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they felt the place was worth more in the end, but because they stopped the bidding war they feel like they've done you a favour
That would be my guess. Offering £5k drop seems like a risky move if you were genuinely open to more negotiation. Although it sets your parameters high, when the other side asked for over 6x that you'd think it would risk the other side walking away as much as it would a counter offer.
@T4NY4 - if you want it, I'd probably pick up the phone to the EA and say something like;
"look we're looking at at least £30k to fixed what's fucked and realistically we're going to be in for a min of £50k all in, probably more. We went in with a genuine discount number rather than giving a high as they seemed like the sort of folk who wouldn't go in for back-and-forth negotiation - that's why we said £32k not £50k. You're an intelligent attractive person with loads of knowledge and you know the next buyer is going to do the same thing as us, and so will the one after which means it's going to take 6m to sell. "
hugo7-
That is pretty much what I've just done, without the intelligent, attractive bit :)
I've left it with the EA that we'll have a think overnight, and meanwhile she will try to convince the vendor that they're being overly optimistic/rash/stupid/a tw@t.
We even sent them the survey so they could see how genuinely fucked it is but the vendor has said she doesn't want to see it.
t4ny4
Maybe they felt the place was worth more in the end, but because they stopped the bidding war they feel like they've done you a favour in return for an easy sale which they now don't have. Bit naive if that's the case - what you've found goes beyond stuff that can be expected with old houses.
And presumably they aren't in a hurry to sell if they think they can put it back on the market.
Maybe that's a bluff. I'd call it.