To tell gazunderer to do one?

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Selling a probate property, due to exchange and complete today. Agreed price was £20k less than asking/previous purchase price and included all furniture. Ours was the show home apartment, and another was put on the market which is empty, much smaller and in a less favourable, dark and dingy aspect at £20k lower than our agreed price 🙄 this flat is with an EA who persistently undervalues these properties which is why I did not use them.

Received a call from our Estate Agents yesterday. Buyer still wants our apartment but now wants to pay the same as the cheaper, crappier one or he'll withdraw and buy the other apartment. I am properly pissed, but offer £10k off to get it past the line.

Buyer is firm, £20k less or he'll walk.

I think the buyer is trying their luck, the other property was marketed in March. I've seen the buyer at the building whilst clearing out the property, I know they've been to look at the other flat long before this week and I suspected that he would try something like this at the last minute. I am also confident it's our flat he wants, just at the crap flat's price.

I've made them wait for my response, and having slept on it I am of the mind to hold firm on the £10k drop, requiring immediate exchange to stop him dicking about, or deal's off. If he walks, I will still have the property to remarket as well as all the furniture the buyer wanted included in the sale which will cover fees to date, and he'll have taken the competing property off the market.

AIBU to not reduce further and wish them luck with the other property if they withdraw, or do I suck up losing £20k?

Selling a property in England sucks.

@WildFlowerBees · Yesterday 08:02

Just because it didn't get an offer straightaway doesn't mean you have to sell to an underhanded fuckwit. It may well be that op puts it back on the market (with a new EA) and it sells quickly this time around.

100% this. ^ I guess the OP could just accept, as it is the only offer at the moment, and it would get it done/sorted/finished. But why the fuck SHOULD she give in to this colossal nobhead who thinks it's OK to do this? Only the worst kind of people put in an offer, and then drop it by a massive chunk at the eleventh hour. And only the worst kind of people support people doing this.

As for calling the OP 'greedy...' LOL. WTF is the buyer then? A lovely, kind, considerate, charming member of society? NOPE, they are a greedy, grabby, opportunistic arsehole. I would be refusing to sell the property to them now.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Have you ever been to a shop selling an item for more than you are willing to pay for it and, instead of leaving the item on the shelf or even asking if they would accept a lower price, just handed it over, said you'll take it, allowed them to go to all the trouble of carefully wrapping it and ringing it through the till, and THEN telling them that you'll only buy it if they reduce the price?

This is exactly the equivalent of what the (suspicious) would-be buyer is doing - and it is weird and thoroughly dishonourable.

A slightly far fetched analogy, but yeah, it's not a bad one. Not sure why some posters felt the need to be so rude to you, and laugh at you for saying this.

Property prices are probably not going to go down much and will continue to rise generally until the housing crisis sorts itself out (with new houses being built). The pessimism in the market is definitely easing.

Just say you'll hang on as you're confident of getting the asking price.

I was just thinking the same thing @Stravaig

Don't ever, ever deal with people like this. Walk away.

It's a very far fetched analogy. If we want to talk about buying something in a shop it would be more like you want to buy something, let's say a smart TV, they haven't got one in stock but they will get one in for you and it is £500. You get a message to collect it and as you are standing at the till the man in front is buying an identical TV for £450 and the shop says that's just an offer for today, you agreed to buy yours before the offer so you pay £500. Would you pay it?

Depends where you are, where I am prices are falling, most are being reduced and sometimes more than once before they sell. Not uncommon for sales to fall through either and properties to come back on after 2 or 3 months and coming on for a lower price.

What did you do in the end, OP?

I worked in property in the 80/90s and exchange and completion on the same day was very rare back then. I think nowadays it's more common. I did it a few years ago when it was a cash purchase. The money was sitting in our bank so there was no need for a delay after exchange to sort out finances.

At the other end of the property ladder our son also exchanged and completed same day on his first home - because as a first time buyer he didn't have a large amount of cash to put down as the deposit for the customary 4 week period. It was either exchange and complete on the same day or take out a costly bridging loan.

If it were easy for the seller to get another buyer that can do the same deal at the appropriate price then they should go ahead and do it.

I suspect that they can't though. Otherwise it wouldn't annoy them and generate the angst. They would just shrug their shoulders and get on with it.

I am somewhat suspicious of all the tales on here of "we told them to get lost, and got a new buyer that paid 50k more in 3 days. Then we all signed and went home and had egg, chips and beans for tea".

Maybe in a red hot market with a desirable property you might be able to do that. Unlikely with the current state of the market though.

“till the man in front is buying an identical TV for £450 and the shop says that's just an offer for today, you agreed to buy yours before the offer so you pay £500. “

The two aren’t identical. The other flat doesn’t have furniture, is smaller and with a poorer view.

Woah, it all got a bit fractious and unnecessary in here!

I don't think anyone is arguing against decency and integrity in transactions (except the one pp who admitted she intends to do exactly the same thing herself) so much as pointing out that these qualities are not universal, particularly in house buying and selling.

Once you accept that, you can make pragmatic decisions without having a stroke from the stress of it all hopefully. It's all very well to denounce the buyer as a wicked scam artist, but if he's the only buyer on OP's horizon, she may have to hold her nose and do business with him. Acknowledging that isn't at all the same as condoning his actions, and certainly doesn't make people "Thatcher's children" ffs.

As @GasPanic says, the whole problem of the property market as a vehicle for investment is Thatcher's legacy - and investments, as we all know, can go down as well as up. I don't think anyone here wants OP to sell to the CF buyer out of some belief that he deserves it, or he just did what we would all do, or anything like that. But we want her to be able to sell the flat and move on as opposed to not being able to sell the flat and move on.

Without knowing more about OP's specific area and the property itself, it's impossible to say for sure, but pp saying that the market won't drop and she'll find a new buyer easily (just like they did 2/5/20 years ago, etc. etc.) are likely in most areas to be way off beam. That's just a fact.

The analogy by @WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll actually makes more sense than yours. 😂 Are you sure you have posted this on the right thread?!

@DepartureLounge

Woah, it all got a bit fractious and unnecessary in here!

You're new to mumsnet aren't you?

@Iwasafool's analogy isn't comparing OP's flat with the smaller one. It's comparing OP's flat last week with OP's flat today.

I suspect that they can't though. Otherwise it wouldn't annoy them and generate the angst. They would just shrug their shoulders and get on with it.

No one would just shrug their shoulders if their buyer started dicking about on the day of exchange and completion. What utter nonsense 😂😂

Not even nearly.

The haggling should have been done prior to drawing up contracts.
Personally i'd just tell them that they have until XXXX date to complete at the original masking price or you will assume lack of interest from thier part and remove the property from sale and seek an alternative purchaser.
They are being CF and trying their luck, don't budge an inch.

Really, so not wanting to pay a previous price because the market has changed and you want to pay the correct price at point of paying rather than the price it was a couple of months ago isn't similar? Are you sure you read it?

But in her position you did...,

The buyer is looking at paying for the OPs flat, it certainly must be identical to itself. It was worth X to the buyer a couple of months ago when the purchase was agreed, the market has changed and he thinks it is now worth X-20K. The OP might not agree and none of us know what it is really worth at the moment. It is the problem with purchasing a property taking months and markets can change.

I'm not suspicious of them at all. I know half a dozen people who have sold their property over the past 2 years, who had stupid offers to start with, and refused them, and then got their asking price a few weeks later.

3 of them did get buyers dropping the price a few weeks before completion too, and they said no, and put the house on the market again, and they got more offers quite quickly. 2 to 4 weeks.

Has any poster actually claimed they got a new, better offer within 3 days - of telling someone (who reduced their original offer,) to sod off? I haven't seen that claim personally.

The other flat is NOT IDENTICAL to the OP's. Read the OP's posts!!!

The buyer wants to pay less for the OPs flat, it is the same flat. He is comparing the price to another flat but he is offering the OP £20k less for her flat as the market has changed. I think people don't realise that the other flat isn't likely to sell for the asking price, that is just the starting price.

Really, so not wanting to pay a previous price because the market has changed and you want to pay the correct price at point of paying rather than the price it was a couple of months ago isn't similar? Are you sure you read it?

It's nothing to do with market changes here, though. A smaller, less desirable flat has been on the market for the same amount of time, at a lower price and the buyer has apparently only just noticed this.

It's like me telling the supermarket that their 4-pinters of milk are clearly overpriced, 'proven' by the fact that their 2-pinters cost less (and always have)!

The market has changed in many parts of the country, a year ago places were selling for more than the asking price where I live, now they are selling for less. We don't know where the OPs flat is, it might be somewhere with a market just like last year or it might not. That is why people have advised her to study the market for retirement flats where she is now.