Reducing offer price at last minute before exchange

shirlgirl2004

Welshwoofs wrote: »

People do seem to get swayed by press reports - personally I'd have gone ahead with the sale. If I was happy with what you offered and accepted then suddenly becoming 'unhappy' due to media hype is simply a sign of greed.

Your sellers may well get their comeupence there though, with property bee I've noticed a few properies around the place whacking their price up ... and then having to drop again a few weeks later.

Yes I noticed a few that had put prices up and now those same prices are on the way down now. I assume the market must be going quiet now the summer is here. Looking at Property Hive for the last few weeks I can't see any prices that have gone up.

Hailstorm

shirlgirl2004 wrote: »

I hope they're still on the market!

I just checked the estate agents website and it is still for sale:D. The asking price is what they wanted me to come up to.

I am happy with the way it has worked out though. In the meantime I have found another house in a nicer area that also has a garage. The original one didn't.

The thing that makes the sellers even more daft is that they weren't the end of the chain. By pulling out of the sale to me they are also putting the place they want to buy in jeopardy.

bandofbrothers

Good for you Hailstorm,

Im glad it worked out ok for you.

The greed of some people is amazing.

When the buyer came to view my property one of the things we discussed was what our true intentions were.

When we agreed on a price of the property , one of the first things I said was that as my word was my bond, , and I would not gazzump or entertain any other offers, as I had given my word to them.

Maybe im just a rare breed !

ognum

If the OP was my buyer I would walk away, I would not continue my sale with him, equally once I had agreed a sale price I would not accept a higher offer.
Maybe Im lucky and I can afford to do both of these things but I believe that the reason I have got to a position where I can afford to do it is because I have always dealt honestly. What comes around goes around, if you do this now you can be sure someone will *hit on you in the future!

bluejake

mike5678 wrote: »

Hi all,

I am a FTB in the final stages of agreeing a sale for a 2 bed maisonette for £180k. So close to the end in fact that we were going to exchange today until this one little hiccup came to light.

The property was initially on the market for £198k with 74 years remaining on the lease. We agreed a sale price of £180k without extending the lease. My valuation survey for my mortgage company came back at £180k.

What has just come to light, and I don't know how my solicitor managed to get hold of it, is a valuation survey carried out on behalf of the seller a week prior to accepting my offer. I have a copy now of this valuation and the contents of this are that they valued the property at £170k without extending the lease. They then valued the cost of extending the lease to 99 years as £13.5k and then the price of the property with a 99 year lease at £190k.

We are in the very final stages in a chain 4 sales long (I am the FTB at the bottom) and the whole chain is ready to exchange.

I am not happy to pay £180k for something that was valued at £170k only a few weeks ago by an independation valuer. I have told my solicitor to wait to hear from me until Monday and now the estate agent is constantly phoning me.

My plan is to re-negotiate the price and say that I will pay £175k for the property as it is, not a penny more. This meets in the middle of the two valuation amounts and also brings the property into the 0% stamp duty bracket. The only funds I have spent so far is £320 on my valuation and £56 for environmental search, so no real loss if it falls apart.

I do really like the property, BUT I am also not desperate, I live with my parents and under no pressure to leave.

Would be greatful for anyone elses opinions as I have an angry chain of people chasing me wanting to exchange.

Thanks
:think:

Your only mistake is that you are considering offering £75k.You should offer 70k.

Ignore the non-moneysavers who want you to pay possibly £10k (£20k when you take into account interest) more than you need to. They are simply motivated by self interest not morals. They were happy to take take advantage of rapid house price inflation and simply want first time buyers like yourself to cripple yourselves with debt and pay an inflated price.

I am yet to hear one of these moral people say that the price of their house has tripled but they are only going to ask for the price they paid plus inflation so as not to cripple the next generation of FTBs with debt.

That people on here, a moneysaving site, would advise that a first time buyer should pay £10k more than you possibly need to when house prices are at historically grossly inflated levels and very likely to fall over time shows that they do not care a fig about you. They care only about themselves and cannot see beyond their selfish interests. That they delude themselves and try to pass off their advice as 'moral' is not nice to see.:mad:

Welshwoofs

bluejake wrote: »

That people on here, a moneysaving site, would advise that a first time buyer should pay £10k more than you possibly need to when house prices are at historically grossly inflated levels and very likely to fall over time shows that they do not care a fig about you. They care only about themselves and cannot see beyond their selfish interests. That they delude themselves and try to pass off their advice as 'moral' is not nice to see.:mad:

What utter bo!!ocks.

There are ways to save money morally and in house purchasing, the time to do that is when you're agreeing the price NOT once you've agreed it, had the survey and proceeded on to exchange.

franklee

I can't see the logic here. People are saying valuations are approximate and to take them with a pinch of salt, yet on the other hand saying the OP should stick to the 180K (higher valuation) and ignore the 170K (lower valuation). Surely both valuations should be taken the same way - both with a pinch of salt. Therefore the OP doesn't know if the place is worth 180K, 170K or anything else.

A FTB, putting all their savings on the line as a deposit, does not have the luxury of equity built up by owning through the boom years as many homeowners do. So they need to think very carefully before they saddle themselves with a huge debt and possible falling prices over the next year or two.

So if the OP is getting cold feet then in my opinion he should pull out now while there is still time, before exchange.

Getting away from the OP's case, speaking generally: Of course I understand the anger that gazundering causes but those that have said they would walk away on principle if gazundered show no thoughts for the rest of the chain which would then collapse. Of course they can decline to take the hit, but should IMO at least let the members of the chain in more expensive properties choose if they want to pay as it may be cost effective for them. Therefore those rigid people aren't great to have in a chain and I wouldn't like to reply on them either.

Grovester_2

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

No my logic is not flawed, it's exactly the same to agree a price with someone and then smash their dreams by accepting a higher offer/saying you will only sell to them at this higher price.

Soubrette - see the poster above you, believes gazundering = bad, gazumping = good

Where does my post say gazumping is good? You've simply made that up!

I've been gazumped before and it's not pleasant.

This topic is about the OP trying to gazunder and you're just making stuff up to have arguement.

Jewel_2

Ian_W wrote: »

Then you're not living in the real world.
Your buyer has made you an offer based on the condition of your house as they can see it. If the surveyor finds a problem that neither you or the buyer appreciated was there, for example rot in roofing or floor timbers, costing hundreds or thousands to put right they have every right to seek to re-negotiate and you'd be foolish to refuse. After all you'd need to put it right yourself or at least honestly declare it before you accepted an offer from someone else, wouldn't you?

That is very different from what the OP intends to do. To a degree I can see that having received the information about another valuation does put a different perspective on his offer. What marks him as a complete little !!!!!! is that he has decided to wait and gazunder on a day when several parties are due to exchange thereby trying to apply moral blackmail to his vendor and others at an already very stressful time. I would tell him to Foxtrot Oscar!!

I also really can't understand if he's so not bothered about the property - why the hell he's buying it in the first place!

I suppose I should make myself clearer. I live in an old property and we have already accepted an offer £30,000 below the asking price. What I said when we accepted was that we couldn't actually afford to come down any more, which we can't.. If there are lots of structural problems, we will put them right but stay in the house. If they are minor things, then I'm not going to negotiate a couple of thousand down, when they know that we cannot afford to come down any more. I am fully aware that buyers will try to get the price of the structural survey back through negotiation.

I'm not trying to sound difficult, I've bought and sold many properties, but as a buyer in this market, who isn't desperate to move anyway, I really think buyers are treated badly. this full structural survey - we're letting people into our house who we don't know, on their own, they haven't given us a different option for a date (we're both in meetings all day tomorrow), they've already cancelled once. Our buyers WANT an old property and should bear minor defects in mind, and this is reflected in the price we are selling for. They even said they were going to knock part of it down for an extension, so I'm not going to knock money off just for their benefit.

Sorry, rant over. I'm not having a go at you at all, I know exactly where you are coming from. If there are major problems they won't buy anyway.

Jewel_2

ognum wrote: »

If the OP was my buyer I would walk away, I would not continue my sale with him, equally once I had agreed a sale price I would not accept a higher offer.
Maybe Im lucky and I can afford to do both of these things but I believe that the reason I have got to a position where I can afford to do it is because I have always dealt honestly. What comes around goes around, if you do this now you can be sure someone will *hit on you in the future!

Yes I agree. I think buyers think they are in a brilliant market position. Truth is, people are taking their houses off the market, and there isn't much choice to buy. Sellers aren't desperate to sell as they know they probably won't, so they're only going to sell at a price they can afford. I had someone round my house the other day telling me it was tired. Then she said she wouldn't offer me the asking price. Then I found out she hadn't even got hers on the market but was just about to. What a waste of time and effort. Hopefully we've now sold to someone more deserving of our lovely house! :T