Love a house that is SSTC, what would you do?

eve824

Swasterix said:

Just to play devils advocate...

Maybe the other buyers aren’t property developers? 

Maybe they love the plot/house/location even more than you do?
Maybe by writing your letter/knocking on the door, they will lose the house of their dreams and be even more gutted than you are now? Do you care? 

I’m getting the feeling that you are secretly hoping that by contacting the sellers they will drop their existing buyers and sell to you. Don’t pretend that if you go through with what you’re proposing, and the sellers offer the house to you, you wouldn’t snap their hands off. It seems to me that you’re looking for validation for what you’re proposing to do, under the guise of it being an innocent enquiry. 

It makes no difference to anyone here which way you decide to go, but let’s be honest and just call it what it is - an attempt at gazumping. It’s not illegal, maybe not even immoral, but only you can decide whether you can live with it or not. 

Hi

Yes I do care. In my letter all I said was please contact us if your sale falls through, I didn't make any attempt to better their offer or even suggest that. I still don't know whether they are a family or developer. 

Anyway, despite everything, I am glad I decided to pop a note through the door. It's done no harm and it's almost helped me to move on a little, although I am still very gutted we missed out on it.

orangecrush

Thanks for updating @eve824 , given the circumstances I think you made the right call and I'm glad it has helped you move on a bit.  I do hope you find something else you love equally as much!

GraceD_17

I'm looking forward to hearing where this goes, I personally don't think the letter or knocking is a problem, you are simply showing your interest. I know you understand the circumstances more now after speaking to the seller but as an example for people who think it's wrong of you to try and push your offer on them when the people they have decided to sell to may also have their hopes up for that house and you may be 'crushing their plans' as a few users have made out, a family member of mine was selling up as she had placed a deposit on a new build plot, she had about 8 weeks to sell her current house in order to get the money to pay off the remainder deposit of her plot etc. An offer was made and accepted but later they pulled out due to unknown reasons leaving my family member with about 3 weeks to scramble for a sale, she had to lower her price by a significant amount in order to quick sell it as she'd have lost her plot if she couldn't pay it. No longer than a few days after she accepted the offer (that left her with literally no profit, just enough to pay this plot but she had no choice) another buyer contacted her (just as you did/were going to) and offered the original price it was up for the first time before it was lowered, she obviously accepted because the only reason for accepting the other was because she had no choice, the previous buyers (the ones that she rejected for this one) even admitted themselves they only went for the house because it was lowered a significant amount. 

There is no harm in chancing your luck, as long as you consider there may be buyers on the other end that will be left in the rut a little, all depends on circumstances i suppose but i think you were perfectly in the ok to post the letter. 

eve824

Just an update on this - 4 months on! We had pursued a couple of properties since, one we lost out as it went to best & final offer and the other one the vendors basically told us they don't want to sell anymore (that was a private sale).

Last Thursday we viewed a wonderful plot with full PP and put in a full price offer once we got home from the viewing, which was accepted subject to us getting a self build mortgage pre approval which we are pursuing at the moment.

On Friday, the EA for the house this thread is about rang me to say the buyer (who WAS a developer) has pulled out of the sale just before exchange!! Talk about timing! It's the EA who sold our house who is selling that one so he gave me 'first dibs' before the house officially went back on the open market today.

We went to view on Saturday and whilst we love it, we actually on balance prefer the plot, with the house a very close second. Had it been 2 weeks ago we would have snapped the house up and not even seen the plot listed for sale.

So fingers crossed the plot works out else we will have probably lost out on the house as second choice - I don't imagine it will be back on the market for long. I hope we don't live to regret this decision!

Mrcsmrs

I’ve just read your whole thread for the first time from beginning to end and was sitting here thinking how I would feel if someone had done this to us with the property our offer has been accepted on! As a family we would have been utterly devastated to lose our perfect long term home in this way. That said it’s hard to know how we would have felt had it been us wanting to buy. I’m glad you did what you felt was right for you and that you’ve found the right place for your new home. 

FWIW gazumping in any form is just utterly deplorable so I’m really glad you didn’t risk your morality to buy something that you’ve ultimately found you didn’t want. For me anyway, I think if I’d actively gazumped some other family it would have soured the home a little. I don’t think I’d want to be reminded of a time I didn’t do the right thing as it were. Anyway, glad it’s all worked out for you, very interesting reading! 

badger09

@eve824

Thanks for the update. Really hope it all works out for you this time. 

Davesnave

@eve824  Glad it seems to be working out without a moral dilemma and that I was wrong about the likely chance of finding a suitable plot with self-build potential.

NameUnavailable

What this thread demonstrates is that even if you miss 'the perfect' property there is always something even better along the way.

eve824

@Mrcsmrs It's not that we don't want it, it's just that on balance the plot is *just* ahead of the house. Obviously its difficult to compare the two so it was a really tricky decision! Like I said, if the plot was not an option we would have snapped the vendors hand off on Saturday and it would appear as if the house had never gone back on the market.

@Davesnave I think we have been exceptionally lucky, and I am not counting my chickens yet as it might all fall apart. We are still waiting for the self build broker to confirm there is a lender that feels the project is viable. I am told our affordability has been checked and is OK, which is half the battle! It's not exactly a cheap plot by any means but it would allow us a fair size budget to build a lovely house to our spec, and the garden would be a nice size (whole plot 0.3 acre). The house stays on the market until we can present confirmation that the self build finance is available so if a cash buyer swoops in now then it's game over I imagine.

@NameUnavailable  I can't agree more 

Jeepers_Creepers

Rare indeed - you have been exceptionally lucky, and I hope it continues to hold. :-)

One thing I have personally found - and I've tried to reassure a few folk on here going through a similar situation; when a 'dream home' house purchase goes pear-shaped for whatever reason and it doesn't become yours, a better place will come along.