Dealing with buying a house

C

corkmike

Registered User
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Hi All
This may seem wrong and I may get an onslaught of abuse but I am going to ask. I put an offer on a house 25% less than the asking price of the house. I believe that it is fair given the age of the house, the current market and all I have to do to it i.e. rewiring etc. This is two weeks ago and I rung the auctioneer and I still have not heard back from him. I rung him last week and he said he would be back to me in a couple of days. At this stage I am peved off with him. I had also put in 2 other very low offers and he wouldn’t entertain them, that was approximately a month ago now.
I am at this with the last month now and I am thinking of approaching the house owner and making the offer? I don’t know them.
Any opinions and advice would be appreciated. Will I get shown the door?
By the way I have read the key posts in relation to buying a house and followed it all.
Regards
Mike
 
Hi
I was in a similar situation and thought about approaching house owners. I went with another idea first which worked.. I rang auctioneer and told them I was still interested and said that my offer still stands at xxx and my offer expires on xxx date at 3pm. I followed this up with a firm email to auctioneer. Date came and went, but then 10 days later auctioneer rang me to say that other bidders (we had a hunch they were phantom as already upped our bid a couple of times) had dropped out and he was wondering if our offer still stood as homeowners would go sale agreed. Cheakily I told him I had offer on another house and I would let him know in 48hours. (i had no offer on another house)... to be honest, i didnt want to just jump on acceptance so let him sweat it out! hope that kinda helps you!! good luck
 
Do nothing.

You made your offer and that is all you can do.
Another few months of no sales and this agent will soon be unemployed as the estate agent will go under.
Make a lower offer in 6 months. Try 40%.
 
We have no idea what is going on between the vendor and the EA, but I know that is very frustrating for you.

It is tempting to think that making a offer straight to the vendor will work, but there is really very little chance of that. Chances are that the EA is working on the vendors instructions not to entertain low offers.

There are still vendors out there with unrealistic notions of what their house is worth.

I have sympathy with you, but there is little you can do but wait for another house to come along with a more realistic price, or the vendor drops the price you are willing to accept. If no-one offers more than you, they may have to do this.

Good luck
 
Buddyg said:
Y
Make a lower offer in 6 months. Try 40%.
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+1 and I mean make this offer now and I think its maybe over generous at 40% to be honest I think its fair with the market and the way things will go when ECB ups rates, people get even more desperate to sell, lose more jobs and have to sell and want to emigrate, etc.
 
sit and wait for him....the more times you ring him, the more he knows you are interested and he will revert with phantom higher prices to try get you to increase.
 
Couple of point:

- Maybe the EA has a "lowest amount" figure from the seller that you are still nowhere near. Given that your third offer is still 25% lower than asking, he might feel you are simply too far from the vendor's asking price.
- I personally would not approach the vendor directly. If they have chosen to use an EA, I would assume they would not appreciate a direct contact.
- Why do people assume other bidders are always "phantom bids"? While I'm sure there are some ropey EAs, I'd say the majority of EAs working for reputable companies are decent people, and they'd be taking a big chance making up bidders at the risk of losing a real offer in this climate.
- It's up to you to work the situation just as much as the EA. Don't expect you should be treated like royalty just because you made an offer.

If you are interested in the property, call into the estate agent and talk over your situation. Are you FTB? Ready to move? Have you a place to sell or not, is it sold? Are you mortgage approved? All of these things can be just as important - maybe moreso - than simply an offer made over the phone.

Find out the vendor's situation. Often the EA is between a rock and a hard place, some vendors are not really ready to sell, could be testing the water and wasting the EAs time. Don't assume the EA is messing you about. Express your interest and say your offer is serious, and you want to know from the vendors whether they are willing to negotiate or not. If not, and you are over your max, walk away and forget about it. Decide you absolute max on the property and stick to it.
 
Yes, I'am a FTB, ready to move, no place to sell, mortgage approved & I have told the EA this & that I am willing to move quickly if they need it.
 
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Hi corkmike.. any luck here? I too put an offer on a house 12days ago.. they came back and said no, so upped it then they came bk said they wont accept anything less then 260k& have another family interested subject to selling their own home and are willing to pay 260k - which if true is why owner is holding out - but when we viewed house we were advised she is eager to sell and could be out asap.. we didnt advise them our m ortgage was approved at the time but maybe we should have done?

How have you got on.. did you make another offer or hear from EA?

Note: house is advertised REDUCED RESERVE 265k
 
Buddyg said:
Do nothing.

You made your offer and that is all you can do.
Another few months of no sales and this agent will soon be unemployed as the estate agent will go under.
Make a lower offer in 6 months. Try 40%.
Click to expand...

Vendor accepts offers not an EA, and 40% less might be the value but if that drops into neg equity territory then the vendor will prob have to take it off the market rather than sell. It has to make sense to both sides.
 
No luck, since then. My offer was not accepted. Another house has come on the market in the same estate, the view and garden are not as good but the house is in the same nick, a lot cheaper as well, approx 12.5% cheaper.
Based on the other house & the economy I am going to leave things rest for a few months. There are plenty of houses out there and prices won't be going up. I also think my offer was fair but some people are still in 'boom time economics'. Let me know how you get on.
Mike
 
If post 11 stated that prices 'would be going up' would the thread be closed?
 
MrMan said:
If post 11 stated that prices 'would be going up' would the thread be closed?
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Yawn. Anyway, here's a little present for you MrMan



Hopefully it'll bring back those happy memories.
 
There's still a lot of denial out there. The problem is people think house prices will "recover". What they don't understand is to recover we need another property bubble, and that won't be happening for a long time (possibly a number of decades). And the truth is we don't need another bubble, as the one we just had has destroyed our country.

With rising interest rates, the ECBs impending tighter lending criteria (no more junk collateral for loans), the impending PS pay cuts and redundancies, the impending tax hikes, scared consumers and far too many empty houses and rental units... house prices are only going in one direction.

Sellers need to take the hit now instead of drip reducing their asking price.

But sure, it's all fun and games from a buyers perspective.
 
There has been a boom-to-bust cycle in UK property approximately every twenty years since the 18th century, the only difference this time is it was commercial rather than residential. There are similarities to the Irish market. Of course it'll happen again, it's human nature, it depends on what you mean by 'recover', surely it's just another cycle?
 
Vega said:
Of course it'll happen again, it's human nature, it all depends on what you mean by 'recover', surely it's just a cycle?
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Well I'm probably being naive, but I'm hoping we'll introduce some legislation to prevent the sort of speculative lending we had over the past 8 years.
 
UFC said:
Well I'm probably being naive, but I'm hoping we'll introduce some legislation to prevent the sort of speculative lending we had over the past 8 years.
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That's until the vast majority of people cry foul about not being given the loans that they ask for.
 
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