Buyers purchaser pulls out week before exchange of contracts

Devongardener

ReadySteadyPop said:

Devongardener said:

I know how upsetting this is!  In the last 2 years we’ve had 4 sales fall through, 3 due to our buyers losing theirs, including 1 where a mortgage offer was withdrawn, then last October we were all due to exchange on an agreed and confirmed day when on the actual day the vendor of the house we were buying decided he didn’t want to move after all!
5 days later he decided he’d made a mistake and wanted to proceed but by that time no one else in the chain wanted to know!   In all we’ve spent £3K on legal fees.  In the meantime house prices in our area have really dropped, but they haven’t in the area we want to go to.   Our first failed sale was for £355K but now we’d be lucky to get £290K.

Why is your area dropping faster than the other area?

It’s our area in Devon, we were hoping to move to Hampshire to be nearer our son, but the house prices there haven’t  dropped nearly as much.
When we first tried to sell 2 years ago we were still in the post Covid bounce where more people wanted to move to the countryside, and bungalows like ours seemed to be in demand.  Sadly no longer.

Bigphil1474

OP, we lost our buyer in March and the people we're buying from agreed to keep theirs off the market for a week, but ended up being 2 weeks as they needed their electrics sorting out. By the time they were sorted, we had resold and we're back on track. Our buyer only pulled out as they were a FTB and weren't happy with the survey, even though they could have sorted most of it with us by just asking questions.

saajan_12

Make it clear to your seller that you're doing everything you can - by marketing your property, and keeping tabs on your original buyer in case that chain builds back up sooner. 

However note someone will still be starting from the beginning in terms of searches and surveys that need doing, so it your seller may still be nervous or want to remarked themselves.. unfortunately nothing you can do about that. 

newsgroupmonkey_

Devongardener said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Devongardener said:

I know how upsetting this is!  In the last 2 years we’ve had 4 sales fall through, 3 due to our buyers losing theirs, including 1 where a mortgage offer was withdrawn, then last October we were all due to exchange on an agreed and confirmed day when on the actual day the vendor of the house we were buying decided he didn’t want to move after all!
5 days later he decided he’d made a mistake and wanted to proceed but by that time no one else in the chain wanted to know!   In all we’ve spent £3K on legal fees.  In the meantime house prices in our area have really dropped, but they haven’t in the area we want to go to.   Our first failed sale was for £355K but now we’d be lucky to get £290K.

Why is your area dropping faster than the other area?

It’s our area in Devon, we were hoping to move to Hampshire to be nearer our son, but the house prices there haven’t  dropped nearly as much.
When we first tried to sell 2 years ago we were still in the post Covid bounce where more people wanted to move to the countryside, and bungalows like ours seemed to be in demand.  Sadly no longer.

As someone who moved to Hampshire 18 months ago, I notice that prices for Bungalows are massively on the rise. I thought we paid a decent amount for our small 3 bed bungalow. When we were searching, we were searching for months for anything under £350k near the coast from Hayling Island across to Lymington (but avoiding Gosport). We hit our limit simply because our house sold for £15k more than asking price. I think over the 6 months we were looking, we had a choice of 4 that suited. 3 went the same day they went up. I'm pretty sure many weren't even making the market. We saw this one pop up, went the first day and offered full asking.

There was so little on the market that matched our wants, it was amazing. Our neighbour with only a 2 bed version of our house sold for £380k last week. It was on the market for 2 days. They didn't even bother putting a board up.

Everyone keeps talking about house prices taking a dip. Not round here they're not!

Devongardener

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

Devongardener said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Devongardener said:

I know how upsetting this is!  In the last 2 years we’ve had 4 sales fall through, 3 due to our buyers losing theirs, including 1 where a mortgage offer was withdrawn, then last October we were all due to exchange on an agreed and confirmed day when on the actual day the vendor of the house we were buying decided he didn’t want to move after all!
5 days later he decided he’d made a mistake and wanted to proceed but by that time no one else in the chain wanted to know!   In all we’ve spent £3K on legal fees.  In the meantime house prices in our area have really dropped, but they haven’t in the area we want to go to.   Our first failed sale was for £355K but now we’d be lucky to get £290K.

Why is your area dropping faster than the other area?

It’s our area in Devon, we were hoping to move to Hampshire to be nearer our son, but the house prices there haven’t  dropped nearly as much.
When we first tried to sell 2 years ago we were still in the post Covid bounce where more people wanted to move to the countryside, and bungalows like ours seemed to be in demand.  Sadly no longer.

As someone who moved to Hampshire 18 months ago, I notice that prices for Bungalows are massively on the rise. I thought we paid a decent amount for our small 3 bed bungalow. When we were searching, we were searching for months for anything under £350k near the coast from Hayling Island across to Lymington (but avoiding Gosport). We hit our limit simply because our house sold for £15k more than asking price. I think over the 6 months we were looking, we had a choice of 4 that suited. 3 went the same day they went up. I'm pretty sure many weren't even making the market. We saw this one pop up, went the first day and offered full asking.

There was so little on the market that matched our wants, it was amazing. Our neighbour with only a 2 bed version of our house sold for £380k last week. It was on the market for 2 days. They didn't even bother putting a board up.

Everyone keeps talking about house prices taking a dip. Not round here they're not!

I agree!  We were looking in the Lymington/Hordle area and had a budget of around £440K but even then there’s little on the market there that can compare to the bungalow we have now, with a decent garden.  We’re probably going to stay put now because the last 2 years and 4 failed sales have been exhausting and really stressful and in our 70s we can’t face it again!     

fromtheshires

Colosolo said:

Hi,

I am just looking for some advice, although I appreciate little I can do.

Our house buyers purchaser pulled out, so our estate agent has suggested we go back on the market as the house we are buying are unlikely to wait once they are informed (I literally found out yesterday).

I thought maybe we should wait a few weeks and give our buyers a chance to get a new buyer on their home.

What normally happens in these circumstances? Do people wait or put their house straight back out for sale?


Thanks

I had this last week with FTB's on the day of exchange! they decided they were to quote the estate agent 'no longer feeling it'.  To say I was livid was an understatement.  They had been 4 times to view in the 15 weeks it took to get to exchange, each lasting over an hour and had their families round to view it was well which was a pain as it was always during really random times and days.

We put our house right back on the market that day.  Our onward purchase agreed to give us 2 weeks to sell again and we have had no viewings to date so im guessing that our onward purchase will go back on the market at the end of next week.

I spoke to the estate agents today and they said basically I need to drop the price to get a quick sale which is fair, however they have got us two buyers (first pulled out after their mortgage was declined) at around asking price so we are reasonably priced, its just very slow around here and the BoE keeping hinting they will drop rates eventually isnt really helping as Im sure buyers will be waiting for rates to drop....

I ran the figures last night and we are down almost £2k in fees for the aborted purchase and if we lose the property we are buying it will be just short of £6k in aborted surveys and solicitor fees in total.  Taking this into acount we agreed to drop by £10k and put it at 'offers over' as we wont be able to go any lower to keep the onward purchase but have told the estate agrents that if we lose the onward purchse we will be taking the house off the market as there is literally nothing around at the moment. Hopefully this will get them to get people through the door and offers put in by next week.

To answer your question, it really depends on how far down the line you are.  If you are at the same point I was it would be worth waiting to see if your buyers can get another buyer but if its still early doors then it may be worth just putting it back on the market. 

Bookworm105

so the chain has broken
you reform the chain by going back to the market and seeing who makes the first proceedable offer that you accept.
meantime you may or may not lose the lose you are trying to buy as that seller will have done exactly the same to you

It is a fact of life of the English / Welsh method of house selling, easily broken chains.

Jemma01

Colosolo said:

Hi,

I am just looking for some advice, although I appreciate little I can do.

Our house buyers purchaser pulled out, so our estate agent has suggested we go back on the market as the house we are buying are unlikely to wait once they are informed (I literally found out yesterday).

I thought maybe we should wait a few weeks and give our buyers a chance to get a new buyer on their home.

What normally happens in these circumstances? Do people wait or put their house straight back out for sale?


Thanks

While you're waiting for the buyer, is your intention to hide the situation from your seller in fear they will put their property back on the market? Because your buyer was transparent with you and told you the truth, so that you can make the decision that is right for your needs. The least you could do is just that, treat people the way you'd like to be treated. Yes it could put you at a disadvantage, but that's just life.

Colosolo

Thanks for all the comments. It is a terrible situation but our chain has been restored. But another issue has come up which I will have to make a separate post about. It is a roller-coaster ride.