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!

Is this what deposits used to cover? Would that be a way around someone pulling out of a sale? The buyer would lodge a deposit with a solicitor and then if they pulled out the seller would get to keep the money? Maybe this is not legal but seems like a good idea.

Ignore Rude. It's business. Write money on paper and decide. We pulled out at last minute...i went over money one last time in a very hard market.

It was too much of a fixer upper and we would not have enough money each month. I never regretted it.

Mortgages that are too much put strain on relationships. Use facts. Nooo place for worrying about politeness if it's your life.

I'd forget a bit about the price and evaluate if you want the house. Is the location good? Close to transport? Do you want to live there for the next 5 years? If yes buy it. The is no garantee that you will find a better deal. You probably got a bit of cold feet because it is your first buy. I had similar doubts and even had people say I was overpaying for my flat. It more than tripled in price and helped me buy my current house. It wasnt perfect and I probably overpaid a bit but the location was good and I liked it. That's what really matters. But if you don't think odd a good buy it is another story.

We had buyers trying to gazunder us last year on the excuse of London prices falling, we told them to jog on. They came back a month later offering the initial price, by that time we were well under way to selling to someone else, so we very cheerfully said thanks, but no thanks. Shitty thing to do, and so shortsighted. The value of our old place has actually gone up in the last year.

You can always try... nothing is set in stone until exchange of contracts and everyone in the deal knows this.

However, someone tried to do this to us once and we walked away from the chain. They later came back and apologised and asked for the chain to be re-instated, but all trust had been broken and we did not even consider it. It was also something that the EA could tell those who made the next offer (in London this does not take long) so this could be avoided again...

You need to think about the longer term picture. House prices in London, including Croydon, are not going to go down for ever. The political situation will change (we hope! ) and the market will settle into whatever the new reality is (and I for one hope common sense prevails). Long term, not only is the market likely to recover, but you are likely to end up making a lot more on that property than it is currently worth.

At this stage you've already gone through surveys and solicitor's costs - if you pull out or if they reject your new offer, then these costs are lost. You might struggle to find a property you like as much, and end up spending more wasted months on rent. This latter point is important - if you are repaying a mortgage, it is money that comes back to you one day. If you are paying rent, it does not. How much rent are you paying? The money you are looking to drop the price by will be eaten up pretty quickly if you start the property search all over again.

You should also be aware, as a first time buyer, that last minute jitters are normal. Houses go up and down in price, and whichever way the market is going, someone is likely to feel that they are not getting the bargain they thought they were getting when offers were made and accepted. In a 'normal'/ pre-Brexit London market, your property would have increased in the period it takes to go through conveyancing, but you would probably be pretty gutted if the vendors increased their price. Most don't, because they will have taken market conditions into account when they accepted the offer. In fairness, the current market was probably on your mind when you made your offer, or at least it should have been (think back - did it influence what you offered then?), and if that is the case, then you should really ask yourself is it reasonable for the vendors to be asked to take it into account twice?

(does it show I have been through this more than I would have liked? )

Well spotted pp, op using the nhs to train then swan off overseas to work - she really are the gift that keeps on giving! Lower than a snakes belly .

Is not are !

What a vile Hunan being you are! No morals and by the sounds of it no sense of remorse. It’s but just your buyers but the whole chain that you will have a huge negative impact on. So so selfish and callous! What a sad world we live in when there are people like you.

We were gazundered once. On the day of exchange they said they wanted 10% off.

We ended up caving in at 2%. They made a fortune out of the flat.

If it happened to me again I would do everything I could to avoid selling to them. If I could I would refuse to drop then if they gave up in a price drop I would tell them I'd increased my price because I had to add a CF surcharge.

Motherfuckers. His mum was an estate agent. He was a nightmare to deal with.

Well they are both 30. It’s not unusual for Drs to do this. It is about time they had to work for the NHS for a period of time but by 30 they have done about 6-7 years.

I think the issue is that they now think they can get a house in a better area. Therefore it’s a better bet to pull out even if it costs. If your heart is no longer in a house, it’s difficult to love it.

Really puzzled and uncomfortable with the vitriol displayed here.

I think there's a case for being pragmatic and realising that it might end up costing you more in some ways to wait for a slightly cheaper property. i.e. it might be a risk to pull out now.

The option of offering less seems to be about your husband's discomfort around pulling out and I can understand that he thinks that offering a lower price rather than walking away might in some ways seem fairer. Judging by some of the reactions on here though maybe the vendor would see it as equivalent to beating up his mother and killing his pets.

It's still perfectly legal to gazunder or pull out. The system is hugely flawed. I wonder how many people have financially stitched themselves up because they felt that they had to "do the right thing". Is that admirable?

Whilst I wouldn't like the stress of a buyer pulling out or being gazundered I would get over it. It's the system that is the problem. And people do way worse than this. Sheesh!

It's a double edged sword, you shouldn't feel you have to go ahead, with one of the largest purchases of your life, if it isn't the right house for you. But you thought it was originally, so it's all down to fluctuation etc in the area. We are currently trying to sell, buyer pulled out 1 week before exchange. The annoying part from sellers point of view, is tell the seller sooner rather than at the last moment. We've wasted 10 weeks and now got to start process all over again..
The whole house selling/buying process needs a revamp, for more protection for both sides

I know it’s a shitty thing to do but at the end of the day you have to do what’s best for you and yours. If prices have fallen you could get a better house for same price.

We are in process of moving and people we were accepted to buy on changed their mind and blew us out for £4K a few weeks ago.

We very local to you and they def coming down. We’ve had offer accepted on another property (nicer than the other one) and I’m wondering if we should have sold and rented for a year due to falling prices. The seller promised they would move in with family so as not to hold us up as our sale is very far down the line - I tell you now, if they renege I will tell them to stick it and rent!

Moving is sooooo bloody stressful!

Do what’s best for you

Really puzzled and uncomfortable with the vitriol displayed here.

changing your mind at the last possible minute in a market that hasn't really changed recently is a shitty thing to do.
You don't have to make an offer on a house.
If it's accepted, you don't have to go through with the sale.
You have a survey done to confirm the value and the state of the property.
These are the times to pull out.

Going all the way half-halfheartedly because it doesn't cost you anything, like the OP and then changing your mind not being really up for it is just nasty.

I don't know if that house in Croydon even exists, but in RL there are piss-takers like the OP. They deserve all the vitriol and bad karma they get.

Really puzzled and uncomfortable with the vitriol displayed here.

You're puzzled as to why people respond badly to gazundering?

That sounds like an arsehole type of thing to do

If there is a crash at the time you want to move and its massively decreased in value, then you can just rent it out which should more than cover the mortgage. I heard of people doing this in the early nineties and ended up making a fortune after the recovery.
Things have changed I think - unless you have a high enough salary to borrow on 2 houses at once, you may struggle to get a bank to give you a second mortgage )for new house

You change the mortgage on the rental property to a BTL mortgage which then frees your salary for the mortgage on the place you will live

Being in a chain myself, I know exactly how I'd feel if you were doing this to me.

In an age where social media is king, you'll be lucky to stay where you live currently, you'll be made pariahs, an example of the type of purchase no-one wants.

I wont use the same type of language used in previous posts, but I think its completely despicable that you'd even consider this course of action to make a quick buck. There are tens of thousands of people that would love to be able to get on the housing ladder, you don't deserve to be one of the lucky few.

I've only recently come back to Mumsnet, and if you are a typical example of people on here, I wont be staying for long. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Gazumping is when prices go up and sellers ask for more money at the last minute

Gazumping is when a keen buyer comes in and offers more than the agreed sale price with another buyer and either pinches it from under their nose or forces the first buyer to pay more.

I know a couple who were gazundered and had to accept it or they would lose the house they were buying. They were so popular with their neighbours and the neighbours were so outraged that the gazunderers were cold-shouldered and eventually moved away.

Fgs, the completely ott vitriol on here is absolutely ludicrous. People pulling out of house sales is a fact of life. At least 25%, maybe closer to 30% of all sales agreed fall through and that is always due to someone changing their mind for whatever reason. Until the law changes in the UK you will always be at risk of it whenever you enter the property market. And of course people should be able to withdraw at any point up to exchange! People's circumstances change sometimes. All that would happen if there were to be a change in the law would be that it would happen less often as people would be lose money in the deposit. It would still happen.

I haven't read the whole thread but to the op I would say as a couple without children, why not buy a smaller property (maybe a ground floor garden flat in a well kept Victorian terrace) near a good primary school, at a lower price. £400,000 + is a lot of money for a ftb property, even in Croydon!

“We're broken hearted. My kids are inconsolable. My oldest daughter literally screamed and fell to the floor in devastation as we had found a house we loved and were planning our future in.”

I genuinely don’t understand why you’d get yourself, let alone your kids, over invested in a house until you exchange. Do you not understand the process!?

Maybe Karma will affect you...thinking drop in house prices, landlords selling up and bingo no rental properties!

My oldest daughter literally screamed and fell to the floor in devastation
I see she has been well-prepared for the trials and tribulations of life.

Goodness - that almost beats,the ‘screaming at Michalangelo’ Thread!