Is it fair to ask our buyers for more money?

[MediumOrchid]

Bit of a long story :

We sold our house in September. Had an offer accepted on a property in November. Long story short, but all the paperwork went through, then 4 months later the vendors decided they didn't want to sell their house after all and took it off the market . Both us and our buyers were really disappointed.

We are fairly particular about where we want to move to (our buyers know this) and properties don't come up that often. Our buyers have been looking elsewhere but at the moment are still waiting for us. They have been very patient.

But the problem is that the market has risen in the 9 months since we accepted their offer. We've had our house valued again recently at £15k more than they paid. Our house is currently the cheapest of its type in our town. The houses that we want to buy have also risen in value.

Would it be fair to ask the buyers for maybe £7.5k due to the rise the market? Or more?

Half of me feels that's really unfair on them and we should honour our agreement, but the other half thinks that it we don't ask for more money then we might not ever be able to afford to move -then the buyers won't ever have our house!

To complicate matters further, our estate agent says he has a couple who want to buy in our area and would pay the full 15k more. This may not be true, but if it was, I couldn't do that to our buyers. It just feels that it would be so unfair to them.

Or do you just have to be ruthless when buying and selling property?

Why is it all so complicated?!

Are you confident your property will sell quickly if your buyers pulled out? If you are then I would:

1. keep looking for the type of properties you need, even where values have risen.

2. when you find something, go back to the vendors and tell them the good news - you've had an offer accepted and things can move ahead after all this time! Then bad news: property prices have risen during that time (if they are looking at other things they'll know this and yours will seem unrealistically cheap) and you need to renegotiate.

3. you either agree an adjusted price based on the average of three new valuations and they curse you but get their house; or you find another buyer at the higher price.

At the moment it's theoretical so there's no point pulling out or inducing them to do so by mentioning it before you actually have somewhere you want to buy. You are in a stronger position to get an offer accepted while you are still under offer, and they are more likely to agree to renegotiate when there's a realistic prospect of you moving.

Waiting for nine months you could have pulled out any time, so something like this was always a risk, mercenary as I know it sounds.

I meant go back to your *buyers

It would be one thing if you had a house you wanted to buy but you needed an extra £15k to complete the deal - then at least that would be a straight offer to your buyers that they could take or leave. But if I've understood correctly there is no specific house you're buying, so even if they agree to this increase they will be no closer to actually owning your house and there's no guarantee that you won't have to put up the price again in a few months if the market rises and you still haven't found anywhere.

I would question whether you should have your house on the market if you have no realistic idea of when you'd actually be able to complete the sale or even what price you'd need to achieve to make the onward move.

It's horrible to happen, but you're not selling so they have a place to live, you're selling so you can buy a place to live. Waiting around doesn't justify you basically giving them 15k and screwing yourself over in the process.

If they had found a place they wanted, cheaper than yours in the last few months, they'd have pulled out by now. Of course they are waiting, your house is 15k cheaper than all the others.

Increasing the price because you can and just want more money at this point is a dick move (although perfectly within your rights) - but if you have to to move where you want to, then you have to! Beyond bloody stupid to suggest you move to a place you don't want to live for someone totally and utterly unrelated to you.

I would however counsel finding something you want, therefore knowing what price you need.

I say this as someone trying to buy now. The property market isn't fair, if it was, prices wouldn't increase by 15k in half a bloody year!

If you're looking in a very specific area and you don't have a house in mind then I think it would be better all round to take yours off the market.

If you ask for £15k more today and then spend three more months finding the right house (if these very patient buyers wait) then perhaps your house will be worth another £5k more?

I have to agree that you are not running a charity.

Consider carefully if you'd rather stay than lose money, as they may well pull out and you may not find other buyers, but selling and purchasing only works well when both are done at the same time.
I wouldn't advise to sell and wait months in a rising market, so it only makes financial sense to expect a selling price for your house that matches the price levels at which you are also buying.

ToodleooAndPeekaboo -I think this is the best plan. It's risky, if they pull out and we can't find another buyer in time and lose the house we want. It would mean making an offer assuming that we will have the extra money from somewhere, either our buyers or new ones, and hope that the vendor's estate agents don't financially check us too thoroughly!

Your buyers will have spent money on solicitors and surveys which could run to a few thousand. I think you should do the decent thing and honour your agreement rather than renege on a deal ( I speak from very bitter recent experience)

I did that to my buyer. They waited for 7 months in total for me to find a property which happened to be a probate sale and took ages due to nobody's fault. Towards the exchange, I got a private genuine interest to pay about 20k more (long story short, a neighbour put up a similar house for sale for much higher price, and his viewer knocked on my door). 20k was a lot of money. I decided to pull out risking to lose the sale altogether if things went wrong with the new buyer. My old buyer decided to match the new price. Basically, I did not ask him directly to increase the price, but he did. At some point though I felt bad that the prices have risen a lot after I had accepted the offer, and considered to pull out for that reason had not that new interest come up.
Flame me but I don't feel guilty.

Pull your house out of the sale, and look again for a house you want in the area you want.

Don't sell just because you have had someone interested seven months ago. You were going to sell to them and buy the house you wanted but things have changed. You're under no obligation to sell, as you aren't buying and that was part of the deal.

You have a responsibility to your own family first and you need to be able to afford a home for them.

Let the "buyer" down by saying you're not selling this year as the house you wanted was withdrawn and you're going to wait for another one to come up.

Don't think twice about it.

The people telling you to effectively gift your buyers 15k because they waited for you would not do this themselves. Easy to be moralistic and kind with someone elses money, isn't it?

Your buyers would have walked away at any time if it suited them, say if they found an equal house for 15k less. They wouldnt hand you the extra if you had been the one waiting for them.

Does it suck for them? Sure. But sometimes life sucks and the market dictates. Anything else is wide eyed naivety.

There are some very unprincipled people posting - basically anyone doing this deserves to get shafted back - royally - and I sincerely hope that they do

I think it's an awful thing to do.

I was in that same position a while ago & sold at the initially agreed price even though I could have probably earned a small amount.

And does 7,000£ make that much difference in your chances to buy elsewhere? If it was a difference of 20,000£-30,000£ I can understand but I don't think it's justified at all.

I do understand you're in a difficult position though but so are your buyers who have been incredibly patient and you need to honour that.

I know of several cases where people did uphold their morals and did not allow gazumping or similar and did not screw over their buyers just for a few thousand actually.

Being ethical which personally I feel is extremely important to do is not the same as running a charity. I'm quite shocked at some of the opinions on this thread that frankly are suggesting that greed should come above everything else, including honouring an agreement and not screwing people over. Running a charity would be, for example, selling at a very low price. Completely different thing

Supposing that you go ahead and they agree the new price. What if your property price increases in the meantime?

Also do you know their financial circumstances because this would mean another visit from their bank to value your home. Who told you your property is worth 15k more because you need to hope their bank agrees.

I think what would be reasonable to say is "due to a rise in the market, we have been priced out of the area we intend to buy in. We are left now with no choice but to try and sell at a higher price, therefore we will need to relist. We would be happy to negotiate with you both, however without a higher sale price it would now be impossible to move anyways at this price".

You have no choice but to renegotiate with them once you've found somewhere if prices have gone up in the area you want to buy.

Your buyers know this.

Youre not really going to buy somewhere you don't want just to be nice to them

And you're not really going to pay the massive difference in price (even if you could afford it) just to be nice to them either

Because that would be taking altruism too far

If the buyers have spent money on solicitors fees, mortgage fees and survey fees this probably runs into £2k+. I think it would be cruel to pull out of the deal now. I know its not the economic thing to do but I would sleep at night

I'd walk, because if yiu ask for 15k now, and it takes another few months, what's to stop you asking for more the day before exchange?

Also my mortgage might not stretch to another £15,000 so would have to pull out anyway

If its worth that much more, just pull out and remarket

This is a risk they take in waiting this long and entering a chain.

I wonder if the prices were going down if they would keep the agreed price and not buy elsewhere or reduce their offer.

Just be prepared for them to pull out, or (worse) agree to the increase and try gazundering you on day of exchange. Karma and all that.

ThinkIveBeenHacked offers the best approach.

OP is proposing a compromise to her buyers - prices have gone up by £15k and she is suggesting they each take a hit of £7.5k.

Her buyers are NOT waiting around for her, they just haven't withdrawn their offer (no reason why they would), they are looking at other properties and will probably make other offers if they see the right one. In the meantime, they can hold on to an undervalued bird in the hand.

If you can't find another property you like and are confident that yours could definitely achieve a higher price now why don't you just pull out of the sale now and take the house off the market.

You can tell the buyers it's because you can't find a property to buy- which is true.

Then, if/when you do find something else you can remarket yours at the higher price.

If the buyers are still interested it's up to them if they want to pay more.

That way you aren't being unfair to the current buyers as you can't sell to them at the moment anyway- they obviously won't be happy but id imagine they're half expecting it given it has been such a long wait anyway.