Irrational housebuyers

M

MelF

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Grr! Trying to sell my (one off) house for last few months. Was sale agreed at 600k in 2007 but fell through due to buyer's chain issues etc.

As house prices have obviously plummeted, in order to be realistic I wanted to put in on the market a couple of months ago at 300k (50% down) but estate agent suggested 365k was achieveable as good house in good area. No offers but lots of tyre kicking.

Then last month I asked agent to reduce price to 300k and today a buyer made an offer of 150k because 'house prices are supposed to be down 50%.' :( Yet one-bed apartments in same area are on at 350k. So much for 'greedy sellers have to be realistic'. You just can't win.....
 
The €150k was someone chancing his arm. If he's genuinely interested, he'll come back with a realistic offer.

There are people out there with spare cash hoping to find a distressed seller who will accept whatever offer they get. It's not nice, but it's human nature.

Homer
 
Sure why not offer 150K if the buyer thinks they might get it for that. If the shoe was on the other foot back in 2007 and someone offered €750K I doubt the OP would have said "no no its only worth €600K, €750K is too much!" :rolleyes:
Sellers will try to get the most, buyers the opposite, its just supply/demand. From the buyers perspective all the seller can say is no so why not chance their arm.....
 
Its not the low offer that gets me, it's the rationale - I'd reduced the price according to how much the market had dropped, but based on the buyers's reasoning I might as well have left at its top of the market price so that he could get his 50 percent discount.
My point being that even if sellers are being sensible, some buyers are still being irrational
 
MelF said:
Its not the low offer that gets me, it's the rationale - I'd reduced the price according to how much the market had dropped, but based on the buyers's reasoning I might as well have left at its top of the market price so that he could get his 50 percent discount.
My point being that even if sellers are being sensible, some buyers are still being irrational
Click to expand...

People like to think they are getting a bargain. It's sales psycology. I know one developer who tried to sell a couple of apartments himself for €220,000 but wasn't getting interest. Went to an agent who ran some ads saying apartments reduced from €350,000 (Peak price) to €220,000. Sold them in hours.
 
A friend of mine was househunting recently and said she put in some cheeky offers on places she was interested in but not 'in love' with because she felt she had nothing to lose. When she was really interested in a place she made more realistic offers because she didn't want to annoy the owners and risk losing out to someone else because they felt she'd insulted them with her original offer and wouldn't go back to her to see if she was prepared to pay more.
 
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