Advice: Bidding on a House

We put an offer on a house asking 265k 11days ago of 220k, came bk said no way asked for our max which i advised was 235k which it isnt but didnt want to give asking - estate agent came bk said they arent prepared to take anything less then 260k.. is this realistic or is the EA playing games?

We really like the house.but it needs work - 30yrs old. Had gun barrell pipping so that would need to be changed before we would move in at a cost of another few thousand.

My problem is OH is very eager to ring them - last phone call i made they said ball is in our court - I being stubborn said its over so as were not prepared to pay that and were in no rush.. which we arent..but this house ticks our boxes and we are in no hurry to do it up.

Our mortgage is approved - is this a buying tool?
House is in Munster

A - Should we contact estate agent or wait?

B - anybody got any advice on negotiating skills for us?

Here's some advice based on my experience and some research I did on negotiating. http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=123191

Doesn't sound like there is a queue of buyers for the house. Have you had a builder at the house to give your a realistic estimate of the work needing to be done. I'd do that first.

Mortgage approval is a buying tool, as well as ability to move fast on a sale.
Estate agent will probably try to eventually get both parties to meet in the middle of your 235 and their 260. Your job is to keep it closer to your end.
You jumped very fast from your 220 to your max of 235. And don't always use multiples of 5! 5k is a lot of money.

How bad would it be if this house got away from you?
If you could hold out till January they may be willing to accept less.

Depends on how much interest they have had, how long it's been on the market, their reasons for selling etc.

Thanks for your reply. House is on the market a year and a half hence whey she dropped the price from 299k to 265k.. she is looking for a quick sale (so we were told) - older lady looking to relocate to a smaller house in town. I was foolish..estate agent came back and said her max is 260k would we go to 250k and he would talk to her.. (even though she didnt ask him to ask this - ya right)i said no we wouldnt and argued on the phone for ages before disclosing that our max was 235k so we wont go to the 250k.. which isnt true.. we are actually willing but didnt want to discuss any further if she wasnt going to budge on the 260k thought whats the point..still waiting on them to come back to us!

This is the house we want - so were extremely frustrated having to wait and wait. The conversation ended with the EA saying ball was in our court.. so now what do we do?

Hi,

I agree with sadie, you have moved to fast from 220 to 235 and estate agent as a professional had taken no time in concluding that you want this house badly. This house is on market for 18 months during this time market has gone down 35% on average. Hold yourself atleast for a week. Don't argue with agent just say that's all you can afford wait for couple of weeks and up your offer bit by bit. I already feel 235K is a fair offer always keep lines of communication open with agent.
I am in same situation like you offered 220k for 285k asking agent came down to 265k in 1st phone call. I advise I will see what I can do and have'nt called her for 10 days now will call her may be in 2-3 days and up it to 5k may be and wait and see. This is the time for getting a bargain, its a buyer's market listen to the news........

Best of Luck

Call the agent and but a 1-week time limit on your current offer.

anuj21k said:

Hi,

I agree with sadie, you have moved to fast from 220 to 235 and estate agent as a professional had taken no time in concluding that you want this house badly. This house is on market for 18 months during this time market has gone down 35% on average. Hold yourself atleast for a week. Don't argue with agent just say that's all you can afford wait for couple of weeks and up your offer bit by bit. I already feel 235K is a fair offer always keep lines of communication open with agent.
I am in same situation like you offered 220k for 285k asking agent came down to 265k in 1st phone call. I advise I will see what I can do and have'nt called her for 10 days now will call her may be in 2-3 days and up it to 5k may be and wait and see. This is the time for getting a bargain, its a buyer's market listen to the news........

Best of Luck

Click to expand...

Thanks anuj21k, he asked what our max was and i wouldnt tell him..he kept pushing me to offer 250k and i said wed offer 230k and then a slip of the tongue 235k came out.. we have decided to wait until monday which will be two weeks since we talked to him.. im gettin the OH to ring him this time - i dont think i dealt too well the first time..trying to beat him at his own game didnt work for me. see there asking price is 265k now initially 18mths ago it was 349k checked it on property watch! so i can see why they wont come down anymore .. and its driving us mental this waiting and these games!!

Complainer said:

Call the agent and but a 1-week time limit on your current offer.

Click to expand...

Well its been 10 days since our offer of 235k.. we were thinking of pushing it out until friday or monday..and putting a time limit on it as we are viewing other properties. One thing i never mentioned was that we had mortgage approval.. will def have to drop it in this time. Getting the OH to ring though he might have better luck?!

If you want to get the best price you have to be willing to walk. Let them come back to you, if it has been on the market this long there is no panic.

Think mortgage approval is the best thing you have going for you here, would play that more than the amount. So many places now are going sale agreed to people who have no mortgage approval.

Think you are offering a very reasonable offer.

I was in your position a few months ago and buckled cos I wanted the house so bad. Similar situation - house on the market for nearly two years, asking price dropped for €540k to €350k. I offered €310k even though I'd been approved for €340k, they said they had another offer of €330 but no mortgage approval so if I could match that and show approval it was mine. Which I did, even though I'm sure there was no other buyer. I'm sure had I held out, I could have got it for less, but at the end of the day I really really wanted the house and now that I'm in here and love it so much, wouldn't change the way I did things!!

loukkcat said:

Think mortgage approval is the best thing you have going for you here, would play that more than the amount. So many places now are going sale agreed to people who have no mortgage approval.

Think you are offering a very reasonable offer.

I was in your position a few months ago and buckled cos I wanted the house so bad. Similar situation - house on the market for nearly two years, asking price dropped for €540k to €350k. I offered €310k even though I'd been approved for €340k, they said they had another offer of €330 but no mortgage approval so if I could match that and show approval it was mine. Which I did, even though I'm sure there was no other buyer. I'm sure had I held out, I could have got it for less, but at the end of the day I really really wanted the house and now that I'm in here and love it so much, wouldn't change the way I did things!!

Click to expand...

Thanks for your response..its so good to hear other ppls stories.
I see where your coming from..i would love to just be in there now.. keep imaging us in it what we will do to it etc but we have decided to start looking elsewhere now..just to try and not make us do anything foolish and up our offer as we still feel there might be more room for negotiation - but they are holding out! there is another house of similar type just a whole heap bigger up the road its 2100sq ft as opposed to 1300sq ft and asking 298k.. realistically what should we expect to get it for? the owners live over seas and only use it as a holiday home (lucky them).. it has been on the market since august with 1 auctioneer but he told me it had been with another with no luck so possibly on the market for a while too. Going to play it diff with this one.. be nicer to start and not get my back up. We have a go too point.. havent even seen the house so might not even like it..but well see how saturday goes.