tips for negotiating an offer on a house ??

I have a small house that I inherited in the country that has been on the market for nearly 2 years the value as you can imagine has decreased considerably since it's first value.
I got an offer of 15k below the original market value which was too low I rejected the offer and they have since pulled out. In the meantime a neighbour's relative from abroad is interested in the house and put an offer of 14k below the market value. I am willing to to drop 7k but not 14k it is still a good house. I said to the agent I would get back to him, I will probably wait a few days should I stick by my 7k limit or negotiate a little bearing in mind I have had no viewings on this house in over a year until now.
I'm confused as to what to do I want to sell the house but don't want to give it away for nothing. Any tips/advice appreciated

It's really impossible to know what to do at this distance.

Are you living in the area?
Does the auctioneer know the buyer better than he knows you?

The market value is the best offer you can get for the property, so the current offer is the market value unless there are almost identical houses for sale in the area which are attracting higher offers

Miss choc,

The house has been on the market two years - was the valuation done then and if so is this the price you are looking for today or have you reduced the price during that time. If this is the price you are looking for then it is probably out of kilter with the price you will achieve today and the offer of E14000 off the asking price doesn't look too bad. Don't forget that credit is hard to get also for purchasers, most of them are cash buyers and have tight budgets. Its up to you but in my opinion if it has been on the market for two years without any offers and you lost a sale because of E14,000, I don't think you are too much of a position to haggle as most vendors aren't nowadays.

Good luck with your decision.

Angela59

What is the value based on? Regardless, with the low number of offers to date, it sounds like you should accept it. No point waiting any longer, as there doesn't seen seem to be any other bidderbidder in the wings.

It's in the north west and I live in Dublin so I am only negotiating my phone or when I am down that area. The agent would know the neighbour but not well I just got to know the agent from the house. Back in the good days it was 3 times the market value another neighbour had put an offer on back then kicking myself now I hadn't accepted but hindsight is a great thing. Anyway it is a hard call I dont want to bring sentiment into the deal in my eyes it is worth more than the offer I know for a fact the buyer really wants the place I think it's a matter of money as she is not in Ireland at the moment. I think I will leave it until tomorrow to contact agent as I dont want to be too eager and see if I can meet the buyer half way instead of 14k below maybe 7k. Its so hard to know what to do the offer is so low.

Hi Miss Choc,

Would you not rent out the property until things recover somewhat which I know could take a couple of years but at least you would get some income for the time being. At the moment unfortunately it is a buyers market and it is hard to value any property at the moment irrelevant of what price it may have reached in the past - there has been a major property crash over the last 5 years. If you don't need to sell, don't but if you need the cash then you have to accept what price you will get in the current climate.

Angela59

To be honest I would prefer to sell because it has been empty so long there would be a hell of a lot of cleaning, reconnecting services to get it rented. I dont think there would be a strong rental market for it either as it is 15 mins drive away from the town a lot of the people are keen to rent in the town. Then there is the whole property manager fees, annual upkeep, wondering what tenants you would get and it wouldn't help that I live 3 hrs away. I had thought about rental ages ago but to be honest if I had wanted to go down that road I would have done it ages ago.

The agent works for you. What is his advice ? Tell him what you expect to get and see what happens. If the buyer pulls out ask him what was the stumbling block. Then assess whether you want to keep waiting in the hope you get the extra money in as short a while possible. Bear in mind that the money you get now and have on deposit would get up to 4% p.a. so for arguments sake if the offer is 100k that is ~103k (DIRT) in a years time.

Take the money and run, 10-20% off asking price usually are happening of the day. Last time you refused you have to wait 2 years for similar offer, you would have earned 7k probably in interest of the money on it so far and had less headache, the way things are going cash is better to have than 2nd property. You never know when will the next time you'll get an offer. On the other hand you can try to go for a counter offer and if buyer tries to walk out you might decide to go for original offer.
Best of luck...

.... you would have earned 7k probably in interest of the money on it so far and had less headache ....

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This is subjective though as we don't know when the offer under 15k came in and the actual value of the house, I used 100k as an example. But I would agree in the main with what you are saying.

The value of the house is 65k now its a 3 bed bungalow with large gardens I'm not that willing to take the offer of 51k wondering if I should say 58k and see what happens?