Buying your dream home is fraught with difficulty. Point one, you're usually dealing with an estate agent who is a trained negotiator and point two, it's generally a completely emotional purchase. You have been searching for ages, now you've fallen in love with this gorgeous love nest and you just can't bear to lose it. You could be putty in the agent's grasping, ruthless hands.
Here are just a few common sense tips that will help you to buy your dream home and pay less.
Essential research:
1) There are a number of websites linked to the land registry that give you an idea of prices in the area/street/block you're ขายอาคารพาณิชย์ interested. zoopla.co.uk is definitely worth checking out.
2) Nationwide publish a monthly report on the UK market. It's quite detailed and very authoritative. Also, it's free to get online.
3) Make sure that you know how long this property has been up for sale and the reason why it's on the market.
Essential approach to the viewing:
Lets assume you're inside the property and you and your beloved are accompanied by the estate agent. This agent has been hired by the vendor to market the property and is working on a no-sale no-commission basis so it's not too hard to figure out where his or her loyalties lie. You really like the place.
So what to do?
1) Keep your buying signals down to the minimum. Gushing on about how the TV's going to fit exactly and how your fabrics will go so well with the carpet etc. is hardly going to strengthen your negotiating hand.
2) Instead, come up with valid objections and fire them one after another to the agent. "The place needs a complete decorating job, top to bottom", "the second bedroom's pokey", "I hate that bathroom suite" and so on.
3) Use your research to let the agent know that you're no mug. "Property prices are continuing to fall in this area aren't they. It was about 2.7% last year so I'd be interested to hear your opinion on the reasons why?"
All of the above are intended to dent the agent's confidence in his price position. Nonetheless, he is likely to say two things, (I've worked with estate agents and I know from first hand experience that this is what they are trained to say).
First statement: "There's been an enormous amount of interest in this property." This is designed to induce panic so that you make a high price offer for fear of losing it. I recommend you ignore this statement. It's probably a bluff and even if it's not then how come the property is still unsold!
Second statement: "Would you like to make an offer?". Most people will fall for this. Lets pretend that the property is on for £200,000 so, not wishing to lose, it's the natural inclination for people to offer something quite near to the asking price, say £190,000. This means that they are likely end up paying around £195,000+.
You are not going to fall for this. DON'T MAKE AN OFFER. Fix the agent with a steely look and ask him what the asking price is. Then say something like, "no, I'm not prepared to make an offer at this stage. Please tell the vendor that I'm interested in the property and I'm a serious buyer, but not at £200,000. It's overpriced. Ask him to get back with his best price."
Essential follow up actions.
By not making a firm offer you've made life hard for the agent as he does not have a firm offer to go back to his client with. The chances are that we can switch his loyalties to us because his primary concern is to earn his commission. Ideally he wants to make a quick sale so he can move on to the next deal.
He's likely to say something to the vendor along the lines of, "you know I suggested a price of £200,000 to test the water. Well, the market is still soft and times have passed. I do have a vendor who has shown some genuine interest and I think that if we go back with a price of £170,000 then there's a good chance he'll go for it." In essence, the agent has been turned and is now doing a great sales job on your behalf.
Now all you have to do is to wait for the agent to get back with a revised price. If you're happy with it then accept it. If you think it's still too high then say so but still don't make it easy for the vendor by making a firm offer. Repeat this sequence as many times as necessary until you get to the price you want to pay.
This sounds like a hard boiled, high risk buying strategy. It is a tough approach and it needs to be if you want to get the best possible price. And it's only as risky as you want to make it because you can always soften your line if you think you've pushed enough or you just can't bear to lose your dream pad. So, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Go for it & I hope you'll be very happy in your new crib.
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