Homebuying How to get a lower offer over the line

In a buyer's market, sellers are being more realistic on pricing. Rohan Banerjee looks at how buyers can get their strategy right

- Rohan Banerjee

When Alan Murphy* and his wife spotted their semidetached house in Brighton, they immediately saw it as a candidate to become their "forever home". The three-bedroom property, with a garage, a garden and space to extend, had an asking price of £575,000. But much of that, they felt, was based on its potential rather than its present condition.

"Every room in the house needed to be ripped apart and redone," says Murphy, a public relations executive. "The garden was borderline unusable."

The question, Murphy says, quickly became: "How do we secure this place, which fits our plans perfectly, without overstretching [our budget]?" The answer was to be "bold but calculated".

The couple offered £35,000 under the asking price. The seller accepted immediately and Murphy says the quick agreement confirmed their hunch: the property had been overpriced to begin with.

By challenging the asking price, they not only secured the home they wanted but also "freed up funds for the renovations it so clearly needed".

Across the UK, more buyers are feeling confident enough to take the same measured risk. According to the property website Zoopla, the average home now sells for about £16,000 below its listing price, while house price growth has slowed to just 1.3% year on year.

So if, like the Murphys, you have found a home that meets your criteria but see reasons to question the price, there is definitely a case for negotiation. (Which is not the same as gazundering - the much-frowned-upon practice where a homebuyer demands a reduction on the agreed purchase price at the 11th hour.)

Loss aversion