ianandhelena

+1 to Mr Kilt.
If it's been on the market for 6 months the sellers might be being hoodwinked by the agent (they want their commission percentage) as to the true worth of the property or there's something wrong with the house.

I have to agree with crunchy frog-nothing worse than getting an instant acceptance of your first offer then thinking -mmm maybe they'd have taken less. I might be cheeky and try 450k to start-if they're keen to sell after 6 months you never know.

This is purely a business deal-if you went to a garage sale and wanted something that you thought was worth $5 and the price was $10 would you haggle? I would.
Do not be embarassed by making a low initial offer-if you end up paying too much that's your cash they are walking away with.

The next house you want will be along soon-I bought a lovely place 4 months ago and since then 3 more came on the market here which are equally suitable.

itxrd

From my experience 450 is too low. They would not accept that, esp after just reducing. I'd go for 525 - good deal but not too low that they are actually angry

will.mackie

Rather than ask for a price reduction negotiate them to cover legal fees and maybe chuck in the odd additional perks, although it might not be a great deal more savings wise at least it's something you don't have to fork out for in the short run.

That way the risk of offending someone is greatly reduced.
Although in saying that, if my house was on sale for 6 months i'd be slight concerned and would take any realistic offer...

Try it, they can only say no

steve`o

sorry dont agree go in as low as possible,
six months on the market has got to smack of overpriced to start with

you can always offer them more but you can never ( normally ) reduce your offer,

datamile

You'll get a better feel for the real price when they counter offer, so go low to give you both room to move. Once you make an offer, and the agent smells the money then the real high pressure fun starts. ( PS you know you cant out of an offer here etc so you better be sure )

ABCDiamond

Some current QLD property info from the paper today...

maund family

Ok We have listened you all your advice and have offered $510. The agents face was priceless, went from Mr Friendly to Mr Offended, he has now gone back to the seller to give them our offer. Did not enjoy this one bit.

lancastrian48

.[/QUOTE]

Awww poor little agent, stuff em, this is business and their commisssion

FionaandAndrew

Let us know how it goes cos we'll be in the same position soon hopefully.
Good Luck!

maund family

Of course they turned the offer down, they are willing to come down $5000! We have said never mind and are going to sit back for a while.

Kalenge

Did you find out the sold price history? Would definitely be worth doing.

I'm afraid I can't remember which site we used, but we paid a few dollars for a full history of sold prices for the suburb that we were interested in. We could see the full chain of price for the house that we eventually bought. Some of the property sites have similar info for free, but the data offered seems to be just a tiny portion of all the sold stats.

ABCDiamond

This must be the most interesting REAL property price thread for yonks

I'd love to see the previous price history of this property...

showdan

House price history site is

http://www.onthehouse.com.au/

Kalenge

Found what I used before
http://reiwa.com.au/mkt/mkt-vgopublic-search.cfm
Specify street/area that you're interested in and then pay a few dollars for the detailed info on price history - even ones which are listed as "Price Withheld" on other sites.

Does OnTheHouse provide the same level of detail for free? If so, then definitely worth signing up to.

maund family

Yes we paid $30 and it gave us the history of the street. The house we are interested in was last brought 6 years ago for $425,000.