Our dilemma

A few months ago we put our house on the market. A good price at £144,950. A few weeks later we received a dependent offer for £142,500 which we accepted however since the buyers are still involved in a chain we agreed we would continue to show our property and hope for a first time buyer or even a better offer. Well here we still are waiting and waiting.... then yesterday we had a viewing from a property developer. He wants to buy the house and use it for a rental property. He offered £135,000 and said he has the mortgage and legals sorted and it could all be done and dusted within 2 months. £135 IS a lot less than our asking price but on the other hand we were surprised to get close to £140 to begin with. If we wait for the first couple who offered the £142,500 we could still be sitting here for months if not longer. These folks are selling a small maisonette and haven't had many viewings! So what should we do! Take the £135,000 and get out of the chain or sit and wait and wait and wait. Is it worth all the waiting for a lousy £7500?  This is the second offer of £135,00 we've had on our house by the way. The first time we denied straight away as we just put the house up on the market.
We don't have a house in particular in mind we want to move to yet we put in a second offer today on one we were keen on last month. This is all so crazy!

Hi Pebbles!

To me, £7.5 grand is 7.5 grand! that's a lovely holiday of a lifetime for you and your family! it's a second hand car with some dosh put away for savings, it's a start of a small business for you or lots of clothes and shoes and handbags!!!

With house prices being as they are, some buyers can literally just take their pick and people like the property developer put in lower offers so entice movement.

As all this takes 'time' I'd suggest that you approach the developer guy and say "look, we've got a solid offer of £142500 and all we have to do is wait for that to go through which we can..  that's a full 7.5 Grand above your offer which makes me think it's worthwhile to wait for it to go through, however i'd be tempted to sell to you as you are offering a quicker completion for £138500, if he murmurs, as of course he will, just say lets meet in the somewhere in the middle - you get a deal and we get a deal"

how does that sound?!

DtM! West London & Slough UK!

We had an offer like this on our previous house from someone who described themselves as a property developer looking to buy to let and who also offered a fast turnaround. We accepted their offer as we needed a fast sale but in practice the sale took over 6 months to complete and almost fell through several times as it seemed our 'developer' had no real capital to pay a deposit or even his legal fees. From what I have discovered since there are a lot of people who are trying to make fast returns by leveraging one purchase on top of another and who are essentially building a house of cards with no starting capital. I would be very wary and ask questions about whether or not they have a deposit in place and I would ask your estate agent to do a thorough check on their financial position before going ahead. Your mileage may vary but these types of buyers are typically out for profits rather than having fallen in love with your house so you have no real leverage with them if things start to go wrong.

Melly

Thanks Dennis
We already told him about the £142,500 and he said bascially "That means nothing"
We know he WANTS the house and wants it cheap. We told our estate agent that we would like for him to at least go to £138 but he stands firm at £135. Of course as a property developer he doesnt NEED our house. It's just an investment. If we dont take it he'll just move on to the next one. He knows we are keen to sell though which is why he was sweetening his offer by mentioning the sale would be completed in about six weeks, etc. To be fair we are making a decent chunck of change on this house. We bought it for a measly £48,000 just under 7 years ago!!! Can you imagine £48,000??!!
I'm just sooooooooooooooooo frustrated about it all. I'm getting itchy feet and wanna go already. Was hoping to move this Summer but who the hell knows  

We had an offer like this on our previous house from someone who described themselves as a property developer looking to buy to let and who also offered a fast turnaround. We accepted their offer as we needed a fast sale but in practice the sale took over 6 months to complete and almost fell through several times as it seemed our 'developer' had no real capital to pay a deposit or even his legal fees. From what I have discovered since there are a lot of people who are trying to make fast returns by leveraging one purchase on top of another and who are essentially building a house of cards with no starting capital. I would be very wary and ask questions about whether or not they have a deposit in place and I would ask your estate agent to do a thorough check on their financial position before going ahead. Your mileage may vary but these types of buyers are typically out for profits rather than having fallen in love with your house so you have no real leverage with them if things start to go wrong.

Melly

Yikes Melly!! That's very scary!! I would have never thought about anything like that!

Yeh I was thinking you'd already have tried that approach!

Melly puts forward an excellent point about the developer. speak to your solicitor and find out if you can 'extract' as much info about the buyer as you can. Not 'all' developers are doing the 'house of cards & not much starting capital' thing, some very seasoned developers really do have 'stacks' of cash lying about !

If the buyer does seem to have a decent background, the finance to go through, then see if you can get his and your solicitors to draw up an agreement to exchange asap. I did this when I purchased my place and from the day of viewing it and getting my keys was around 2 months (ish)

all that's left is to see if you really do want to sell up at £135 K or wait for the 142500 offer! - seeing as your keen to move on as well, might just be that you'll go ahead with the developer guy if he checks out as 'good' to progress quickly

Good luck !  DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I guess I was wrong. The "developer" is indeed an investor. He is legit. Our estate agent has worked with him before. Well he said he wouldn't go higher than £135 but another couple came along and offered £136 so the investor matched it. The other couple went up to £137.500 and the investor backed out. We're still pushing for £140 but will be happy with the £137,5 or maybe even £138,000 at any rate we're looking hot and heavy for a property that suits us and we'll be happy with!

THE CHAIN IS BROKEN!!


We sold our house to a first time buyer and got £3,000 more than their first offer.
The owners of the house we want accepted our offer for £6000 less than their asking price AND they have an empty house to move into!!

Whooo hoooo!!!!!

Yay!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Congrats Pebbles.  That is great news and gives me hope to start the process soon!

Congratulations Pebbles!

Thanks everyone. Now the joy of all the fees. Just off the phone with our solicitors. Thank goodness we have equity that's all I can say!

Awesome!  Congrats!!

Great news