Bargaining with Estate Agents

[liamboyle06]

Hi All
I am going to a viewing of a house this afternoon, now the thing is, it is the Estate agents that owns the house and is selling it.
I feel that the house is slightly over priced, and was wondering if I could bargain with the guys to see if they can lower the price.
I already have a 20% deposit on the asking price, so am hoping that I will be in good position to bargain, and try and get a lower asking price, and avoid the other bidders.
The property has been on now the market for about 1 month.
Is this allowed, or do you have to give the full asking price?

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by liamboyle06

Hi All
I am going to a viewing of a house this afternoon, now the thing is, it is the Estate agents that owns the house and is selling it.
I feel that the house is slightly over priced, and was wondering if I could bargain with the guys to see if they can lower the price.
I already have a 20% deposit on the asking price, so am hoping that I will be in good position to bargain, and try and get a lower asking price, and avoid the other bidders.
The property has been on now the market for about 1 month.
Is this allowed, or do you have to give the full asking price?

you can put a bid in for how ever much you want.

[weirdworldstate]

Originally Posted by liamboyle06

Is this allowed, or do you have to give the full asking price?

Go ahead - drive a hard bargain and get the best price you can get. And if you don't, simply walk away. (You'll then find out how much they really want to seel! )

There is no compulsion on anyone to pay the asking price (not even in your local supermarket, technically, but try bargaining with the manager, and he will - within his legal right - tell you to sling your hook!)

---------- Post added at 12:18 ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 ----------

Originally Posted by gazzae

you can put a bid in for how ever much you want.

Or however little

Go for it, but if they accept a lower price make sure they take it off the market asap as some dont till the contract day just to see if they can get more..

I know this as they did it to me, but that applies to any seller not just estate agents.

[Rob]

The definition of market value that any mortgage surveyor or other professional valuer of property works to includes "willing buyer, willing seller". In other words they have to be happy to sell at a price, you have to be happy to buy at a price. An asking price is exactly that, what they hope for, but they don't have to accept that. Normally property will sell for less than the asking price, but occasionally, it can sell for more.

We Brits tend not to be good at haggling, yet house prices are the one area where we should probably do it a lot more.

[liamboyle06]

just an update, while speaking to them yesterday, they said they would not go any less than €215k, just €3k less than asking prince.

I am tempted to put in an offer of €210k, as i need to put down all new flooring, and also get landscaping artist in.

[Acathla]

When buying a house you need to keep the upper hand over the Estate Agent. If you give the impression to them that you really really want the property they will squeeze as many pennies out of you as possible. If you keep the upper hand and stick in a lower asking price they can say no and you can say well sorry then and walk away. Give them a few days cause a house sold is better than a house not sold. If you do really really want it go in with a slightly higher bid but still lower than their asking price and tell them final offer

[weirdworldstate]

Originally Posted by liamboyle06

just an update, while speaking to them yesterday, they said they would not go any less than €215k, just €3k less than asking prince.

I am tempted to put in an offer of €210k, as i need to put down all new flooring, and also get landscaping artist in.

If they've said they won't go below 215, then they might consider that offer OR they might reject it out of hand.

If they do, there's nothing to stop you walking away OR increasing your offer, should you still want to buy.

I cannot understand though, why people make such a fuss haggling over not much more that 1 percent of the price, when that small difference will easily be dwarfed by the various costs surrounding a house purchase/sale.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by liamboyle06

Is this allowed, or do you have to give the full asking price?

The bid we put in on our most recent property was 20% under the original asking price and it was accepted. Haggle away!

[Gareth]

Hell yeah... haggle.

It's a buyer's market at the moment, so the advantage is with you. I'm also assuming that you're not in a chain, ie you don't have a property to sell in order to proceed. If this is indeed the case, then you can easily use that in your negotiating - just tell 'em you've already got the finances sorted so you'd be ready to go as soon as the paperwork was complete. That alone is easily worth €5000 - hell it's probably worth £5000.

Just remember that you can always increase an offer, but it's nigh-on impossible to decrease it

[Rob]

Actually, it depends on where you are in the country. My area is so overactive with buyers now outstripping sellers (virtually everyone who wanted to sell this spring has done so), it's very much a seller's market. Some of the figures I've heard, show mortgage lending went thorugh the roof in the last couple of months, an certainly the number of instructions I've had for surveys and mortgage valuations would back that up.