To pull out of house purchase so close to exchange or gazunder?

[TitaniumBev]

Totally miserable - any advice/views/abuse welcome!

We're FTB's, both 30, scrimped for years to get deposit together. We both grew up dirt poor & wanted to have a bit of security before children so are keen to get going now and sick of private renting.

Offer accepted on house end of Jan, the asking price was kite flying given location (Croydon). They wanted 460k we settled on 440k, only now due to exchange next week after delays (both sides, minor errors).

Since then though all the news around the economy & housing especially around London has been terrible. Monthly drops of around 1 - 3.6%. Terrible rics reports & rightmove data etc. Similar properties in the area are coming on for less but there is not a lot coming on so hard to judge. Properties hanging around for a long time.

I now feel the agreed price is too high, a lot has changed in 4 months and I think it's best to walk away. I know this will screw over the vendors & the chain but don't like DH's suggestion of asking for a reduction so close to exchange. He thinks we should at least give them the chance. (How lucky!!!) Prices seem to be down around 6% he reckons split and ask for 3% off. (£13,000 ish)

Its such a big transaction, the market looks soooo bad and its not dream house or anything. Should I walk or offer lower? I'm not going to over pay for a house just to be nice/honorable unfortunately.

URGH!

I doubt it’s the height Kamma. Do solicitors really advise on the future market

I couldn’t imagine the solicitor we had making any statement on whether property prices would go up or down, and telling us to get out based on that

Anyway speaking of stubbornness the op has ignored everyone. Good luck. Maybe one day a chain will collapse and you can reminisce about the past

so now its nothing to do with price its not the house for you

couldnt you have decided that earlier then-its not just one person your mucking about though

how many people arein the chain

So you no longer like the house that you were previously happy to buy.... OK .

You sound flaky

@MarshaBradyo the solicitor is related somehow to OP or DH. That's why they didn't pay for their services.

I'd be very wary if I knew someone in that position who was sounding alarm bells. I'm ignorant a little with buying have only done it once but wouldn't a local conveyancer have a unique view on actual sales rather than press reports, useless Zoopla data etc?

I don’t know about that person, but I doubt the solicitor we used did. High volume, fast transactions with just enough time to get about 80 transactions through in a month. Better to complete so they wouldn’t halt anything

But in this instance, idk, but I’d be wary it wasn’t just someone’s personal opinion on what the market will do. How can they know

We bought and then there was the crash. If someone had warned us off (if they knew but of course no one did) we would have been kicking ourselves years later as the price shot up dramatically

But the op says it’s not about price, in any case, just gone off it

Right so basically you don;t want to get on the housing ladder at all, and you have no intention of setting down and having kids.

Perhaps you should have thought of that a little earlier.

You will never get on the housing ladder though, as long as you're comfortable with renting forever that's fine.

A lot of posters seem obsessed with money and "profit" here

Says the person who posted this:

I now feel the agreed price is too high, a lot has changed in 4 months and I think it's best to walk away. I know this will screw over the vendors & the chain but don't like DH's suggestion of asking for a reduction so close to exchange... Prices seem to be down around 6% he reckons split and ask for 3% off. (£13,000 ish)

You must be the world’s most staggeringly naive 30 year old. To say I don't see housing as an investment (if you don’t you will fuck up massively). To say Renting it out is also not an option as we're both higher rate tax payers. Wtf. And to say FTB's can't or won't buy in London/SE in the numbers required the market locks up.

You’re trying to pass off incompetence as some kind of elevated morality at the same time as fucking over your seller.

Huh? If it’s not about the money why do you want 13k off the price of the house?

Quite.

If you did know the London market you’d know that Croydon is in London (London Borough of Croydon), and that we’ve all been waiting for the bubble to pop since 1975.

So true! I can remember when terraced houses in Croydon could be had for £8k, and we thought it was an outrageous amount of money. A couple of years later, it was almost impossible to find anything under £15k, and if you could, it was a wreck. Five years on, people told me I was mad to pay £24k for a 2-bed terrace, about 3 years after that it was worth £36k. In the time I owned it, its "value" went up to £84k, but then we had the Big Crash and I sold it for £49k.

It was a very similar house to some of those now on sale for £400-450k (just checked out Rightmove).

Unless you're going to get out of the market completely, and providing that your job is secure and you're not going to have trouble meeting your mortgage payments, it's all academic as whatever you'll buy next will have gone up or down in value in similar proportions.

OP, (if you're still reading) I think not proceeding now is bad business sense, regardless of whether it's ethical or not.

@TatianaLarina Thanks for taking the time to show the thread examples of good house prices in otherwise undesirable areas. SAHM in Croydon (South) maybe

Tatiana So right. The OP sounds naive. She has changed her mind about the house at the latest possible stage. I wish we had the Scottish system and could avoid these ridiculous scenarios.

BTW TItanium both my exH and I were higher pay taxpayers when we went overseas for 18 months and let our house out. If we hadn't kept it we wouldn't have been able to buy a family house again!

Working mother from SW London actually, but thanks for the laugh.

The point, for those at the back, was actually to show the inexorable price rise even in ‘otherwise undesirable areas’ of London.

“The more I think about it, price aside this was never the house for us. A lot of posters seem obsessed with money and "profit" here. I would never buy for those reasons as I don't see housing as an investment”.

But you’re the one caught up on negative equity based on your perceived property market downtown. You also mentioned that an area you were previously priced out of is now within reach, I don’t get this at all, areas vary by significant amounts in and around London, tens of thousands of pounds, houses on the same streets but under different postcodes differ by minimum of £50k, I’ve seen this first hand.

There is no issue with the housing market, the issue is with people thinking they can still make a silly amount of money by just living in it and not improving it all, they put it on for an unreasonable price and it just ends up getting reduced.

There is plenty of property out there and plenty of buyers but everyone needs to be realistic.

Well I do hope you’ve pulled out OP. You clearly don’t understand the housing market (I have made a very large amount of money timing this market correctly) and this little stunt is going to cost you dearly. I think you should wait a couple of more years before buying. Why buy at the top of the market eh? Go on, just wait a bit longer....

Ah. I really hope that you find your dream property, in your favourite area. It'll be so exciting! All your things boxed up, removal vans booked, new things purchased for the dream home etc. Champagne on chill. Then, I really hope that some time-wasting cunt, pulls out on the last day, and the whole fucking chain falls down like a pack of cards.

Plus, you are lying about this:

Given our solicitor has our best interests at heart and deals with property sales in the local area I think her warnings over the last few weeks are not to be ignored

Your Solicitor won't give a shit what you've agreed to pay for the house. All she's paid to do, is to tie up the paperwork. So don't treat us all like chumps, because no-one is going to believe that a busy solicitor reviews all of the sale prices agreed and compares them to a perceived current market value. And then tells her clients (who are paying for her services), to pull out. Anyone believing that tripe would be sewn up the back.

And all this crap, about you not being able to afford to be in negative equity, is also .....well, crap. You know how much your monthly mortgage payment was going to be, and this hasn't changed. And nor would it, unless you renegotiate in 2/5 years time (when your current deal ends) and you have moved in to a new LTV bracket. Unlikely, unless the value of the house changes dramatically.

Can't believe you are a doctor, gaaah. You have NO ETHICS OR COMPASSION.

Husky that made me laugh (me too).

Selling to go o/s then trying to buy when you get back should sort out the karma angle however.

Agree that £13k is nothing when it comes to a better area. Usually they vary by a huge amount

OP, I hope you tell the vendor personally that you are pulling out, and that you then update this post with details of the conversation.

@Huskylover1 maybe read the posts. OP or DH (Can't read all post again) is related to solicitor who works in local area so of course will advise them if they think it's a bad deal!

I'm amazed at the economic idiocy of some of you. @sunshine txt rules are changing for landlords. Thank god! Higher rate taxpayers would be hammered if they tried to rent out.

@MotheringMilly I've just bought in zone 3, having previously been looking in zone 5. That's how much prices are fluctuating in London right now!

@titchy she won't be renting forever though will she? If housing stays ridiculously high they'll just leave the country. Like a lot of other young professionals! This country is surely screwed.

I’ve been screwed by a guzumper and by a gazunder. It was devastating. It is shocking how dishonourable people are when it comes to buying and selling, and unfortunately the system facilitates it. You know what you are contemplating is wrong and utterly unreasonable.

Not buying that kamma A reputable Solicitor who deals with house sales on a regular basis, would know that 4 months is nothing. No way would they advise the Op to pull out or lower their offer.

Shocking behaviour, and I don't think the Op even realises the absolute devastation she is going to bring to several families.

Lois "OP, I hope you tell the vendor personally that you are pulling out"

can that even happen? Data Protection etc? Surely it should be done via solicitors.

@Huskylover1 OP clearly understands this is a shit move. Don't think anyone here is in dispute on that. Also have I missed where chain was detailed? How do we know vendor & chain are happy soon to be destroyed families? I don't think I've missed a post from OP. I'm invested in this thread now

When the person who was buying our home many years ago decided on the day before exchange of contracts that they wanted to offer a few grand less they contacted us directly. We said `on yer bike, we'll put it back on the market then'.The purchase went ahead at the original price.I don't think their is any law that says vendor and purchaser can't talk, obviously not further up the chain clearly.

I can't believe how many people are giving the OP such a hard time.
She is absolutely not obligated to put the sellers financial well being before her own - that would be nuts.