Gazunder or not?

lostinrates

TTMCMschine wrote: »

- what are the consequences in terms of them not asking - .

But there is another opton: there are pthers in the area at a lower price, in OP's situation if I were dithering I think I would say to agent that I was dithering, why I was dithering and that I didn't want to be 'ungentlemanly' and so I was thinking sabout pulling out rather than gazundering. I agree it wouldbe foolish to pay over the odds, but there is a world of options between foolish and 'ungentlemanly'.

I wonder if the sellers still have the house on the market ( that would change how I viewed the situation if it had not been withdrawn from market.)

ethansmum

Am I the only one shocked at how long your purchase is taking?? You offered in February, you won't move in the 3 weeks that they want, and are making them wait till JULY!!

tradetime

Fascinating thread, fair play to the OP for being brave enough to ask the question. Many of the subsequent comments provide a good illustration why society is in the toilet, no honour or respect anymore. There are lots of thieves in the world, so it must be ok for me to thieve as well. The amusing, or perhaps more appropraitely, sad thing is that many actually think this is "good business"

To the OP, you negotiated a price, if you didn't think the property was worth that then you shouldn't have offered it. It's hardly rocket science to know the property market is overpriced. If you want to pay a lot less, go away and take your chances betting on a market fall.
You agreed a price, have renegotiated it down once, got the vendor to agree to extending completion date, and now like a blackmailer you want to come back for more, and the defence of people who think you should is "Well other people did it" awesome!

If you truly feel you are overpaying then just walk away, and tell the agent that is why, it's still a dirty trick at this stage, but at least your hounour is only slightly tarnished. If the seller really needs to sell they may approach you.

silvercar

The price was agreed at a time when people knew prices were dropping, so the agreed price presumably allowed for market conditions.

The way to deal with gazundering:

Get solicitor to inform buyer's solicitor that sellers have instructed him not to pass on gazundering reductions, either the contract stands or it falls. Sellers have said well in advance that they don't even want to hear of reduced offers. Focusses buyers' minds on whether they want to buy or not.

puddy

the op seems to be making the sellers wait for them to be ready, thereby forcing the property to be worth less when they eventually buy it, so asking to drop the price month after month. thats not fair.
i believe what goes around, comes around. you might get your 5k off it, but you'll pay in the long term. lets hope when you sell, someone doesnt do it to you

andys15

I am also worried the drop in house prices since we agreed a price. I am going to get the house revalued as I am not prepared to be in negative equity before I even complete. I only have a 5% deposit, so I feel I am fully justified in doing it. The current owners havehad the house for 10years, so I feel they should take a little bit of a hit, and if not then sod them, I will pull out,and look elsewhere. I feel no sense of guilt, I will lose about £1000 and so will they, but they are making £160000 anyway. Buying now I realise I am always going tobe the loser, but I am not paying for a house that unfortunatley is no longer worth what we agreed.

waggys

It is all very well people saying they wouldn't consider gazundering, but unless you are the person in that situation I don't think you can realistically say you wouldn't do it out of principle.....why on earth would anyone willingly put themselves at risk of negative equity?

I think the op is right to be cautious, the market is very uncertain at this time and if re-negotiation is necessary then so be it; as the unstable market dictates. As the seller, yes you would be fairly likely to be somewhat annoyed but you do not have to agree. Also the seller is at liberty to offer a more conservative price on the property they may be purchasing.

No-one in their right mind is going to buy a property and just say 'bring it on' to negative equity; that would be financial suicide!

Captain_Mainwaring_2

tradetime wrote: »

Fascinating thread, fair play to the OP for being brave enough to ask the question. Many of the subsequent comments provide a good illustration why society is in the toilet, no honour or respect anymore. There are lots of thieves in the world, so it must be ok for me to thieve as well. The amusing, or perhaps more appropraitely, sad thing is that many actually think this is "good business"

To the OP, you negotiated a price, if you didn't think the property was worth that then you shouldn't have offered it. It's hardly rocket science to know the property market is overpriced. If you want to pay a lot less, go away and take your chances betting on a market fall.
You agreed a price, have renegotiated it down once, got the vendor to agree to extending completion date, and now like a blackmailer you want to come back for more, and the defence of people who think you should is "Well other people did it" awesome!

If you truly feel you are overpaying then just walk away, and tell the agent that is why, it's still a dirty trick at this stage, but at least your hounour is only slightly tarnished. If the seller really needs to sell they may approach you.

For sale - nice 2 bed semi complete with well used ivory tower.

Society being in a mess and morality in property transactions are in no way connected. At all times the vendor is free to make his own decisions (as they did during the "boom") - there is no honour left anymore - take a look at some of the forums here.

andys15

Captain_Mainwaring wrote: »

For sale - nice 2 bed semi complete with well used ivory tower.

Society being in a mess and morality in property transactions are in no way connected. At all times the vendor is free to make his own decisions (as they did during the "boom") - there is no honour left anymore - take a look at some of the forums here.

No honour left. Was there ever any. The word Gazumping is a very old term, so that must mean it has happened for years. I had only recently heard of the term Gazundering.

TTMCMschine

Captain_Mainwaring wrote: »

For sale - nice 2 bed semi complete with well used ivory tower.

Society being in a mess and morality in property transactions are in no way connected. At all times the vendor is free to make his own decisions (as they did during the "boom") - there is no honour left anymore - take a look at some of the forums here.

Agreed. There's an English politeness which does us no favours, and that people pick and chose in terms of what they think is fair. I see it as comparable to not going to the doctors with a lump, because you don't want to bother him.
Society going down the toilet Tradetime? That happened when first time buyers were squeezed out of the market, due to people's greed. Nothing wrong with coming back down to earth and hitting reality. Nobody seemed to mind when we were putting in offers and sellers were using imaginary buyers in order to up the price. We calmly walked away and they lost out.
If you expect all situations to happen, you'll be prepared, not upset. Let's get one thing straight, people wouldn't be put in this situation had house prices not gone up so stupidly. You seriously think the op should fork out thousands of pounds in order to not offend the other party. You think 489K is not enough? Buyers are only doing what sellers were doing when the ball was in their court, and that's making the most of it. Except the buyers have thousands of pounds of debt to consider if they don't look at price drops.