How to phase ‘we want money knocked off’ email

Thrugelmir

numbercruncher8 said:

You can expect a begging call from the EA after that, either trying to get you to change your mind or up your offer, through a variety of methods. 

I'd expect a very precise response from the vendor.  Role of EA is simply to be that impartial bridge between the parties to avoid the matter becoming emotive. 

abanksee

Beck1987 said:

I secured 5% reduction.
First time buyer. Offer accepted End January, wanted to move before beginning of lock-down , the sellers stalled, as they we're looking to buy another house, while telling us they will rent so that we can move straight in.
They found a house around 20th of March, and they were pushing for the sale. Because of moving restrictions, we stayed put, and did not move. 
In the meantime I've been furloughed and with a high possibility of loosing my job, working from home at the moment.
We wanted to continue with the sale at the original price, but due to change in my circumstances we offered to drop out, as we did not want to stay in the way of another buyer, and the sellers are really nice people.
The EA called back after awhile and said are you sure you don't want to continue, as there is no point putting the house on the market at the moment. We told him we can't continue paying the same price as pre-covid. He came back with 2% (around 10k) we said no; we want 25k off (5%) and they accepted
Being that:
1. we did not want to loose the house, 2. we did not want to go through the whole process all over again,
3. the monthly mortgage is about 50% of my wife's salary
We accepted and we are due to complete end of May.

The economy is looking bad, and anyone saying otherwise are living in a bubble

Did you do it through the estate agent?

Beck1987

abanksee said:

Beck1987 said:

I secured 5% reduction.
First time buyer. Offer accepted End January, wanted to move before beginning of lock-down , the sellers stalled, as they we're looking to buy another house, while telling us they will rent so that we can move straight in.
They found a house around 20th of March, and they were pushing for the sale. Because of moving restrictions, we stayed put, and did not move. 
In the meantime I've been furloughed and with a high possibility of loosing my job, working from home at the moment.
We wanted to continue with the sale at the original price, but due to change in my circumstances we offered to drop out, as we did not want to stay in the way of another buyer, and the sellers are really nice people.
The EA called back after awhile and said are you sure you don't want to continue, as there is no point putting the house on the market at the moment. We told him we can't continue paying the same price as pre-covid. He came back with 2% (around 10k) we said no; we want 25k off (5%) and they accepted
Being that:
1. we did not want to loose the house, 2. we did not want to go through the whole process all over again,
3. the monthly mortgage is about 50% of my wife's salary
We accepted and we are due to complete end of May.

The economy is looking bad, and anyone saying otherwise are living in a bubble

Did you do it through the estate agent?

Yes i did.
This whole process of buying a house is an emotional roller coaster 

leftism

numbercruncher8 said:

No need to provide much reasoning, just instruct your solicitors to do it. No doubt they will be fielding similar requests.

You can expect a begging call from the EA after that, either trying to get you to change your mind or up your offer, through a variety of methods. That's their job and part of the process, but if you are susceptible to sob stories I wouldn't take their call - any important communications can go through solicitors as well. If your offer has been 'squeezed' up (nobody forces you to offer), then they may think they have a good chance. More importantly the solicitors work for you, the EA does not.

The risk is that you simply lose the deal; so if the move is of big importance to you then you have to quantify what losing out would mean. Also the seller may not be in that much of a rush or may require an amount of money to move; power generally lies with who needs it least.

If you have observed prices falling in your locality that goes in your favour, if you miss out there are always other plans.
I don't quite get the borrowing bit either. Was the original purchase price all in cash and the £15k extra the borrowing bit? Or is it a mortgage and the £15k another loan? Allied to having a drop in income (temporary or no) over-stretching is a bad idea, IMO.

Yes we got a mortgage for a certain amount and had to add an extra 13 k in cash to meet the price. So any money save will be money in our pocket. Or I should say money not borrowed from someone else’s pocket. 

purple_ck

eidand said:

You're welcome to submit a revised offer, it's a free market after all and you haven't exchanged yet. The seller may agree or meet you somewhere in the middle, or can refuse outright and put the house back on the market.
You can gauge a response based on the market in the area you're in. Did they have other offers before etc? 
If you don't ask you won't get, but it doesn't mean you will get it, either.

yes this is true, i was in this situation and the seller refused outright - no negotations so our lawyer sent a letter pulling out and not heard anything from 3 weeks ago.

RelievedSheff

purple_ck said:

eidand said:

You're welcome to submit a revised offer, it's a free market after all and you haven't exchanged yet. The seller may agree or meet you somewhere in the middle, or can refuse outright and put the house back on the market.
You can gauge a response based on the market in the area you're in. Did they have other offers before etc? 
If you don't ask you won't get, but it doesn't mean you will get it, either.

yes this is true, i was in this situation and the seller refused outright - no negotations so our lawyer sent a letter pulling out and not heard anything from 3 weeks ago.

Why would you expect to hear anything?

You have pulled out of the deal!

purple_ck

RelievedSheff said:

purple_ck said:

eidand said:

You're welcome to submit a revised offer, it's a free market after all and you haven't exchanged yet. The seller may agree or meet you somewhere in the middle, or can refuse outright and put the house back on the market.
You can gauge a response based on the market in the area you're in. Did they have other offers before etc? 
If you don't ask you won't get, but it doesn't mean you will get it, either.

yes this is true, i was in this situation and the seller refused outright - no negotations so our lawyer sent a letter pulling out and not heard anything from 3 weeks ago.

Why would you expect to hear anything?

You have pulled out of the deal!

we didn't renegotiate through the Estate agent (wasn't sure on the process) so it was back and forth through solictiors and my solicitor put a note on the account saying if they came back we would accept. To be honest - the communication was pretty bad between my solicitor, they were implying that they may come back, that's all really. I wasn't copied in on the letter pulling out - is this normal? 

steampowered

On an emotional level, I think it is important to come up with some sort of reason that sounds emotionally acceptable - e.g. you are worried about your affordability due to the circumstances, you can't afford a house price drop, your buyer has dropped their price etc.

Humans are emotional creatures. From a purely logical standpoint, people should only care that your offer was £x and is now £y - the reasons should be irrelevant. But emotion does come into it big time with house buying, people are going to more awkward as possible if they think you are just taking the mick.

blue_max_3

I'd put your revised offer to the estate agent. How the agent puts it to the seller is not likely to be based on what you said to them. They may wish to advise you on whether they think it's going to be accepted. Or maybe they can put the offer to the seller and help to come back with a compromise. There are so many factors involved, that no-one can say what is likely to happen. 

Semple

Crashy_Time said:

Ask them to drop the 15k "uplift" as we are no longer in a world where that is appropriate, and ask for a further 10-15k off due to "exceptional circumstances" or offer to come back to the table after the economic situation becomes clearer and they will probably have to discount even more.

I dunno why you don't just go the whole way and ask for it for free! 





*sarcasm