Reducing house offer after months of waiting for completion

MobileSaver

LLM000 said:

A lot of houses that were put on the market at the beginning of June and are being reduced by £25k and some even £50k after just a few weeks on the market.. seemingly lovely houses from the pictures with no obvious work needing done.

The obvious thing to do is to pull out of your current purchase and buy one of the £50,000 cheaper houses instead... is that what you're going to do?

TerryDuckworth

LLM000 said:

Thank you for all of your comments and advice. It has been really good to hear different thoughts. I would like to add that I have been looking on Zoopla today and can see a lot of houses in the area I am buying have been reduced a lot over the past month. A lot of houses that were put on the market at the beginning of June and are being reduced by £25k and some even £50k after just a few weeks on the market.. seemingly lovely houses from the pictures with no obvious work needing done.

This has made me really question the price of the property I am wanting to buy now as clearly, in my area the prices are coming down.. I have not known so many properties to reduce so vastly in such a short space of time.

I am also experiencing this with Rightmove sending me alerts by email with properties being reduced. This may well be the new trend for the next year or two.

TerryDuckworth

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

TerryDuckworth said:

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

4.79% for a 5 year fix (remortgage) is the best remortgage deal I can see with a quick google and 4.69% for a 5 year fix (purchase) with 60% LTV.

Given the BoE base rate of 5% that shows confidence again that rates will drop out from year 2 or earlier in the 5 year fixes.

   meaning probable higher rates later when the fix ends 

This is the same 'probable' as the 50% price drop?  Just to know whether to never expect that one too.

People who took the advice of "not to expect higher rates" recently in some cases are in a very real financial mess? SKY news is all over it this morning actually.

I saw something on the news the other day that when inflation is above 8% it can take up to 14 years to bring it back down to normal levels. I thought this was ludicrous but if this is the case we may have higher interest here in the UK for a very long time. 

Didn`t catch that but there are endless deep theories on inflation throughout history, what I do think is correct though is that inflation has never been tamed with base rate BELOW inflation, so it looks like base rate needs to go to about 9% to tame this particular bout of inflation.

I think you could be right on this one. I have found this chart which shows that shows interest rates need to be a few per cent higher than inflation to bring it back down. The only time this didn't really happen was in 1975. So potentially the base interest rate may need to be around 11-12% if inflation is to be brought down.

simon_or

MobileSaver said:

LLM000 said:

A lot of houses that were put on the market at the beginning of June and are being reduced by £25k and some even £50k after just a few weeks on the market.. seemingly lovely houses from the pictures with no obvious work needing done.

The obvious thing to do is to pull out of your current purchase and buy one of the £50,000 cheaper houses instead... is that what you're going to do?

If the OP is planning to pull out anyway, then it would make sense to check if the vendor is willing to renegotiate before doing that. Who knows, the vendor might prefer that as well over losing their buyer. Don't ask, don't get.

The answer might be no, but then they'd be in the same situation as if they'd pulled out so there's nothing to lose.

RelievedSheff

TerryDuckworth said:

LLM000 said:

Thank you for all of your comments and advice. It has been really good to hear different thoughts. I would like to add that I have been looking on Zoopla today and can see a lot of houses in the area I am buying have been reduced a lot over the past month. A lot of houses that were put on the market at the beginning of June and are being reduced by £25k and some even £50k after just a few weeks on the market.. seemingly lovely houses from the pictures with no obvious work needing done.

This has made me really question the price of the property I am wanting to buy now as clearly, in my area the prices are coming down.. I have not known so many properties to reduce so vastly in such a short space of time.

I am also experiencing this with Rightmove sending me alerts by email with properties being reduced. This may well be the new trend for the next year or two.

It certainly doesn't seem to be the trend everywhere.

A work colleague is as we speak trying to secure his first house. Property went on the market last week with an asking price of £130k. His current offer is just shy of £140k and by no means guaranteed to be accepted.

There are 3 lots of interested FTB parties offering on it. The vendor is keen to tie up the deal today so it hopefully won't be too drawn out for him.

Property prices vary so much from street to street, area to area and county to county that there really is never a countrywide trend in either direction. Even now with the media widely claiming a housing market decline (with the minor 1% changes) there are still some areas which are experiencing positive house price growth.

MobileSaver

simon_or said:

MobileSaver said:

LLM000 said:

A lot of houses that were put on the market at the beginning of June and are being reduced by £25k and some even £50k after just a few weeks on the market.. seemingly lovely houses from the pictures with no obvious work needing done.

The obvious thing to do is to pull out of your current purchase and buy one of the £50,000 cheaper houses instead... is that what you're going to do?

If the OP is planning to pull out anyway, then it would make sense to check if the vendor is willing to renegotiate before doing that. Who knows, the vendor might prefer that as well over losing their buyer. Don't ask, don't get.

If the OP is planning on pulling out anyway then I agree, there's nothing to lose.

However the chances of the seller agreeing to knock £50,000 off the price agreed just two months ago is slim in the extreme... I'm not sure even the HPC zealots would bet on the chances of that being successful.

simon_or

MobileSaver said:

simon_or said:

MobileSaver said:

LLM000 said:

A lot of houses that were put on the market at the beginning of June and are being reduced by £25k and some even £50k after just a few weeks on the market.. seemingly lovely houses from the pictures with no obvious work needing done.

The obvious thing to do is to pull out of your current purchase and buy one of the £50,000 cheaper houses instead... is that what you're going to do?

If the OP is planning to pull out anyway, then it would make sense to check if the vendor is willing to renegotiate before doing that. Who knows, the vendor might prefer that as well over losing their buyer. Don't ask, don't get.

If the OP is planning on pulling out anyway then I agree, there's nothing to lose.

However the chances of the seller agreeing to knock £50,000 off the price agreed just two months ago is slim in the extreme... I'm not sure even the HPC zealots would bet on the chances of that being successful.

True, but any reduction would be a saving even if it's 10k or 25k.

tooldle

I’m intrigued to know where you are for such large reductions.
Where I am two things seem to be happening. Some houses stagnating on the market for many months have decreased their asking prices slightly. New to market properties are appearing at much higher and escalating prices. 

simon_or

tooldle said:

I’m intrigued to know where you are for such large reductions.
Where I am two things seem to be happening. Some houses stagnating on the market for many months have decreased their asking prices slightly. New to market properties are appearing at much higher and escalating prices. 

I guess it's the percentage that matters rather than the absolute number. 25k on a 500k property is only 5% so not a huge reduction. OTOH on a sub 200k property that would be a very sizeable reduction.

Plus as someone mentioned above, every area and sub-area has its own property market so there's likely to be quite a bit of variance across the country. In my local area in the NW, starter properties at the lower end are flying off the shelf while the larger pricey properties are sticking on and either being pulled or noticeably reduced, with the pace increasing in recent weeks.

doingitanyway

simon_or said:

LLM000 said:

Thank you for all of your comments and advice. It has been really good to hear different thoughts. I would like to add that I have been looking on Zoopla today and can see a lot of houses in the area I am buying have been reduced a lot over the past month. A lot of houses that were put on the market at the beginning of June and are being reduced by £25k and some even £50k after just a few weeks on the market.. seemingly lovely houses from the pictures with no obvious work needing done.

This has made me really question the price of the property I am wanting to buy now as clearly, in my area the prices are coming down.. I have not known so many properties to reduce so vastly in such a short space of time.

You are right. I am seeing similar reductions in the area I am searching for a home.