Odd situation or completely normal?

Hi all,

Can I get your thoughts on what I think is a weird situation, but perhaps I don’t know enough about property to know any better?

Property advertised at “offers over $335K”. I made an offer at $336,500, immediately rejected. Agent said seller would likely take $340K. Seller is based interstate, quite ill and ‘needs the money’.

I offer $340K, rejected and counter offer $345K. I offer $342,500 - rejected. Counteroffer remains at $345K.

I spoke with the agent. Told him this is getting silly now. Property has been on the market 220 days and dropped in price from first listing of $425K (not worth anywhere near that!). Other townhouses within a 1km radius are selling for around $330K - $350K, that the property is not worth any more than $340K. Enquired with the agent as to what game they’re playing at when the property is listed for Offers over $335K. Agent tells me “ooops the girls in the office listed it incorrectly, should be offers over $339K” (note: this still hasn’t been updated 2 weeks later).

I want the property so offer $345K. Seller counters with…….$360K??!

I tell the agent point blank that the seller is dreaming. Apparently the seller has rejected offers that have been higher than mine earlier in the selling process but ‘wants as close to $400K as he can get’.

I’ve walked away now but there are still no contracts on the place from other interested parties. Is the seller not actually interested in selling? Have other people had similar experiences?

I don’t have much experience in property but this just seems an odd situation??

 

Unrealistic seller who doesnt need the money. Not uncommon.

Walk away but keep an eye on it.

Theyll either drop the price or withdraw the sale.

 

Get a friend to come in and offer $330k, 30 day settlement, valid for 48 hours only.

If it has been on the market for that long, they are in no hurry to sell and have unrealistic expectations.

 

Don't play their game. Simply leave it where you are at and wait. By law they can not longer be advertising it as offers over $335k now, well at least in NSW. This seems like bait pricing to me.

 

What a PIA - don't understand how they can counter then reject.

In SA the counter offer would be on a contract, then signed off - no chance to reject it after.

 

Sit tight. Don’t contact the agent.

Similar thing happened to my daughter, each time a price was agreed the vendor upped the asking price. Got to agreed $315K (many years ago), vendor came back with $318K. Daughter fed up, didn’t play any more. I even offered to pay the extra $3K if they really wanted the house, but daughter was over it.

Agent phoned a few days later to see if they would meet the revised price, daughter said to tell the vendor their offer of $315K would not be increased. Also told agent they would only sign a contract already signed by the vendor.

They got the house. Still own it, around doubled in value.

 

You need to do a reverse on them .

A very easy way to find out if they are full of BS is ask them to sign the contract at say 440k if that's what they're asking and send it to you to sign.

When they make up excuses why they can't do that, it's game over.

 

They're in breach of the underquoting legislation introduced in 2016. Read page 13.
https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/...oting_guidelines_for_residential_property.pdf

 

Unrealistic seller. Same happened to my mate who tried to buy my neighbors house last year. They were asking too much, even their agent was ****** off by the end. My mate had a buyer in place for his house, offered a very fair price for theirs close to advertised price which was about $100k too much by my reckoning. (I know, I only just bought ours next door to it), and they would not budge. Sellers wife wanted to take it, she was over living on acerage but husband put his foot down & got his back up at perceived "low offers" which just made it worse. They had a couple of offers that were around asking but he decided he then wanted more than what they originally said they'd take. Long story short, it sat on the marked for 4 months then they took it off the market and are still there. Don't know if they'll try again, pointless if they do unless they get real with the price.