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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

940 replies

TitaniumBev · 13/05/2018 17:24

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!

OP posts:
Midthreademergencynamechange · 14/05/2018 20:49

No one saying it's a nice thing to do but also it's really not that terrible. And anyway, the op is just saying they should withdraw and doesn't like her husband's idea of gazundering.

And gazumping isn't that terrible either. In a rapidly rising market, Person A selling their house to person B to be able to buy might find themselves priced out of the market when it goes up by literally thousands per month. So if person C comes along and offers them £5,000 more then they might just need to take it to be able to move.

Chains are chains, with all their human stories behind them.

People need to get a bit tougher about house buying and selling. It isn't always going to go your way.

Midthreademergencynamechange · 14/05/2018 20:51

"The tone of the OP is almost gleeful. Like a morbid enjoyment of the drama."

I don't think so at all.

PoorYorick · 14/05/2018 20:52

I don't think OP is gleeful, but I think she's pretty cold.

Barbara1956 · 14/05/2018 21:00

I think you are being very silly...you have the house, it will go up in value, if you mess around now you will be regarded really negatively by all the EX's in the area.
As someone who had a seller pull out on the day of exchange I am biased..it was a really shitty move ....

Sara107 · 14/05/2018 21:06

Not sure that the op actually wants to buy a home. First of all she said they wanted security and are sick of renting. In a later post she said she doesn't see rent as wasted money and if they pull out of this deal won't look at buying again til next spring. Part of the rationale for pulling out of this deal is because their preferred area is now affordable, so why would they wait til next spring to buy there? She then says they are planning to go abroad in 4 years anyway. I asssume that this op intended to turn a big profit quickly by buying and selling again fairly soon, and now doesn't think the quick profit will materialise.

Ethylred · 14/05/2018 21:07

This is business. The moral outrage for which this forum is renowned is particularly irrelevant here. If you can get the house for £13K less then do so.

bamboolzled · 14/05/2018 21:08

You wouldn't want to have been my buyer just over 2 years ago.

Truely dicked me and other half about week to week, month to month. moving date moved around their holiday, then xmas.

I snapped, literally at the estate agent. Dropped the bomb, you mess me about anymore 2nd child will be born and mortgage offer goes. You have the week after xmas that's it. Do or don't !

Idiot, then decided they wanted 20K off as house needed new windows and a bathroom. To which I replied "you saw it, you offered it. Honour it or FUCK OFF !"

decide now what you want, quickly, the whole chain will be sorting removals, holiday off, other people helping.

If your going to be a dick, be a dick with some balls and give it straight and early.

Dropping an offer, your about to hold the whole chain to ransom.

Kerryn2 · 14/05/2018 21:10

Where is your morality??
You agreed a price and signed a contract, do the decent thing and honour it. That's life.

rwalker · 14/05/2018 21:12

i hope one day someone does this to you then you will realise the fallout it causes

hushnowthanks · 14/05/2018 21:14

MN, the only place where people will have a breakdown over a property purchase but happily LTB because he forgot to put the bins out Confused

Contrabassista · 14/05/2018 21:14

Ahhh so this is where the middle Englanders who judge a person solely on their house price hangs out. How bizarre. You’d think they’d killed a puppy. The language used against them is vitriolic. Enlightening stuff.

Fuckedoffat48b · 14/05/2018 21:18

"you saw it, you offered it. Honour it or FUCK OFF !"

They sound like fuckers, but honestly you think we should just use a buy as seen process for house buying? The fuckers should be grateful for the opportunity to hand over hundreds of thousands to a lord high owner occupier should they Hmm ?

Lockheart · 14/05/2018 21:20

It is a very low thing to do. And you might end up spending more in the long run.

You pays your money (or not in this case) and you takes your chances, as the saying goes. Make your decision and commit to it.

90% of the drama and language on this thread is completely unwarranted and baffling.

MeadowGrass · 14/05/2018 21:23

I would let you walk away- and I would rather sell to someone else at a lower price if you suggested this

bettytaghetti · 14/05/2018 21:25

Contrabassista you say that but the three most stressful events in anyone's life is always listed as Death, Divorce & Moving house. For most of us a house is the biggest financial (hopefully) asset that we will ever own apart from that super yacht DH is obviously going to buy me for my birthday! is it any wonder that the process is so stressful for us?

AskAuntLydia · 14/05/2018 21:25

90% of the drama and language on this thread is completely unwarranted and baffling.

The middle classes get very tetchy about house prices.

Grin
Grandmaswagsbag · 14/05/2018 21:26

I know it’s mean, but this thread has me chuckling out loud at the thought of people rolling around on the floor screaming when their house purchase falls through. At least now we all know what the worst crime possible is in the eyes of mumsnet. Chains fall through all the time. It’s pretty shit but it’s not the end of the world.

Bluelady · 14/05/2018 21:26

It's not the pulling out that's immoral or the gazundering. It's the timing. OP has had four months to do this and has chosen to do it at the very last minute, not giving a flying fuck about the whole chain of people this is going to affect. The time to do it is long past. The fact that the mortgage company is happy with the price agreed is indicative that this is a sensible transaction. I hope if she does pull out the vendor rapidly finds another buyer at full asking.

starlight13 · 14/05/2018 21:28

Don't fret so much about house prices. You cannot think this over such a short term of 4 months. Property will hold it's value and yes, if it drops a little, it will rise again in the long term.

I won't swear at you but our vendor pulled out a week before exchange, at Christmas and I was heavily pregnant. You've never had the stress of having to scrub a house clean at 30 minutes notice over 50 times/ viewings to eventually get a buyer - it sucks.

It really is a scummy thing to do.

Fuckedoffat48b · 14/05/2018 21:29

Btw as FTB currently in the process of buying our first property not that far from Croydon, this thread has revealed to me just how out of touch many home owners are. It is worrying.

she doesn't see rent as wasted money well, er, no. It is the cost she has to pay for her housing. That is pretty unavoidable, much like food and transport. Car owners don't sneer at people who pay to get the train into work for losing 'dead money' on that do they, so why the emotive language about paying rent? Wasted, my arse. As if it were optional.

hopefully they will put it back on the market and get a cash buyer Lol. Yeah you keep on waiting for that to happen love. You do realise that the fall in house prices is due in part to those foreign buyers with suitcases full of cash buggering off don't you? Sellers are now having to sell for figures that normal, local people may actually be able to rustle up. That is a good thing.

sell it to a landlord and they will be able to make some money out of it Again, LOL. We are buying our property of a landlord who is getting the fuck out of London. The fuck out of England in fact. BTL mortgages are not as cheap as they once were, and people simply don't earn enough money to pay the rents they seem to want. And once Brexit happens short term housing will finally start dropping in London. This is also in part behind the drop in property prices in London imo.

Oliversmumsarmy · 14/05/2018 21:32

90% of the drama and language on this thread is completely unwarranted and baffling

When a group of people have messed you about for 9 months I don't think it is that baffling.

Fuckedoffat48b · 14/05/2018 21:32

You've never had the stress of having to scrub a house clean at 30 minutes notice over 50 times/ viewings to eventually get a buyer - it sucks.

Maybe you overpriced it. Maybe you've never had the stress of looking at having to pay nearly half a million on a property you are not sure you want.

PoorYorick · 14/05/2018 21:36

Moving house is supposed to be one of the most stressful things you can experience, after bereavement and divorce. It's really not surprising that people feel so strongly about it.

The system is utter shite. I don't know why it's been like this for so long.

Oliversmumsarmy · 14/05/2018 21:40

fucked

I have bought off a landlord. I renovated then despite trying to sell to FTBs sold to another landlord for cash, for more money.

I think some of the drops that get reported are not really drops.
Remember seeing a house that according to the newspaper that wanted to justify how dreadful the market was dropping had reduced in price by £1million
Only problem was the price was never more than £800,000 not £1.8million

Fuckedoffat48b · 14/05/2018 21:45

Oliversmumsarmy, when? Recently? In London?

I appreciate that the drops being reported at the luxury end of the market are not going to affect normal people homes as significantly. But they are knocking the silly numbers off the top of a lot of greedy asking prices on family homes in the London burbs at the moment. I haven't viewed a single property that wasn't relisted at a lower price after a few months.