Setting the asking price on a property - lessons learned



This site is full of people who say "the house is on for €450k , how much should I bid ?". So I believe every word the op said.
 
Curious story.

Does the OP have any vested interests to declare? Specifically, are you an Estate Agent/Auctioneer?
 
grackal said:
Curious story.

Does the OP have any vested interests to declare? Specifically, are you an Estate Agent/Auctioneer?
Click to expand...

I doubt it. If you read any posts by the EAs on this site you'd see their problems were in convincing sellers to lower asking prices.

Is it so incredulous that a house is being sold for just over 30% below what it would have fetched in 2006?
 
Hi There,

Personally, Dreamerb, any house I have spotted, I'm straight home hunting it down on all the diferent sites including prop watch.
I'll walk the area for ages too, and have no problem knocking on a door

I just hope they continue to come to more realistic prices
 


Just want to clarify what you mean?

-People are offering much more/less than -40%?
-Houses are selling for much more/less than -40%?
-Sellers wont even entertain buyers offering -40%?
-Sellers would be grateful to be even getting offers of -40%?

Have to say Limerick must be one of the hardest markets for an EA to work in at the moment, is anything happening in the market there?
 
I believe MrMan's market Limerick never rose to the dizzy heights during the boom so people are not realistic if they are trying to get them for less than 40% of asking.
 
Oh I'm not suggesting that many people don't do that, not for a second. And I've done it myself when I've spotted something in passing. I'm just saying that when I was actively property hunting, because I had quite a wide target area, my first recourse was to web-searching.

I'd never knock on someone's door, though, unless I'd already been dealing through their estate agent and the agent was acting oddly / uncontactable / didn't appear willing to accept a bid without obvious good reason. For example, one agent refused a bid from me without a letter from my bank saying how much I had to spend; as it happens the bidding went well past what we would have been prepared to pay, but I felt that was an inappropriate demand. Had mine been the top bid I would have informed the vendors that they were at risk of losing out because of the agent's actions. Bu in general, part of the reason that people employ estate agents is that they don't want to deal directly with every possible viewer - not every viewer is a potential buyer, and vendors don't usually want the hassle of sifting out the wheat from the nosy-neighbour / tyre-kicker chaff.

And yes, it's good to see more realism coming into the market - but buyers should be realistic too! Blanket recommendations to offer 40% below asking (no matter what the asking is, what the house's condition is, its location and what the market in the area is like) are close to as silly as vendors expecting to get the prices that prevailed around May / June 2006.
 
I think the lesson to be learned here is that in a house deal, both the buyer and seller have to feel that they are winning something...its engrained in us. By definition, an asking price is the price a seller wants. If the seller will not drop this price then the buyer will feel they are not getting a bargain. The asking price has to be set at a figure where buyers will look at it, say thats a pretty good price, in my ballpark, if I could get it for 5-10% less I'd be happy. So a seller has to set the asking price with this in mind - 5-10% above what they think a buyer would be satisfied as a fair deal, not what they themselves would like.
 

Good point, as a non chain buyer i would prefer to look at stuff that's reasonably priced and not automatically bid 30% under.
Most potential buyers nowadays arnt fools, were all hearing horror stories of mates loosing jobs and not being able to pay mortgages and are thanking our lucky starts we held off. Im well researched on the prices so if something comes priced too high i wont even consider it.
 
Hi there,

I mean that I would knock on peoples doors if the EA wasn't passing bids on, or the neighbours door, if the house is vacant. Didn't mean random pestering people. Sorry, should have been clearer.

However, I have to say that bidding 40% less on houses that are still priced in 2006/07 is fair game. I feel there are certainly sellers out there who just won't take their heads out of the clouds.

They are asking top money on houses that either need work or were way overvalued to begin with during the boom time, have reduced their asking to what they consider good, when it should have been valued at less at the start. I'm hoping my point is clear.

Heres to letting them keep on falling
 

There are people offering c.40/50% below asking although its not the norm and so far houses in general have not sold in this area with those kind of drops. The only thing that I have seen close to that was the last two units for a developer that were over priced slightly in the first place, second hand has come to a bit of a standstill. In the last 6 months and 2nd hand that I have sold or seen sold have been at most 20% below early 2007.
By and large sellers don't entertain very low offers but I would encourage any offer on a property as the ball doesn't start rolling until the first offer is made. I think that is why alot of people think phanthom bids are put in because a house can remain static until the first offer is put in that generally focuses any other interested parties.
Sellers are by and large only grateful for decent offers and would generally sit tight otherwise (depending on circumstance).
Bronte is right in her description of the Limerick market and I'm sure there are other markets in differnet towns that would be similar to Limerick.
 
Talking to sis last night and she is handing over keys next Tues week. Hope all goes well. It's funny, she has always being talking down the market, now she is talking it up in that she believes we are very close to the bottom. I don't have a view myself but it is interesting to see how one's outlook changes depending on whether your are a buyer, seller or dormant.
 
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