AIBU to decrease house price offer?

[Onefortheroad1]

Our offer on a house was accepted in late summer. Since then obviously there has been a lot of upheaval, lots of mortgage offers pulled, rocketing interest rates and house price drops widely expected.

If you were buying would you seek to renegotiate and lower the price because we are not committed to buying yet and the economy has got significantly worse since our offer was accepted? Or do you just think this is part of home ownership and we should proceed as agreed.

If it makes a difference the sellers have lived there for a while and the value of the house has increased significantly so I think they are mortgage free so a lower offer won’t push them towards negative equity or a financial loss.

I want to be fair and reasonable to the seller but can’t afford to overpay as prices come crashing down.

Let's say you put an offer in for a house, it was accepted and you're two months into the process (as you are now).

The housing market increases and the sellers believe that they could sell it for more now.

How would you feel about the sellers telling you that if you want to proceed with the purchase, you'll now have to pay a higher price? If you refuse they'll put it back on the market.... Even though you offered a price and they accepted it? Chances are you'd be furious, and you'd think that the sellers were being CFs and grossly, grossly unfair.

This is what you're doing, but in reverse.

If I were the seller and could find another buyer I'd tell you to piss right off, and leave you to find somewhere else (and good luck with that - lots of people are still struggling).

Sure, do what’s best for you. Bearing in mind that the seller might well pull out and put the house back on the market - I would - and that mortgage rates are rising exponentially. You might find a cheaper house or then again you might not - as the market contracts, fewer houses will become available for sale.There will always be some, but they’re more likely to be forced sales. You might get a bargain, you might not. But it will definitely cost you more in terms of a more expensive mortgage unless you can find an alternative property and complete on it before your current mortgage offer expires.

Go on OP, do the right thing. Both for the vendors and for yourself.

My parents had their buyers try and ask for lower price, 3 months after they had accepted the offer and were pretty much ready to move into their new place. They were so pissed off with the cheek of the buyers, that they told them to forget about it, and they put the house back on the market. The house then sold for £15k more than they had originally accepted.

I think you'd be stupid to risk losing a house you like enough to have offered to pay an awful lot of money for. It would also be a really shitty thing to do, so there's that too - I suppose it depends on where your moral compass sits.

@Tromboncini

location
size and style of house
nearby amenities

but NONE of those have changed since the summer when she put the offer in ?!?!

@Onefortheroad1 I wouldn't do it unless I was unable to finance it now

Where I am, (central SE) houses seem to be coming on a little lower, but if you check the SOLD prices, the ones coming in now are just being advertised at a more reasonable starting point.

you need to look at SOLD prices. They're slow to list them though, so you might need to speak to some EA's (not yours obviously).

and as MANY people have pointed out, the repercussions of changing you offer, WRT to your agreed mtge.

It’s k own as gazundering and is a shit thing to do.

Could you two get a room??

I'd drop if I was you, why pay more if it isn't worth what you offered anymore? House prices where we are are definitely dropping. My friend pulled out of her sale last week buying on the South Coast, the house just wasn't worth their original offer anymore as the sale had dragged on months and months. They'll be better waiting and getting a cheaper deal, they are first time buyers so they aren't under any pressure to sell or move.

Shitty move. I hope your vendor tells you where to go and you lose the house.

Why do you think it is reasonable to reduce your offer, one that presumably the vendors have accepted in good faith? Ido t see any acceptable basis for you to do this.

*I don’t

Are you prepared to lose the house if the vendors tell you to piss off, as many would on this thread? (Me included.)

There’s probably a queue of people behind you willing to pay the asking price. Go careful, if you love the house, I wouldn’t do it. You could massively piss the owners off. You never know what is going on behind the scenes, they could be having second thoughts about selling and you dropping your offer could be all it takes for them to pull out.

Me too.

Normally it would be a shitty thing to do, but the market has really changed recently so I think it would be more understandable now.

Houses arnt selling in my area and every other new listing is a reduced on or a "unexpectedly back on the market" I'd check rightmove for your local area and see if houses are being reduced and use this as leverage, like you have allready said there house has increased significantly in value, why should you have to take on more debt to appease them, it's a business transaction at the end of the day, haggle away

Of course you can reduce your offer! You should also expect to receive a response along the lines of 'Go and get f**ked'.

The market hasn't dropped yet so I don't think it's fair.

So is it fair if the market has changed? It has where I am.

The idea that 'oh no, you'll just have to suck it up' rather than renegotiate is naive and very parochial. So weird.

Yes it's bizarre, particularly when so many who think it's the worst thing ever don't tend to have a problem with gazumping.

You can, but be prepared for the fact that you could lose the property!

@Moveoverdarlin
''There’s probably a queue of people behind you willing to pay the asking price''.

There isn't and it is strange that so many people are still in denial.

The market is different from 3 months ago: we are officially in recession, interest rates are up and banks have tightened lending criteria, utility bills are up, the cost of food and everything else is up, we have yet another useless Tory government and they are preparing us for tax rises for everyone.

Of course all the above will have an impact on an already ridiculously inflated housing market.

I am house-hunting and everything I am seeing is being reduced by 10k or 20K already. I am pulling out for now regardless because I believe prices will fall further.

I think many sellers will now have to face a big reality check.

The survey showed no problems at all. They both had the same survey, as the second buyers bought the survey from the first buyers.

Both buyers were cash buyers who were not part of a chain. It is clear to me they over offered in the first place to secure the property, but never actually planned to pay full asking. We live in an old house so I think it was probably a surprise to them that there was nothing at all on the survey they could claw back money on.

The first time around we went with the highest offer from the cash buyer, the second time around we were so desperate for things to go smoothly (and quickly!) that we chose the other cash buyer despite his offer being 10K less than the two highest. We received 12 offers in total.

The house isn’t being downvalued- neither of them had a mortgage valuation as they were cash buyers and the survey (which we have seen) didn’t give a specific amount but said they it thought the property was to a good standard at the price point agreed.

The ‘trend’ seems to be cash buyers who are not part of a chain themselves and not worried about mortgage offers expiring knowing that they can do what they want and the rest of the chain will just have to go along with it.

They'll probably be pretty passed off. If you do this and they reject and no longer want to sell to you won't you need to get a new mortgage offer with higher interest? Also could ruin things for whole chain. I think this has too much risk to screw yourself over tbh

I think it's only to do that if you're genuinely going to struggle now at the offered price. If you'd already purchased, you couldn't do a thing about it - we all know rates go up and down over the years, so likely to happen at some point during ownership.

Also, depends how I vested emotionally you are with the property, ie are you prepared to loose it or have the chain collapse due to everyone renegoting.

To truly give advice rather than morality lessons we need more detail. Your status (cash buyer, ftb, or selling yours), area and value. Once you have an idea of the amount you offered you can wargame scenarios for 5,10,15,20% drops vs. potential interest rates and look in cold, hard cash terms what that would mean to you. If you are a cash buyer then make your offer and stand back if refused then stand down for a few months and let the market settle.

Values havent dropped yet in our area, actually increased slightly. The cost of living is irrelevant if people are still offering around what you have. Even if not, if I were like your sellers and didn't need the money therefore could wait on a sale, if you did this to me I would pull out. I would rather sell to someone else at the lower amount than to you because I think people should stand true to their word. May sound petty but doesn't matter really as the seller holds the power in your scenario.

You can try

tgey may not accept, and you’ll lose the house

it is really weird and immature (or maybe you are just very young) to think you can renegotiate based on the fact that the sellers have no mortgage. So they were financially astute, why should YOU be the beneficiary of that? 😁 I mean that just makes no sense?