teach

Only you can decide! I personally would haggle for a while then accept their offer.
Hopefully it won't take very long to sort out then, says she who has been waiting..... for ever to complete.
Good luck
Sarah

sme

I personally wouldn't accept it - it hasn't been on the market that long and if they are not willing to negociate nearer to the asking price then I'd leave it at that.
Our house is on the market and we waited till we got the visas. However we have decided to do a validation trip/holiday so as to take the pressure of the house selling business. Hopefully now we can sit tight and wait for the buyer who is willing to pay reasonably near the asking price to come along - though if I 'm in the same position in 6 months time I may be shouting TAKE IT
Good luck with the selling.
Gillian

eatstatic

Personally I think that any seller who refuses a 10% drop off the asking price is insane.

Why? Well houses are at least 30/40% overvalued, the traditional wage to house price ration is now 1/6 whereas the traditional measure was 1/3. The economy is slowing rapidly as Browns economic "miracle" is being rumbled for the debt addicted mirage it is. For every £100 earnt the UK public spend £110. In short a recession looks very likely. House prices are stalling and will most certainly drop further against a backgroung of rising unemployment and international caution investing in the UK with its failing economy.

Basically the peak of house prices has been and gone and as a potential buyer myself, I consider 10% off todays ridiculous prices as unrealistic, a minimum of 30% off would be sensible. I certainly would not entertain the idea of buying at the peak of a housing stock bubble with a paulty 10% knocked off. I honesly think you shold take the offer, as I believe that in 6 months to a year you will kick yourself for refusing it.

Remember house prices are driven by sentiment, in the dodgy economic conditions that Browns disaterous policies are to evoke, high unemployment, high inflation and mass house repos, that no one buys houses in such a hostilre climate.

I honestly wish you good luck.

bridiej

Must admit I am sick and tired of people assuming that sellers are over pricing their houses.

We put ours on the market based on two out of three valuations that came up with the same price AND in addition our own research on the local housing market.

Yes, we were extremely lucky in getting an offer £5K below asking price within a few days, which we negotiated up to full asking price.

Why do people always assume that everyone picks a number, then adds another 30% on top?

The Crow

Thanks - I was a bit worried when I saw that you had replied :scared: but you are quite right in many ways I have another estate agent coming round tomorrow AM and if they value under our original valuation then we will consider the offer. I think our current estate agent was rather optimistic - let me just pour another glass of wine

Sleeping Beauty

we too had 3 estate agents round, and 2 out of the 3 said the same value, which we then put the house on the market at. the 3rd, after chasing us for our business also said that if we weren't in a rush, then he would aslo put the house up at that price. also, the rest of the similar houses round here are all selling at roughly the same. so i agree with bridie, look at the amrket round you and get a few agents in to get an overall picture.

this has been thrashed out b4, with plenty of trolls coming onto the thread and trying to imply that ALL houses are massively overpriced

so, would you drop your house price by 30% to sell - mmm, dont think so

isv

It might be too late.. but if I were you I would have snatched the offer and run like crazy. We sold in June after waiting 12 months for a single offer... and I had to 'drop' £45k to keep the chain together. We're off to NZ and we could not afford to lose the oppty to use our visa.

Truely the market has changed... and there is no way you will get today the price you would have achieved in Spring 2004 - I reckon we were a month late... a little sooner and I think we might have sold sooner and for more.

Proceedable buyers are like hens' teeth right now. Seriously I would reconsider. Sorry.

Alan.

jjonboy

It seems these guys are just knocking 10 percent off your asking price. I used to think 5% was a fairly big discount. My best mate was in similar situation recently and asked me for advice....

My thoughts ( for what it's worth, just one more opinion i guess) are if the resultant monies enables you to move to the next step of your life then go for it, if it does not then wait....

Does that help anyone?

Shellfish

It's hard to actually gauge, most 'experts' says that the housing market in Melbourne is overvalued by 16% and some say that for various reasons the market isn't overvalued (salary increases etc - can't speak for everyone by I certainly didn't get a 16% increase this year...). The prices are dropping but slowly, a lot slower than I anticipated but I don't think you can go wrong with waiting, the prices definitely aren't going to go up. I have a good mind to start looking for a place but offer 16% lower than the asking price

ShozInOz

We should look at what we have made rather than the fantasy amount than we 'lose'. A house is worth what someone will pay. We dropped the price of ours before moving. It allowed us to get on with things and still we made a very good profit. Some people now end up selling for less than the 'too low' offer they got initially due to a depreciating market.

TrickyTree

Its not the sellers who over value a property its the estate agents.
A good friend of mine, who I worked with in the UK, has a sister who is an estate agent in my old town (medium sized town on the outskirts of Nottingham) who was very honest with me when telling me that most if not all the estate agents who I had value the property would build in a buffer of 10-20% on top of what the property is actually worth (to absorb a low bid and still make some profit). She said it was common practice and a sort of unwritten rule between the agents in my town. This did not surprise me one bit and im sure it happens in other, maybe most, areas of the UK.

TT

pootle26

i would take it!

we dropped 10 % off of our asking price - at the end of the day we weighed up which was more important - a new life or more money -
we had made a profit ( like most people) we could never be sure that we would have another offer in that region & we were impatient to start our new life!!!
looking back i wouldnt have changed it - it is all so stressfull enough as it is - the sooner you move on the better

just my opinion but there u go


pootle 26

SunnySideDownUnder

Keep in mind one thing - real estate prices world wide are on the way down (on average, obviously there are sectors that are holding steady)

spottydog

I would also take a look at www.nethouseprices.com who show the land registry data for houses that have sold. Unlike some others they don't ask you to register or limit the number of daily searches.

Houses in our area stood still for a long time but things are picking up now, ones that are priced realistically (i.e. what others have sold for in the past) are selling at asking price or maybe 1% below, those who added 10% to the previous selling prices to make their asking price with the expectation of being knocked down 10% are finding they are getting nowhere until the reduce their prices then they get what they expected anyway.

At the moment buyers and seller all seem to be playing psychological games which is just achieving frustration everywhere.

I would be tempted to see if you can get the offer up further since you haven't been on the market very long.

Badge

I suppose houses *are* overpriced - to the point where they will just sell - the purpose, of course, is to maximise gain. However that maximum is turning out to be plain wrong as the market is going down. Estate agents value partly based on other sales - but of course, as they are on the decline, they also follow the price down.

it is a buyer's market not a seller's market, and there are some economic indications which indicate houses are overpriced. Not the vendor's fault of course.

badge