AIBU to feel I have sold house too cheap?

[PampassGrass]

Put house on market just before lockdown. Valued by three estate agents who all gave exactly the same valuation.When market reopened, accepted a price £16500 less than asking price as thought there would be a crash due to pandemic. The reduction was 6% less than the asking price of £295000. The buyers are cash buyers with 25% deposit, so a good bet.
Now, it is a sellers' market and prices have gone up rather than down. I can't help feeling gutted we panicked into accepting too low a price. I know that there is nothing we can do now as we agreed to the price and will follow through with the sale out of respect for the buyers who have had the survey and all the legal searches done.

Has anyone else ever regretted selling too cheap?!

@bibbitybobbitycats

OP, if you take into account CGT, you have lost less than £16500. No one knows what's going to happen over the next few months, I would stick with your bird in the hand.

No CGT liability after taking into account all allowances and expenditure on kitchen extension in 2009.

I suppose selling for less means less capital gains tax to pay, so you may not.emd up "losing" as much as it initially appears anyway. Good on you for not backing away from your word.

Don’t pull out. It’s actually brilliant that you found a buyer and have gone through most of the steps during lockdown.
It’s just the right thing to do.
Add to that if you were to put it back in the market at a higher price I’d want to know from the estate agent what had happened to the sstc.
I wouldn’t want anything to do with a seller who pulled out when previous had offered 6% under asking price (well done it’s a good result).

@PampassGrass i think you have to make peace with your decision (which seems unlikely as you have started this thread!) or renegotiate the price somewhere between the agreed sale price and what you think you might get for it. If you don’t want to negotiate then you need to move on. I have a property business and renovate houses. I am fortunate in that I am a cash buyer so don’t need a bank survey to proceed which does make a difference to the speed of completion. I’d say if your buyers have a survey Valuation that allows them to process and they are chain free that is very advantageous. However, I wouldn’t ever be offended if someone came back to me reasonably and said ‘look, we’ve just paid for the new flat roof etc, how about we go halves/x%?’ I’d also try and push for a 14/30 day completion as there is no reason why this shouldn’t be possible if there is no chain and the mortgage is agreed. That way, you keep your expenses down (esp the cost of insuring an empty property). Get the EA to do the work and get them to remind the buyers that you could put the house back on the market and possibly achieve a higher price. There is nothing wrong with ‘standing on’ if you choose to do so, but nothing wrong with negotiating either. But Only you can make that choice not randoms on the internet😉. You might get an increased offer by £16500 but You might have to wait 5 months for it, by which time Brexit, end of furlough, rising unemployment numbers will be at the forefront of everyone’s mind and chains will Undoubtedly collapse. Personally, I’d go for halves on the flat roof and a 14 day completion. Good luck!

@fwwaftp

You can't really judge anything by your AIBU poll results because I think people have interpreted it differently. It wasn't really clear what you were asking. Eg. I voted YABU because I don't think you have sold it too cheaply and I also thing you shouldn't pull out. But others might be voting YABU meaning YABU to continue to sell to these buyers. It really is a bit unclear.

Anyway, IMHO, I think you should continue with the sale. You have buyers without a chain who have completed searches etc and still want to buy and haven't attempted to get more money knocked off the price (see a recent thread on here where FTB were being an absolute nightmare with a seller).
Did you have a load of offers on your property when you accepted this offer? Because it doesn't really sound like it - if there were a lot of people wanting it you could have got the asking price or more.
I really think you should just go through with the sale. If you pull out and relist now you might find that you don't get any asking price offers or you end up with a really unreliable buyer who gets nearly to the end of the process and insists on a price drop at a late stage.

Very true! I didn't intend to turn voting on so didn't specify what AIBU/IANBU votes would be for!

[quote Yesbutisittouching]@PampassGrass i think you have to make peace with your decision (which seems unlikely as you have started this thread!) or renegotiate the price somewhere between the agreed sale price and what you think you might get for it. If you don’t want to negotiate then you need to move on. I have a property business and renovate houses. I am fortunate in that I am a cash buyer so don’t need a bank survey to proceed which does make a difference to the speed of completion. I’d say if your buyers have a survey Valuation that allows them to process and they are chain free that is very advantageous. However, I wouldn’t ever be offended if someone came back to me reasonably and said ‘look, we’ve just paid for the new flat roof etc, how about we go halves/x%?’ I’d also try and push for a 14/30 day completion as there is no reason why this shouldn’t be possible if there is no chain and the mortgage is agreed. That way, you keep your expenses down (esp the cost of insuring an empty property). Get the EA to do the work and get them to remind the buyers that you could put the house back on the market and possibly achieve a higher price. There is nothing wrong with ‘standing on’ if you choose to do so, but nothing wrong with negotiating either. But Only you can make that choice not randoms on the internet😉. You might get an increased offer by £16500 but You might have to wait 5 months for it, by which time Brexit, end of furlough, rising unemployment numbers will be at the forefront of everyone’s mind and chains will Undoubtedly collapse. Personally, I’d go for halves on the flat roof and a 14 day completion. Good luck![/quote]
Thank you for this wise advice. Much appreciated.

I would go with it. 3 houses in our street went up for sale and were seemingly snapped up quickly. All 3 are back up on the market - 2 of them because of mortgage issues.

Oh yes and this new first time buyer parental deposit top up limit is going to throw a bit of a spanner in the works for some chains (not sure when this comes in - is it already?). There is so much up in the air at the moment.

www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53666535

Previous was vague - this is what I was thinking about as another level of uncertainty.

Pull out! Why would you give them over £16,000. It's your house.

Why would you give them over £16,000.

🤣

@GreyGardens88

I've no idea what you mean by "cash buyer with 25% deposit"

Sorry, I described the buyers incorrectly. They have a 25% cash deposit and have a mortgage agreed for remaining 75%

If you pull out now it would be a really horrible thing to do. You could then be stuck trying to sell for months. There is no guarantee your house would sell quickly.

I'd continue. On a different day in a different time with different buyers, yeah, you might have got more money.
But nobody else is living your life and blimey haven't the last few months taught us that life's short.
If the money enables you to move on and fulfil your own plans then you're doing well.
Channel your inner Elsa and let it go.

They’re not cash buyers OP. But if they’re motivated and have a mortgage agreed in principle that’s key.

You could pull out and accept a higher offer with a chain that collapses.

I’d say you’ve got about 4 months before Covid + hard Brexit impact the economy. Dec 31 is when the guillotine drops.

I’d carry on.
In my experience, when a seller gets greedy/ambitious call it what you like (not saying that you are) it often backfires with the seller getting less than they could have originally.
We sold ours for a bit less than I would have preferred last year, but it was on the lead up to brexit, so not many offers and the house we reallllly wanted to buy was all hanging on selling ours.
You could lose these buyers, things take a turn for the worse and you end up in a nightmare.

@Ultimatecougar

I wouldn't honour it. Why would you give a stranger 16k? What is to stop them flipping it straight away for an increased price?

The fact that no-one else will be able to get a mortgage on it for 6 months after the sale completes? Who knows what the market will look like then?

I am not to sure what you should do, but if I was the buyer and you did that to me, we would be done.
Furthermore should the market implode and you go back to them/me , I would just waste your time and pretend that I would go for it.
I would then offer a ridiculously low offer ( at the same time as I moved into another property).

It's human nature to be greedy but you accepted an offer and that should be that.

Perhaps round 2 you will get a higher offer but then at the last minute they drop out as they decide maybe they could get more for their money or their buyers decide they could get a better deal etc etc

Just to add this is exactly what I did when we were buying a property.
We had sold our house and were sitting on most of the funds ( about 60%) and staying at a family house.
They didn't ask us for extra money, but kept extending the time when they would accept out offer.
After nearly a month, the estate agent told me they had gone on holiday and wouldn't be back for 2 weeks. He was a bit rude and said basically I could take it or leave.
Anyway about 3 months later he called to ask if we were still interested. I cant tell how satisfying it was to turn the tables,
Been over 20 years but it still makes me smile now.

@Cheeseandwin5

I am not to sure what you should do, but if I was the buyer and you did that to me, we would be done. Furthermore should the market implode and you go back to them/me , I would just waste your time and pretend that I would go for it. I would then offer a ridiculously low offer ( at the same time as I moved into another property).

*@Cheeseandwin5* Did what exactly? Not sure what you are referring to.

@HeronLanyon

www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53666535

Previous was vague - this is what I was thinking about as another level of uncertainty.

Thank you. That article was very useful.