Putting an offer on a house

[sammd]

Say a house is �180k. How low would you put your first offer in at?

[Oneeyedvic]

Depends on what you think it is worth - have a look around the neighborhood and see what other similar houses have sold for. Find out what their situation is (if they have a house they want / put an offer in on they are far more likely to accept a lower offer).

Find out how long they have been trying to sell for.

Do a search on somewhere like www.nethouseprice.com and if they purchased it in in the last 5 yeears you can see what they paid for it.

On one house I purchased, I offered the full asking price as I believe it was a bargain - on an other house I viewed, it was up for �140,000 and I offered �90,000 (as imho that was all it was worth).

Dependning on the above, I would make an offer between �155,000 and �180,000.

The estate agent is legally bound to give the offer to the sller, so even if they fob you off with "no its too low", ask them to submit it anyway - if you don't ask you don't get.

[WoWo]

Oneeyedvic is correct in that they are legally bound to pass on an offer, however the client can tell the agent not to pass on offers below a certain level.

To answer the question it's normally said that if you are not embarresed by your offer it's not low enough. Again as Oneeyedvic says it depends very much on circumstance I put an offer in on a house a few years ago at full asking as it was imaculate but there were others I would have offered much less than asking. As a starting point I'd definately advise offering 15% less than asking and going from there.

[sammd]

Thanks for the info guys...

[sammd]

Great website by the way Oneeyedvic!

[Oneeyedvic]

I think its great - and its always nice to be apprciated.

[woolleysheep]

check on www.ourproperty.com for house prices in the area the house is in ,you will only need the post code to find the prices houses have sold for in that area over the last few years.

[sammd]

Thanks Woolleysheep. What should my offers go up in if they don't accept the first one, �5k?

[Oneeyedvic]

When they come back to you (via Estate Agent) they wil normally say - thats not enough - but we will take �+8K. It is then a negotiating stage.

When selling one house at �139950, someone offered us �130. We said no thanks. The estate agent asked us what we would take - we said �139950. They came back and went up to �137. We still said no. Then we found a house that we wanted to buy and so took the �137 (later reducing itto �136 as their buyer was going to pull out).

My advice is - go up gently - �2k at a time

[sammd]

Ok, thanks oneeyedvic!