House being sold directly by owners - but way overpriced

OP - If you believe the house is worth €150k despite the asking price of €235, why would you bother offering €110k. That's just a waste of everyone's time.

You could assume the owners are mortgage free after 22.5 years. They could just as easily have remortgaged for €200k in the boom times to buy a villa in Bulgaria. Who knows?

If you're serious about buying the house, start the ball rolling by offering a sum that will start the dialogue going. €110k is not going to do you any favours as they are obviously not in a rush to sell.
 
Sunny said:
If I had a house on the market for €235k and someone came for a viewing and then offered €110k, I would be peeved off. If everyone did that, people selling their house would be inundated with people wanting to view. My budget is €200k but sure I will go and check out the €500k house and slap in a €200k bid for the craic. It's time wasting.
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I don't consider it time wasting, I consider it negotiation. Are you seriously trying to tell me you've never negotiated a price on anything? I realise there are certain places where it's not on, and isn't going to work, and will be "time wasting", such as in a supermarket or in a bar, or in a "large multiple retailer".
But I always negotiate on certain classes of items:
I bought a jeep last year: a hard bargain and I didn't save much.
Furniture, both for my house (as a landlord) and where I'm currently renting: saved a packet.
Garden machinery: "we'll have a vat off sale next month, come back then".
That's just three that spring to mind, but in the right environment I'll always drop in "are you flexible on the price", and take it from there. I've never had a "no" response. The tightest I've got is "margins are tight".

Now that the recession is over they no longer harp on about how to save money on the radio, but a couple of years ago this was always one suggested on Marian Finucane and the like.
 
Bronte said:
You want to buy the house, they want to sell it, it's all very simple. If your purchase price is not their minimum selling price than you don't get the property. Whether their asking price is over the price you are willing to pay or is overvalued is not relevant. They will only sell at a price they want to.
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But what if they think this is the going rate? It may have been when they originally advertised it 2-and-a-half years ago. But (outside of Dublin) the market has continued to fall.

The going rate has dropped. (No speculation there!)
 
I should have mentioned that this is in rural Munster. House prices are still dropping.
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Then the prices are all not easily comparable. If you are looking at similar houses in an estate in Cork City - you can say one is out of line. But you can't say that about one off houses.

There is no correct price. One might be forced to sell in a hurry at well below what they think it's worth. So wait to buy from someone like that.

I'd say if it was a case of "...waiting an hour for the 46A, then two come at once..." they might see thru' it.
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Well you can be quite sure that when you make a bid, they will suddenly have another bidder out of the blue.
 
Sunny said:
If I had a house on the market for €235k and someone came for a viewing and then offered €110k, I would be peeved off.
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I've had another read of your post and would like to quiz you a little. Not to peev you off, but just to bounce a ball, if I may.

Say, as you suggest, you have a house on the market for €235k. And I approached you and said, "we like the house, and we're interested in making an offer. But there's one thing I can't get my head around. We've viewed a few other houses in the area that are four and five bedroom, in the 1500 sq feet ballpark, on half acres. They're all outside the town a bit as well, and like this, they don't need much work; just cosmetic. They're all in-and-around €150k. I just dunno where the €235k is coming from.
I printed off a few from Daft...." etc etc.
So, I haven't mentioned the figure in my head, ie €110k. Do you reckon the above paragraph would soften the blow a little? Or should I let the "going asking rate of €150" sink in for a day or two.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Then the prices are all not easily comparable. If you are looking at similar houses in an estate in Cork City - you can say one is out of line. But you can't say that about one off houses.
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True enough. But I gotta know what I'm missing. Though these one-offs are all different in may ways, they do have similarities, ie, location, number of bedrooms, square footage, site size. Is there fracking rights or what?



Brendan Burgess said:
Well you can be quite sure that when you make a bid, they will suddenly have another bidder out of the blue.
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I rarely use "lol", but I did actually laugh out loud.
 
Belton said:
Say, as you suggest, you have a house on the market for €235k. And I approached you and said, "we like the house, and we're interested in making an offer. But there's one thing I can't get my head around. We've viewed a few other houses in the area that are four and five bedroom, in the 1500 sq feet ballpark, on half acres. They're all outside the town a bit as well, and like this, they don't need much work; just cosmetic. They're all in-and-around €150k. I just dunno where the €235k is coming from.
I printed off a few from Daft...." etc etc.
.
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That is a great approach. Don't make an offer, but ask them to justify the asking price. Try to visit them in person rather than to do it over the phone.
 
I would just go and view the house. One thing at a time. There is obviously not a line of buyers queueing up there.
View the house. Then start thinking about what to offer.
 
Belton said:
I don't consider it time wasting, I consider it negotiation. Are you seriously trying to tell me you've never negotiated a price on anything? I realise there are certain places where it's not on, and isn't going to work, and will be "time wasting", such as in a supermarket or in a bar, or in a "large multiple retailer".
But I always negotiate on certain classes of items:
I bought a jeep last year: a hard bargain and I didn't save much.
Furniture, both for my house (as a landlord) and where I'm currently renting: saved a packet.
Garden machinery: "we'll have a vat off sale next month, come back then".
That's just three that spring to mind, but in the right environment I'll always drop in "are you flexible on the price", and take it from there. I've never had a "no" response. The tightest I've got is "margins are tight".

Now that the recession is over they no longer harp on about how to save money on the radio, but a couple of years ago this was always one suggested on Marian Finucane and the like.
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Of course I have negotiated. Have I ever seen an ad for a nice second hand Audi for sale for €50k and gone to see it and then offered €20k? No, I haven't. If the seller puts a stupid price up on the website, why I should waste my time pointing it out to them or waste their time by going to see the car and then making an offer that we both know they won't accept.
 
Belton said:
But what if they think this is the going rate? It may have been when they originally advertised it 2-and-a-half years ago. But (outside of Dublin) the market has continued to fall.

The going rate has dropped. (No speculation there!)
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Why would you assume that someone who has had a house on the market for over two years, are unaware of current market conditions??? It is hard to imagine anyone would put a house on the market and then ignore newspaper article on the topic, every local sale and so on...

If it were me, I would start with the assumption they are under no pressure to sell and are comfortable waiting it out. That being the case, making an offer that is less than half the asking price is more likely to cause them to dismiss you out of hand as a joker, rather than engage you in negotiations.
 
Belton said:
What to do? Any opinions? I'm sure that if there was an estate agent selling it the asking price would be about €175k.
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If you are right then they are clowning; if they are right then you are clowning. Either way one of you is clowning. I think you need a serious seller and a serious buyer to do a deal.
 
Before going to view the house today, I went thru' all the rural houses in the locality on Daft, of five bedroom houses, and of all those between 1200 and 1800 square feet.
Five bedrooms (6) ranged from €50k to €250, averaged €180k.
Similar square footage houses (13) ranged from €60k to €285k, averaged €170k.
Despite ignoring this disparity, I won't be putting in a bid, the house is just too pokey. Most rooms are on the small side. For example, there are five bedrooms: one "master bedroom" and four "box rooms". It would be nice to have more than one room with a double/queen/king bed.
Nothing jumped out as the reason it costs so much more.
It turns out that much of the wood, including doors, floors, cabinets, etc., was done by the man of the house. I'm certainly leaning towards the emotional attachment possibility.
When I asked about the BER, they didn't have one and didn't seem that bothered. I thought this was a requirement but maybe not.
 
Belton said:
Before going to view the house today, I went thru' all the rural houses in the locality on Daft, of five bedroom houses, and of all those between 1200 and 1800 square feet.
Five bedrooms (6) ranged from €50k to €250, averaged €180k.
Similar square footage houses (13) ranged from €60k to €285k, averaged €170k.
Despite ignoring this disparity, I won't be putting in a bid, the house is just too pokey. Most rooms are on the small side. For example, there are five bedrooms: one "master bedroom" and four "box rooms". It would be nice to have more than one room with a double/queen/king bed.
Nothing jumped out as the reason it costs so much more.
It turns out that much of the wood, including doors, floors, cabinets, etc., was done by the man of the house. I'm certainly leaning towards the emotional attachment possibility.
When I asked about the BER, they didn't have one and didn't seem that bothered. I thought this was a requirement but maybe not.
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They must have a BER cert if they want to sell. It is a legal requirement.

They seller can ask what ever price s/he likes. You can chose to pay the price, or try to negotiate a cheaper price. If you can't negotiate a cheaper price and are not ready to pay asking, move on. There is no point arguing, really.
 
Jim2007 said:
Why would you assume that someone who has had a house on the market for over two years, are unaware of current market conditions??? It is hard to imagine anyone would put a house on the market and then ignore newspaper article on the topic, every local sale and so on....
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You would be surprised at some people's attitudes to their homes.

A friend of mine wanted to sell her house in 2008 and approached 3 local estate agents for valuations. They all came in at between €720,000 and €750,000.

My friend felt her house was worth 'a million' and told the estate agents so. They laughed and didn't take the sale on.

She decided to sell it herself on daft and another sell-it-yourself website and put it on the market in May 2008 for €945,000, despite similar properties in the area being on for around €695,000 - €750,000.

Needless to say, there were no buyers and the price was dropped to €680,000 in 2010. By this time, values in the area had plummeted and the seller was again chasing the market and being totally unrealistic in her demands.

The property was further reduced in 2012 to €445,000 and was eventually sold in 2013 for €420,000.

There was no talking to her, I tried to help her, her family tried to help her, but she was convinced she was right and ended up with less than she paid for the house in the first place due to her unrealistic expectations.
 
Belton said:
Before going to view the house today, .
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You mean that we have been wasting the collective intelligence of askaboutmoney users on strategies for a house you hadn't even seen? :)

My wife and I are in the market for a house and we've seen one we fancy.

We like the house. It has five bedrooms and the area is 1,500 sq ft
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I had assumed that you had actually seen the house.

The house hunting process takes up a lot of energy. You can save a lot of energy by viewing houses before you decide how much to bid as in most cases, you won't want to bid.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
You can save a lot of energy by viewing houses before you decide how much to bid as in most cases, you won't want to bid.
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True enough, but I'm still perplexed by the price.

No, no wasting, it was all taken on board. The house is both advertised on Daft and has its own website. When I parked in the driveway I even said it to my wife, "this all looks so familiar". Probably a good thing.

Went to view one other house yesterday and did four or five "drive-bys". The latter save a lot of time if you suspect some no-go issues. For example, we knew that one of them was near a golf club. Turns out that it was immediately across the road and the car park was very busy for a showery Tuesday afternoon. I'd imagine the weekend traffic is a nightmare.
 
Don't forget to also be checking the NPRSA register of actual sales figures regularly as well:
[broken link removed]
If its a rural area that you are not familiar with it is harder to know where the houses that appear in the Property price register are.
 
House price

Unsure what issue is here - Sellers can sell for whatever they wish- no rule against it? Perhaps, they don't even want to sell...

If there are cheaper houses elsewhere, why don;t you buy them- or has this particular house got a 'x factor' that makes it worth the extra...
 
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