer was 12% under. The house was overpriced vs local competition. On the place I'm selling the first offer was 8% under and we accepted at 4% under. The thing with the place i'm selling it's close to the stampy duty increase threshold so that had an effect too.

Ta everyone.

Think that the asking price is a bit much as it needs a bit of work and similar places in better nick areon the market for the same price.

120 k it is

Depends on location, I am in a fairly good part of scotland, house are still selling – a bit slower than before.

I currently selling my place at fixed price at home report value and have recently dropped it about 5% below this (fixed). I had an offer 2k below this which I knocked back… keen to sell but have looked at a few properties in the £170k + range where sellers are looking for value and are willing to hang on to get it.

Therfore, I realise I need to sell below value to get first time buyers interested (as they need bigger deposits) however I will have to pay close to value to get house I want so cant afford to go too low.

I would judge each house I viewed on it's own merit and offer depending on sellers position, If they have bought a house or have a strong reason to sell, they will be time restricted and likely to take a cheeky offer.

However my experience that most sellers have bought in the boom and are hoping (or need) to get some costs back… tough times!