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?!

How could she have chosen to move before . She said properties don't come up.

Surely the agreement is subject to the OP buying a new house. That's why they are in a chain and the buyers know this.
Chains only make sense in the property ladder if they are bought and sold at equivalent prices.

I think what the OP proposed initially about splitting the difference is fair enough.
But that would be assuming you find a new place now, OP.

She might be particular but she was progressing on a property in good faith, not stringing her buyers along. And it sounds like she has been clear with her buyers on that. And who isn't particular about their homes?

Her buyers can pull out whenever they like and they are continuing to look at things - as they haven't found anything they prefer, I assume they are also "picky"

Do you really think OP is under an obligation to buy a property she doesn't like or in an area she doesn't like just to be polite to her buyers?

The buyers in this situation have chosen not to withdraw their offer.

The op has been up front with them. They, if they have any sense, have continued to look at properties and not found anything they prefer.

It wasn't the OPs fault her vendor pulled out.

Crap situation for everyone caused by a crappy system not an individual.

I'd wait until I had found something else to offer on then see where that left me re needing to raise the price.

If op can't afford to move with the amount that her house is currently under offer for, there's no solution other than increasing the asking price that I can see.

gertrude, YAB rather U yourself. Stringing her buyers along for the ride! Their choice. Presumably cos they're quite picky too and they really want her house!

How does that conversation go then?

"Hi buyers, you know this house of ours that you've patiently waited 9 months for. And you know we're really particular about where we want to move to and still haven't found anywhere we like so could take another 9 months or more to find something. Well, we want more money off you now".

Actually, the most honest thing to do would be to remove your house from the market until you find somewhere you actually want. But I suspect you won't because it suits you, if you ever do find anywhere, to be able to say that you have an offer on your own, and then stitch your buyers up when it's convenient for you.

We had to do this when buying our current house, (actually we pulled out of the sale entirely, remarketed and our original buyers made the highest offer). We felt absolutely terrible for doing it but if we hadn't we couldn't have afforded to move. It would be much better if the system had more safeguards making it more difficult to pull out of sales so far down the line- we'd have much preferred to have bought the previous house at the lower price 6 months earlier!

SA, it goes like this:

"Since our vendor pulled out, we've tried hard to find an alternate with no success. Prices have gone up both here and in our target area since then. We'd love to keep you as buyers but may have to up our price to get what we want elsewhere, otherwise we may have to stay put. Is that something you might consider? We know you are looking elsewhere and of course may find something. Equally we may have to remarket the property at a higher price to achieve our goals"

It's a tough situation to be in OP! I have my fingers crossed that everything works out for you :-)

OP we did exactly this over 10 years ago. Buyers really wanted our house, we lost out on two sales with people changing their minds which took us to 9 months post accepting the offer. At this point the EA said it was perfectly normal to ask the buyer for half of the increase in price - and as the buyer was (an unrelated and from another area EA) he agreed.

You can ask for more money from your current buyers, of course you can. However, you will be taking a big risk. They may well tell you to piss off (I would) or simply not have the extra cash (do they have a property to sell? Can they increase their asking price? If they're FTB they may not have the cash or be able to increase the mortgage; if they're renting, that's nine months' rent money they've paid since September that they don't get back) and then you are faced with trying to sell a house that has a been hanging around the property market for several months under offer but not going anywhere, suddenly back for sale at a higher price. You may find new buyers but they may have noted the old price and think "well, that fell through at that price, why should we pay a higher one? There's something wrong with it" and offer lower or reduce after survey. I find EAs are very good at imagining potential buyers who then evaporate... I wouldn't bank on finding new buyers quickly.

Or your buyers may agree to pay the extra £7.5k (and stamp duty), decide they don't owe you any loyalty or trust and shaft you by dropping their offer by £10k the day before exchange.

Or the buyers may think it's fair enough, it would cost them £15k more to buy an equivalent property now and they have the money...

However, if the 7.5k rise in your selling price makes such a difference to you in buying a house, then either the house prices in your area are very low (so it would have even more of an impact on your buyer, being a large percentage increase) or you are overstretching yourselves as it is and need to ask yourselves some tough questions as to what you can actually afford and where the compromise is to be made.

It's a tough position to be in, but I think you need to consider the possible downsides as well as the obvious benefit of asking for the 7.5k.