Seller increases asking price after 10 months when they have caused the delay in exchange!

TripleH

If the Op was the one who had caused the delays and was the reason it had taken 10 months, yes I would be siding with the vendor.

If it was the vendor who caused the delay, as seems the case here, then I have little sympathy that house prices have increased.

I suspect either -

1. The vendors don't really want to sell and are dithering round wasting everyone else's time and money.

2. House prices where they are wanting to buy have risen sufficiently that to fund what they want from their move means they need more from their sale.

BV88

TripleH said:

Tell them, "thank-you for your generous offer but we can't accept a £25k discount so will keep it at the current price' to confuse them.

That or, 'well when we offered, there was a stamp duty reduction in place that due to youvdelaying, has ended. Tell you what, we'll pay £500k if you cover the difference in stamp duty we'll have to pay from when we originally put our offer in.'

 Brilliant, thanks for the laugh! 

twoLou

How frustrating for you. It sounds as if the sellers don’t really want to move and their hearts aren’t in it. 

If it were me I would not increase the offer and say if the price you agreed is now not acceptable you will unfortunately have to pull out.
you may find they change their minds but I’ve a feeling not.

Only you can make the decision and I wish you the best of luck whichever you decide.

I’m trying to purchase at the moment and seem to be thwarted at every turn so I sympathise 

Flugelhorn

@BV88 sounds like you have an excellent plan - let us know how it goes

Thrugelmir

BV88 said:

Basically the right to buy at 500,000 but not the obligation. But also the right to adjust our offer lower at any stage before exchange of contracts should we so wish. Something we would never normally do but the seller has shown that the accepted price is meaningless. 

Which makes your revised offer valueless. Bite the bullet and move on. After 10 months you need to remove the emotion from your thinking. 

JReacher1

I still think you are putting emotion into your decision and taking it personally.  Get the house revalued by HSBC and see what price they now attach to the property.

If they come back and say it is now worth £500k then that will help you make a decision.

Its been 10 months.  Prices have changed :-)

BV88

Thrugelmir said:

BV88 said:

Basically the right to buy at 500,000 but not the obligation. But also the right to adjust our offer lower at any stage before exchange of contracts should we so wish. Something we would never normally do but the seller has shown that the accepted price is meaningless. 

Which makes your revised offer valueless. Bite the bullet and move on. After 10 months you need to remove the emotion from your thinking. 

Maybe, and perhaps when I’m older and wiser I would just bite the bullet and move on in this situation. 

However, at this stage I have everything to gain and nothing to lose by staying in the transaction. It’s unlikely, but there is a possibility that I may decide I want the property at 500,000 in 3/6/9 months or however long it takes them to sell
if they ever do. I can’t know how things will play out with other properties that come on. 

In a normal transaction I would have lots to lose, especially my reputation as a buyer with the agents jeopardising my chances at getting another property in the future. However we have been steadfast in this transaction, acted swiftly, put up the cash when it was down-valued without pressing the seller and being understanding to their stress at entering the market after being out of it for 30 years. Our reputation as a solid buyer is fully intact. 

Honestly I don’t understand the issue with a little emotion in decision making, especially when it comes to something as personal as where you live and raise your family. So long as it’s not to my detriment, I’m pretty OK with not being some cold, logical, analytical decision making robot…  

lookstraightahead

Great update op!

lookstraightahead

JReacher1 said:

lookstraightahead said:

JReacher1 said:

It’s annoying but house prices have risen in the last ten months by around 10% so something that was valued at £464k in April 2021 is probably worth closely to £500k now. So I can sort of see why they want more money. 

Look at it this way, if the housing market had crashes in the last 10 months I assume you would want to renegotiate now and offer less. I think you need to treat this purely as a financial business transaction and take the emotion out of it. 

I would be tempted to get HSBC to value it again and see if they now think it’s worth more than £464k

Don't agree with this I think it would be valued at less if anything.

And I wouldn't buy from them either , because they're likely to wait another ten months.

so from a financial transaction perspective, they're a waste of time money and effort. From a moral perspective, they're not someone I would now choose to buy from (just wouldn't rest easy with me).

Why would this house be the one house that loses value in the last 10 months? That goes against what is seen in the current housing market. 

Not seen by me. Not seen by lots of people in fact. We don't have the last ten months up to date data as it's always behind. 

Can you imagine every vendor doing this - making people wait ten months to increase the price. Anyway, op seems very level headed.

yksi

I'm with the OP (and several others). I am not convinced that the value has gone up in the past ten months.

From what I've been looking at in my own area, there was a minor asking-price jump at the beginning of Summer last year, but that hasn't necessarily led to everyone getting what they asked for. Quite a few properties had their prices raised and have sat there untouched or the price has been dropped back down again, which can be seen in the selling price history widget.

If the property was slightly overvalued, and the bank's valuation was accurate, they might be dreaming to think 500k is the right asking price. A property is only worth what someone will pay and people are greedy, so maybe the adult kids have just gotten caught up in the media frenzy telling us that prices are going up.

Keep us updated, OP!