Recently I have received an offer to buy properties substantially below their current market values.
My first reaction was ‘Why would anybody sell properties with that sort of discount?’.
I can understand distressed developers needing to liquidate their holdings, but there is strong demand for good properties and they sell quickly.
Why would a developer sell properties below what they are supposedly worth unless there was a problem of some sort and they were difficult to sell?
Unless of course, they are not worth the higher values and they are based on notional figures dreamt up by a friendly ‘surveyor’.
Developers and agents who offer such ‘discounts’ will always come up with glib answers to support the reduction so I didn’t bother asking.
The reality is that if they are offering them at low enough prices to get people to buy them, the lower prices represent the market values.
As you might expect, no developer wants to be a charity and give money away needlessly.
Importantly, the better ones want a win-win situation, a reasonable profit and a great investment for the buyer.
Was this particular agent assuming I would fall for the offer, or am I being too cynical and perhaps missing something obvious?
