Who is going to blink first?

It came as no surprise that our opening offer on the property was rejected.  It was £20K under the asking price, but surely no-one starts a negotiation with their best and final offer?

Well, it appears that may be the case with our potential buyers.  The feedback from the Agents is that they are not going to come back with another offer and are, in fact, now going to look at other properties in the area.

So today was spent with very high stress levels with both of us wondering whether we had messed up by not accepting the one and only offer on The Pile.  We are both aware that it was a very good offer and was only 3.33% less than our asking price.  Have we fucked this up?

Later in the day 30% did some social media stalking of our potential buyer and discovered that she was a senior buyer for an automobile manufacturer.  This is a women that understands the art of negotiation and this had a somewhat calming effect.

Are we in a staring contest where it is a case of who will blink first?  If she blinks we get a few more grand and that will certainly help with fees and stamp duty.  If we blink first the buyer gets the house for her opening offer.

Our desire to buy the house we have viewed is obviously a massive incentive to cave in and accept the offer.  It is fair to say that this is a nerve wracking situation.

We have done our sums and worked out that we can afford to buy the new house for its asking price, based on what our potential buyer has offered.  We will need to hit our savings hard, but we are willing to do so.

This evening we submitted an increased offer on the new house, well aware that we can't proceed until our potential buyer blinks.