House buying – BAFO

I’ve just put an offer on a house only for the agent to come back and say I’m one of half a dozen offers and we now need to give our best and final offer on Monday.

I have a bit of room to increase but I don’t want to pay well over the odds.

Any ideas on tactics for this? So far, we’re just presenting ourselves as the nicest, most ready to move buyers with no baggage to deal with. Totally flexible to do what the sellers need etc

was in a similar situation. We increased in line with what we thought was a suitable price based on what we thought houses were actually selling at ( we had been looking at houses seriously for 2/3 years so had a decent idea. We also put a letter in saying we were lovely, ready to move locals etc, no chain, fluffy bunnies etc etc. So you could do that, I have no idea if it worked for us but we got the house

However, is it your dream house? In which case put everything on red

Also it could be bs and they just want a bit more

Offer what you can afford.

House market is stagnant at the minute so don’t go mad.

I’m sure it’s genuine. The house in itself is nothing special / has an upper limit on what it’s worth but the standard of work on everything is absolutely top notch. There’s lots of evidence of multiple viewings.

if it wasn’t something special (to me), then i don’t think id be motivated to up my offer

What you’re willing to pay. Don’t push affordability but be happy you offered as much as you felt it was worth. There’ll be others.

House market is stagnant at the minute so don’t go mad.

This. Have you compared recent local sale prices vs what they were listed for? Still seem to be some sizeable disparities.. (location dependent obvs).

However, is it your dream house? In which case put everything on red

When we sold in 2022 the estate agent advised us not to go with the highest offer, as they thought the buyer was possibly overstretching themselves and the purchase could fall through (also, they’ve seen people bid very high, then haggle down like crazy once the offer has been accepted). So don’t go mad!

We’re not overstretching ourselves which is maybe a mistake in some respects. We could spend more but would rather keep it comfortable.

When I say the house is nothing special, I mean in that it’s going to have an upper price limit but this is probably the best example you could find  of the type of house that it is but wouldn’t expect it to be worth much more. Hopefully that makes sense.

I wouldn’t go mad. We just took our house off the market after 8 months because we couldn’t sell. Dropped the price 15% and had loads of viewings but only 1 offer from somebody not proceedable. Of all of the 30+ viewings we had I think 2 were in a position to move. Lots of tyre kickers.

My point is, just because they’ve had lots of viewings, doesn’t mean there’s lots of offers. The market is very difficult at the moment and good oroceedable buyers have the upper hand for a change. Make the most of that.

All depends where you are of course! We are Surrey/Hants/Berks borders.

For the record, I know everything comes down to price and we’d have happily dropped our price a lot more, but most sellers still seem pretty delusional and unwilling to drop prices, meaning if we had sold we couldn’t have bought. Market needs a good correction IMO.

Bear in mind that the seller isn’t under any obligation to accept the highest offer. I sold my house this way and went for a lower offer, but from the person who was in the best position to proceed. So if there are aspects that make you a tempting buyer then make sure the agent is aware and can pass these on to the seller.

So if there are aspects that make you a tempting buyer then make sure the agent is aware and can pass these on to the seller.

100% this.

When the market is slow chains can take months to resolve. Buyers without chains can make a huge different to timescales and less likely to fall through so are very attractive, especially right now.

We lost out on a house earlier this year despite bidding £15k more than another couple, because they were in a better position than us. Unbelievable really.

Our neighbours took 18 months to sell their house- they had 3 chains break behind them so I agree with others that if you’re in a position to move quickly(*) with minimum hassle(*)  then that has an appeal to sellers.

*subject to solicitors

Don’t they say that you’re better off buying the worst house in a good area rather than the best house in a less good area?

It would seem that they’re trying to get you to pay a premium for an “as new” house?

I’m aware of loads of chains falling through, I’d stick with your offer and let them know otherwise why you’re a good deal. There’s a fair chance you’ll either find something else, or they’ll get back to you when the current offer falls through.

When we were buying 2 years ago it made sweet fa difference that we had no chain, everyone was just going for maximum money. This was even coming into the time of higher rates. Lots of houses we bid on still hadn’t appeared on the sold history a long time later. I guess some people have to learn the hard way!

We just took our house off the market after 8 months because we couldn’t sell. Dropped the price 15% and had loads of viewings but only 1 offer from somebody not proceedable.

The OP said the estate agent had multiple offers so pretty much the opposite of your situation.

Some stuff is in high demand still. Colleague of my wife was looking at houses near us, one they put an offer in on went for 100k above listing price – end of terrace 3 bed house.

I think your best option is as mentioned above to present yourself as a quick, hassle free purchase.

It’s a tricky one. We decided on a street and put in an offer on a nicely done up place. We got knocked back because a) we had two properties to sell first and b) they’d had an offer from someone who was renting. Our places got snapped up and a better located house with off road parking came up in the same street. We’d been advised by a landlord to go 10% over the ‘guide price’ and we went 7.5% over and got it (against another offer) and the house down the street was still on the market after we’d moved in. We like this place so much we’d have gone higher in retrospect and nothing like it has come up since. I find once money’s gone it’s fairly quickly forgotten.

The opposition, at least some of them, are likely to be first time buyers without chains so likely as good a bet as we are.

My opinion on that part of the market in London is that there is always demand when something decent, affordable and non-leasehold / crazy service charges becomes available.

As for pricing, to buy something else the same and extend to a much lower standard would cost a lot more. I think the agents have got the pricing right, nobody is going to go much above for the type of property and location but somebody is going to be lucky.

We had multiple offers on the old house a couple of years ago and accepted one that was not the highest but was the best combination of chain-status and value. There was only a couple of grand in it though.

Not so easy when trying to buy in the same market. We were outbid a couple of times, lost out to a cash buyer once, and eventually had to overpay to get something less than ideal as circumstances meant we needed to move fairly quickly. It does still nag at me that we got a bad deal, I guess I just need to move past it.

This is normal MO in Scotland and many English buyers moving here fall into a trap of trying to “get a good deal”.  There’s no such thing as a good deal for the buyer on best and final offers – if you approach it like a negotiation you will most likely lose.

make sure your bid is high enough that if they call and say you missed out you aren’t saying “if only we had offered an extra £500/1000/2000” and disappointed.   Make sure you offer is not so high that if it turned out you offered £10k more than the next bidder you aren’t regretting it – it’s fine to say “that’s ok, because to US it is the perfect location and house so worth more than anyone else”.

a clean offer is better, but don’t assume your lack of chain is better than cash!  It could be.  And certainly comparing two identical (or virtually identical) offers it would be – but nobody is ignoring what £5k at 5% mortgage rates for 25 years means in an English system where even your clean offer doesn’t stop you pulling out very easily.

Finally, there’s the risk that your bid is identical to someone else’s – you can reduce that by avoiding round numbers: 200,000 v 200,255.  (Always up, never down).  And even up here where there’s some rigour about the process and solicitors are used to make the offers etc – leave it as sensibly close to the last 15 minutes as you can to place your offer.  You don’t want outbid by someone who got a hint of how many / how big the offers were etc.  not that I’m saying estate agents are untrustworthy, unethical **** but they are largely unregulated!

Friends said this recently, got a £35k over asking offer on the Friday, accepted and the buyer pulled out on the Monday. So offer what you think you want to and see what happens.

The OP said the estate agent had multiple offers so pretty much the opposite of your situation.

True, if you believe the estate agent. Remember they work for the seller so it is in their best interest to get offers in and a place sold. Sounds like the OP is in London so perhaps the market is still lively there, but where we are it is dead and proceedable buyers are like gold dust. Even if they do have multiple offers you don’t know how well vetted those offers have been and so how likely they are to be able to proceed.

As above, don’t get drawn in by FOMO. Offer what it is worth to you. Buy in haste, repent at leisure!

Tricky when buying near the ceiling of something. We thankfully lost out on one that was in our affordability but would have kept financial pressure on us – it was as far as we wanted to go and happy that we didn’t go further to get it. I suspect the buyer knew a survey for the mortgage would also throw questions and the successful buyer had cash.

Where we are now was a shell and we were competing with builders, we just had to offer a number that would eat into their profit margin as we were looking for some where to live rather than flip. Even after renovations we are under that initial house in spend but wouldn’t have been able to buy the (nearly) finished house we have now.

If you have no chain, keep telling the estate agent that.

Yes tough one, but if its what you want and can afford it go for it.  Construction costs are eye watering, in London it must be even worse, so probably best to buy someone else’s refurb.

As poly says, standard in Scotland though there is always possibility of a buyer pulling back out if a/ they change their mind (poor show) or can’t raise the funds. 10% over valuation was a standard Edinburgh tactic, probably bit less now. As above they don’t have to accept highest or any offer – my folks sold to the folk they liked best (many decades ago) and daughter bought a flat, one of two offers, but she made good impression on the sellers so got the deal.

Some estate agents can be a bit dodgy – there open local here that apparently pulls that trick of saying there are multiple offers, and word was that wasn’t the case. Bit underhand.

My folks bought their house in 1973. I think they overpaid (house prices were silly in those days too, and inflation mental) but they tarred there until they died/went into care/died – 7/8 years ago. So arguably over that timescale it’s moot. As it happens, we’re in process of demolishing it (it was an oddly built 50s bungalow) and resulting in situ.

I’d offer what you think it’s worth and no more.

There are plenty of houses about.

If you disagree and think this is the house to last you forever offer more than you think it is worth to secure that particular house.

We made an offer has it accepted, waited for the sellers for 8 months to find a house and they then put the price up, and said if we didn’t like it they had two viewers coming in 2 days.

We paid the extra as I’d given up on that house after 3 months and looked at every other house in our budget/ area and it was still a great house.

Pretty much any of the house we looked at would have been great places to live, this one is great. In hind side I like living here.

Thanks all for the advice.  Offer has now been accepted.  I’ll never really know but I am using the agents recommended mortage broker and maybe that’s what has swung it in our favour in the end.  The extra that I put into our BAFO comes to £20 a month so not an amount that I would want to lose a good place for.

It has a garage and a shed! 🙂

Congrats, and good luck for the next 6 months of tedious bureaucracy 😉