gazundering

w00519772

i have been renting since 2000 when i started university. I was in the process of buying in 2007 and i was gazumped at the last minute. Again i was buying earlier this year and the vendor pulled out. It has costed me.

anyway i am about to exchange (i hoped it would be this week but looking like next week now). I am a ftb and the vendor does not live in the property.

i read about gazundering today and a valuer friend said "it happens more than you think". I am not planning to do this but i am interested to hear from others who have and what the outcome was. I am buying in the east midlands where house price growth is much lower than London and perhaps lower than average for the uk. My house was on the market for 3.5 months - it was reduced just before i offered.

i realise this question may not make me popular. However, in my defence i myself have been messed around in the past by estate agents and vendors who could not care less.

thequant

w00519772 wrote: »

i have been renting since 2000 when i started university. I was in the process of buying in 2007 and i was gazumped at the last minute. Again i was buying earlier this year and the vendor pulled out. It has costed me.

anyway i am about to exchange (i hoped it would be this week but looking like next week now). I am a ftb and the vendor does not live in the property.

i read about gazundering today and a valuer friend said "it happens more than you think". I am not planning to do this but i am interested to hear from others who have and what the outcome was. I am buying in the east midlands where house price growth is much lower than London and perhaps lower than average for the uk. My house was on the market for 3.5 months - it was reduced just before i offered.

i realise this question may not make me popular. However, in my defence i myself have been messed around in the past by estate agents and vendors who could not care less.

Sod it, go for it.


It's a dog eat dog world out there.


Not like you ever have to deal with these people again.


Here's a good guide to it.


http://www.firsthomebuyer.co.uk/gazunder-recipe.html


Knock yerself out.


Good Luck

Jason74

w00519772 wrote: »

i realise this question may not make me popular. However, in my defence i myself have been messed around in the past by estate agents and vendors who could not care less.

The phrase, "two wrongs don't make a right" springs to mind here.

w00519772

Jason74 wrote: »

The phrase, "two wrongs don't make a right" springs to mind here.

thanks. I am not planning to do this as i think i have a fair price. I want to know how common it is.

hanfrangipane

w00519772 wrote: »

i myself have been messed around in the past by estate agents and vendors who could not care less.

A major problem with society nowadays is that people are so self absorbed that they think that because they may have been hard done to at some point, that this gives them a moral right to inflict this misfortune on other people through their own behaviour.


Having followed the above link I find it appalling that people would advocate a practice like this when you're playing with people's lives, hard earned money/assets and emotions.


Be the change that you wish to see in the world. Don't be a ****


(FYI - I'm also a FTB who would love to get a discount, but not at the expense of messing people around. Although I do note that you say you're NOT going to do this)

PasturesNew

Oh to have the b4lls instead of the morals
I'd be scared of what they "could do" ...... apart from pulling out, they've got a few weeks to plan and execute some lovely "surprises"....

eddddy

w00519772 wrote: »

...
i read about gazundering today and a valuer friend said "it happens more than you think".
...

It depends what your friend means by gazundering.

I'm sure lots of people reduce their offer as a result of new information (typically in the survey, the searches and/or pre-contract inquiries).

But I'm not convinced that many people cynically reduce their offer a day or two before exchange, for no good reason.

marlot

Hmm.

Given that the survey has already happened, I can think of many ways a !!!!ed off seller could retaliate.

I'd refuse your offer and tell all local estate agents about you so they can tell your next vendor

hardworking_mummy

It almost happened to my (now) husband in 2008 in when he sold his flat to come and live with me. It had all been very civilised - he was selling it for what he had paid for it 4 years earlier (the bottom had fallen out of the market) and the buyer was getting all white goods and furniture (not officially but she and my husband had made a "deal"). She basically just had to bring a duvet on moving in day.
Anyhow a few weeks before we were expecting things to move she started playing silly beggars, and finally after a week of refusing to return any calls announced she wanted 10% off the price. My husbands only response was to the agent to put the property back on the market that day.
The following day my husband got up to 3 messages on his voicemail left from this bereft woman saying she had been "advised" to do this off her financial advisor. She loved the property/had spent money on the survey/solicitors and wanted the sale to go ahead. My husband told her if she wanted it to go ahead he would do so on the grounds they completed the following Friday. Which they did. However all good will was lost and we removed everything that wasn't screwed down in the property. She went from a fully furnished property (with very good quality white goods/furniture etc) to one where we even removed the lampshades.
If she had offered less money at the outset that was one thing - but the cynical way it was done - obviously hoping my husband was in a difficult position left a very bad taste in the mouth. Unfortunately for her it backfired and cost her quite a lot of money.
I have bought and sold many properties (both to live in and B.T.L) and there is no way I would use this tactic. I offer what I am prepared to pay at the outset and that's that.
I'd love to see the whole system changed where an offer and acceptance is binding - subject to survey.

Ivana_Tinkle

The one time someone tried to gazunder us, we told them to get lost, put the house back on the market, and sold it for a slightly higher price the next day. We were living in a property hotspot and prices had gone up since we accepted the offer. Our buyers were idiots. I've often wondered what happened in the end - I suspect the whole incident ended up costing them a few grand.

Although obviously gazundering is pretty underhand and unpleasant, I do think most of the time it won't work unless you were overpaying for the property anyway. If the seller knows they can easily find another buyer then they'll tell you to get knotted.

verulamium

I would never ever think of doing it, unless a survey brings up a fault, and only then I would renegotiate the price well before exchange.

I have no respect for anyone who practice gazundering and gazumping.