Daft Asking price versus reality

[gabbyrose4]

Very general question but if your budget for a house in Dublin is X, realistically what house price are you searching for on daft?

X - 100k, or X *0.8?

E.g. you have 500k net to spend (that's just for purchase price, you have budget for the extras)

Are you then looking at 400k houses expecting them to go for more than asking?

 

[sbrodhagen]

@gabbyrose4 I have been tracking all the houses we have been interested in over the past year. I have then been checking on the register what they finally sell for. Between 05/22 and 05/23:

The largest amount over the asking price I have tracked is 105k. Some of these were clearly underpriced originally but I have been surprised by a few.

The largest drop was 50k. there is generally something wrong with the ones that go for a lot below asking (development nearby, bad location compared to other houses in the immediate area etc)

About 60-70% of the houses I have tracked are going for over the asking price.

If you are interested in a specific area and start viewing/bidding you will soon figure out what is priced correctly and what ones to expect to go higher.

Update: This got me thinking and I updated my data up to today, so now I have data going from 05/22 to 10/23.

• 49 houses that I have full data for at this stage.
• 2 houses sold for the asking price.
• 10 houses sold for under asking price (20.4% of the total list)
• 37 houses sold for over asking price (75.5% of the total list)
• Asking prices ranged from 550k up to 825k.
• The largest amount over asking was 120k! (750k asking and sold for 870k)
• From the 23rd of June to today there has been 15 houses that had their sales completed.
  • 14 of them were over asking price
  • only 1 was under asking price
  • points to price increases for the areas/type of houses we were looking at.

I am going to do a big write up over xmas on my data and the mortgage/buying process. Think I have a lot of useful info to share for people who are looking.

 

[rickylee]

@sbrodhagen I did the same when I was looking to buy. I kept a spreadsheet of every house I saw, with comments from viewings, estate agent, advertised price, sale agreed price and final prices from the PPR. You start to see patterns with areas and also EA's who price correctly vs those who price to get bidding wars going. You really start to understand what houses are actually going for then and what a house is "worth" and adapt accordingly.

 

[mariafrances]

@rickylee We bought in 2016, at the time our mortgage broker advised us that he was seeing most other clients closing about 7% above asking. But we found through 6 months of viewing and bidding in one specific village outside Dublin that the local sales were all closing about 7% below asking.

The trends can be hyper-local with sellers watching each other and a small number of neighbourhood agents advising them.

 

[setso]

@rickylee Yep we done the exact same too, I wouldn't go near a few EAs in the area again after seeing the patterns they operate with. The propert price register really is the best tool available to see what the trends in the areas.

 

[swedish]

@sbrodhagen What's the percentage over / under asking?

 

[sbrodhagen]

@swedish close to 60%/40%

Updated data in the original post.

 

[walt74]

@sbrodhagen Wow that's interesting. Very surprised to hear 40% have went for under. Thanks for sharing

 

[sbrodhagen]

@walt74 See my updated original post. I updated my data for the past few months and it heavily points toward increases. Only 20% went for under now.

 

[madria]

@sbrodhagen What price range are you looking at? I imagine these massive bids are on houses in the 300k-400k range?

 

[sbrodhagen]

@madria The 49 houses in the list range from asking prices of 550k up to 825k. Our max budget was 850k but we didn't want to go near that so we looked at a very big range.

 

[isaac32]

@gabbyrose4 Myself and my wife were bidding on two houses recently. We dropped out of the first at 76k above asking and it went for, I believe, 96k above. It was far from turn key condition. Every room would have to be gutted.

We got the second house at 102k above asking and it's ready to move in to. Still in the process of buying that and selling ours.

Our house went for 72k above asking price too.

Every house we enquired about was way over the asking price. We expected that we would be paying above asking price, but not that much.

 

[maylicia]

@gabbyrose4 Depends on the area and the condition of the house, but decent houses tend to go for 10 to 15% above the asking price. Also some real estate agents advertise a lower asking price to attract more interest in the hopes of triggering a bidding war.

 

[resjudicata]

@maylicia This would have been my answer from my experience

 

[shuffle]

@gabbyrose4 Asking prices are irrelevant - they are a made up figure. The only way to estimate market value is to calculate PPR of similar properties * property inflation since those properties sold.

For example, say you're looking at a 2 bed apt in Glasnevin. You see similar 2-beds around there sold for an avg. of 300k in 2022. Say inflation since then has been 10%. Then the market value is approx. €300k * 110% = €330k.

 

[ninahaska]

@shuffle Yeah this is true. We got ours for exactly asking price, but in hindsight I actually feel like we may have overpaid by 10-15k, just based on the amount of work we had to end up doing and based on selling prices on similar houses in the area.

 

[ldtorres77]

@gabbyrose4 There's no reliable rule of thumb. Some sellers price optimistically, some price low to attract attention. Then of course it depends on who is also trying to buy the property that you want.

 

[abgchristian23]

@gabbyrose4 For me 20% below asking and it did go 20% above, as I wanted a new turnkey place. Estate agents use different strategies when posting asking prices so it will vary.

 

[veritasinhabitum]

@gabbyrose4 If I had 500k I would be looking at houses prices around 430k. It's not a fun process, but it is so worth it in the end.

 

[ecsid]

@gabbyrose4

you have 500k net to spend (that's just for purchase price, you have budget for the extras)

Are you then looking at 400k houses expecting them to go for more than asking?

"I have X to spend," => "I will look to spend Y," is not how you look for a house.

The goal is to spend as little money as possible on the property which satisfies your needs entirely and your wants to as reasonable a degree as possible. Cost out your needs and wants first, then look for properties which meet those needs with as much value to spare as possible (or equivalently, as little overrun as possible compared to their true value).

Don't allow the amount you can borrow to anchor your expectations of what you should buy.

That said, homes will generally sell for 5-15% higher than the asking price, based on how much competition there is for that particular house. Most buyers are emotional bidders, so houses that 'look nice' will get bid up more than houses which are functional but need cosmetic improvements. Look for true value, not fresh paint.