Reducing house offer after months of waiting for completion

LLM000

CSI_Yorkshire said:

It really doesn't sound like you actually want advice - anything that doesn't agree with the opinion you already have you are just dismissing out of hand.

As people who have been through this before, we are giving you the benefit of experience.

They are not unusually slow, you don't get a price reduction for a normal delay, and no, you are not being especially patient.  You are being an impatient and overly optimistic FTB.

If you're that worried, pull out and start again.  Don't blame it on the seller though.

I do want advice, and some people have left considerate and helpful advice which I really appreciate. Others have just bashed any point I made and come across callous quite frankly! I can take realistic advice but I don't understand some peoples tones.

My question is not so much reducing due to delay, it is more that during the delay mortgage rates are soaring(ours could very well be scrapped by the bank - who knows)  and house prices are dropping - hoping you can see my point?

tooldle

There is a lot of talk on falling prices however, drops are likely to be area specific and even property type specific. When you order your survey ask for a valuation. If the valuation is lower, you have a tool to work with. 

If you are willing to say where in the UK, this property is, some posters may be local an able to offer insight.

For what it is worth my experience is: I am in my third house. My two previous properties were purchased with mortgages. First house started with a mortgage  rate just under 8% and interest rates continued to rise. We were on SVR and hence our costs increased.  The second was bought on a fix at 5.29%. Several years later came historically low interest rates. Current house purchased for cash. Through almost 30 years of home ownership, house prices have dipped, stagnated, risen etc but the overall trend is of rising prices. 

I’ve always overpaid my mortgages and saved a fortune on interest. 

Sarah1Mitty2

LLM000 said:

TheJP said:

LLM000 said:

TheJP said:

You are 2 months into a process that can take 4-6 months. Calm down. What is delaying the conveyancing? This is the very reason i don't sell to FTBs.

Yes we are only 2 months in but we are 2 months in and nowhere further than we were when it started! We have our mortgage and solicitors are on hand but it is the seller who delayed the process as they did not have somewhere to go. If they were not in a chain, I would imagine we would be close to moving in as we are in the best position (no chain below us, mortgage offer ready to go and solicitors ready). We only stopped progressing as we found our the sellers had not done any of what we had! So actually we are very good first time buyers and any seller should be more than happy with us as there are no delays on our side. 😊

Such is life, did you check if the chain was complete when you made the offer? Wanting to reduce an offer 2 months into the process is not very good FTBs, it rings alarm bells. Communicate and see if the sellers are making offers or are still looking. If not make a decision to move on or reduce your offer and see what happens.

The house was told to us as a chain free property, it only came to light after the offer was accepted that it was not chain free. Granted, we have had time to mull this over since and were happy to proceed but did not anticipate how slow the buyers would be to start looking at properties for themselves. I only ask about reducing now as the market has changed since April.

Market has changed dramatically and will change further, if you can`t pause the buying process until interest rates reach their peak, and the effects are known, ask for a price discount and tell them you will pull out if they can`t agree to that.

Sarah1Mitty2

LLM000 said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

It really doesn't sound like you actually want advice - anything that doesn't agree with the opinion you already have you are just dismissing out of hand.

As people who have been through this before, we are giving you the benefit of experience.

They are not unusually slow, you don't get a price reduction for a normal delay, and no, you are not being especially patient.  You are being an impatient and overly optimistic FTB.

If you're that worried, pull out and start again.  Don't blame it on the seller though.

I do want advice, and some people have left considerate and helpful advice which I really appreciate. Others have just bashed any point I made and come across callous quite frankly! I can take realistic advice but I don't understand some peoples tones.

My question is not so much reducing due to delay, it is more that during the delay mortgage rates are soaring(ours could very well be scrapped by the bank - who knows)  and house prices are dropping - hoping you can see my point?

Yes, most people can see that sellers expectations from even a few months ago are out of sync with reality but the fact that you can get 4.5% was it? is one reason to maybe push ahead now, but you need to ask them to reduce IMO.

LLM000

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

LLM000 said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

It really doesn't sound like you actually want advice - anything that doesn't agree with the opinion you already have you are just dismissing out of hand.

As people who have been through this before, we are giving you the benefit of experience.

They are not unusually slow, you don't get a price reduction for a normal delay, and no, you are not being especially patient.  You are being an impatient and overly optimistic FTB.

If you're that worried, pull out and start again.  Don't blame it on the seller though.

I do want advice, and some people have left considerate and helpful advice which I really appreciate. Others have just bashed any point I made and come across callous quite frankly! I can take realistic advice but I don't understand some peoples tones.

My question is not so much reducing due to delay, it is more that during the delay mortgage rates are soaring(ours could very well be scrapped by the bank - who knows)  and house prices are dropping - hoping you can see my point?

Yes, most people can see that sellers expectations from even a few months ago are out of sync with reality but the fact that you can get 4.5% was it? is one reason to maybe push ahead now, but you need to ask them to reduce IMO.

Thank you. Yes our rate is currently 4.5% which is obviously better than the current rates and is worth following through now, if this fell through we would probably have to have a rethink about purchasing anything for the next year or so.

How would you word it to them about the reduction, I see you and I have the same idea compared to other people on this thread so I am curious to know how to broach it in a way that sounds fair. Is it just a straight forward 'mortgage rates are soaring, prices are falling and we are in a different market to that in April' ? 

ghz

RelievedSheff said:

You are also the most inexperienced, most likely to fall short of funds and most likely to pull out of a sale.

None of which make for a good buyer.

You are also the most arrogant, most likely to adjust the agreed ask price, most likely to waste buyer's time and most likely to pull out of the sale.

Listing something on the market, telling the EA and potential buyers that you are ready to move, accepting an offer, not being transparent and doing nothing for months is quite far from a fair business practice.

In two months, quite a lot can change. In two months, the intrinsic value of the asset is different and the buyer can rightly adjust the offer if she wishes. Now, obviously, it comes with a risk of the deal falling through. But again, stating that an FTB is someone unwanted on the market because it is thought that it's okay as a seller not to do anything for a while and consider someone impatient if asking a question about progress and applying pressure is kind of strange.

The written and unwritten rules around English and Welsh residential property transactions are quite odd on their own. Adding in arrogance and the lack of transparency (and usually packs of lies) is not going to help the market.

MultiFuelBurner

Some areas around us have reduced their Rightmove prices by 5-10% in the past few months.

Could this apply to your purchase? No one can tell it depends on demand and area and lots of factors.

The property is worth whatever you are willing to pay for it but if you only see a property in 1-2 year chunks then maybe this stopgap property is not the one. Only you can decide that.

Sarah1Mitty2

LLM000 said:

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

LLM000 said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

It really doesn't sound like you actually want advice - anything that doesn't agree with the opinion you already have you are just dismissing out of hand.

As people who have been through this before, we are giving you the benefit of experience.

They are not unusually slow, you don't get a price reduction for a normal delay, and no, you are not being especially patient.  You are being an impatient and overly optimistic FTB.

If you're that worried, pull out and start again.  Don't blame it on the seller though.

I do want advice, and some people have left considerate and helpful advice which I really appreciate. Others have just bashed any point I made and come across callous quite frankly! I can take realistic advice but I don't understand some peoples tones.

My question is not so much reducing due to delay, it is more that during the delay mortgage rates are soaring(ours could very well be scrapped by the bank - who knows)  and house prices are dropping - hoping you can see my point?

Yes, most people can see that sellers expectations from even a few months ago are out of sync with reality but the fact that you can get 4.5% was it? is one reason to maybe push ahead now, but you need to ask them to reduce IMO.

Thank you. Yes our rate is currently 4.5% which is obviously better than the current rates and is worth following through now, if this fell through we would probably have to have a rethink about purchasing anything for the next year or so.

How would you word it to them about the reduction, I see you and I have the same idea compared to other people on this thread so I am curious to know how to broach it in a way that sounds fair. Is it just a straight forward 'mortgage rates are soaring, prices are falling and we are in a different market to that in April' ? 

"I have been following some financial media, experts in the city etc. are now talking about 6%+ rates as soon as December, this is a different world to when we started the purchase and I feel I need to protect myself by starting a discussion around reducing the purchase price on this house".

You are letting them start the negotiation, and you could e-mail this direct to the EA without contacting the seller directly? The seller will be expecting it IMO, and they may react by immediately pulling up the drawbridge, or if they are sensible they will start discussing a fair reduction in the circumstances. That is my opinion anyway.

The aspect of all this that is firmly in your favour I think, is that this is now all over Sky News every night, you are not saying "someone on a forum, or someone at work, thinks rates might rise etc." the message is loud and clear to the public now that things have changed.

RelievedSheff

MultiFuelBurner said:

Some areas around us have reduced their Rightmove prices by 5-10% in the past few months.

Could this apply to your purchase? No one can tell it depends on demand and area and lots of factors.

The property is worth whatever you are willing to pay for it but if you only see a property in 1-2 year chunks then maybe this stopgap property is not the one. Only you can decide that.

The OP claims that there is nothing to compare against.

I suspect this isn't the case but with what scant information they have given if we take that on face value there won't be anything on Rightmove to compare prices against nor any reductions or increases in asking prices.

RelievedSheff

LLM000 said:

meeemee said:

So if there are no houses close by to compare is it a sort after area? Could the owners remark at a sane price or even higher and sell quickly?  Two months seems ages to you but in house buying terms it really isn’t, if you pull out would you be upset to see this resold to someone else? 

Would you have to pay rent and save more to buy a bigger house and in that two years would you be ok with knowing the amount you paid on rent could of been paid on a mortgage and possible over payments? Nobody knows the future but maybe you are not ready for a big commitment quite yet if you are worried two months in? 

Yes, I appreciate two months is not especially long but I feel like if there is a long chain and it has taken 2 months to get to a point where the sellers have only just chosen somewhere to live then it is a little tight considering mortgage offers are only generally on the table for 6 months. Those two months could be crucial and make or break the sale if things continue to happen slowly and end up not completing until the offer expires. I say this as our mortgage was approved in April so time is ticking..

Most mortgage companies allow you to extend your mortgage offer beyond the initial six months.

Realistically most property transactions involving a chain are currently taking far longer than six months to complete. 

You are setting yourself (and your chain) unrealistic timescales which will only lead to disappointment.