Renegotiate the price.before exchange

[midnightOK]

I think we might have paid too much for the house we intend to buy. Is there a way to renegotiate the price before exchange ? I feel quite bad to do that, but it is not a small amount[

Where are you? There are different laws depending on England or Scotland etc

What did the surveyor say about the valuation?

I am in England. The sold price for another house on the same street came up recently, which was 35k lower than mine, though it's 10 square meters smaller. The condition if my house is not significantly better

When did the other house sell?

What did your surveyor say about the valuation?

Was it the same as the price you offered?

If your mortgage valuation has come in at the agreed price then the only thing making you think you are paying too much is this other sale. You've made an offer at a price you felt was right at the time and now you are having buyer's remorse. Pretty shitty to try to renegotiate the price now.

The other house was sold in September last year. The valuation price is the same as my offer, and this difference is about 10% of my offered price. I do doubt the valuation , it seems like they always make it the same as the offered price. Yeah, I do feel shitty at.ths stage, but it is better than being feeling regret all the time after the exchange?

When are you expecting to exchange?

We renegotiated the price of our house based on the survey which showed some issues such as a lead water main and asbestos garage.

I had to give the vendor parts of the survey though as evidence to back up the reduction in price we got 3000 off

But before that we had a sale fall through because they refused to reduce the price after we found major structural problems. That time I shared the full survey which said the house was worth the ask despite the problems which the surveyor valued at a few thousand. Further investigation by a builder showed the work was more extensive and was more like £30 000. The vendor refused to drop the price based on the survey despite the surveyor agreeing that with the extensive issues found his conclusion was incorrect and calling the vendor to explain as much.
We lost all our fees on that one.

So it can go either way. If you are going to renegotiate because of the sold price of another house I wouldn't have thought you'd have much joy you should have done your research before you made your offer.

Actually it is not only because of this other sale, I am worried about the tiny garden and think this might make resale difficult.

You have nothing to lose by asking for a price reduction - apart from the house!
I don't quite understand your logic though as when you made the offer you thought it was worth it, and the valuation backs up your offer. Quite often they don't!
You could try, but honestly if you were buying my house I'd tell you I wasn't prepared to reduce the price and put my house back in the market.

We haven't agreed the exchange date yet , the solicitor is still doing some local search, but the vendor seem very eager to exchange earlier

We pulled out of the sale of our house to a buyer to tried to reduce his offer a few days before exchange with no reason beyond wanting to back us into a corner. Went to another buyer and refused to deal with him again when he came back with original offer because of his shitty behaviour.

If you do it, be prepared to lose the house. Lots of people see it as a massive breach of trust and lose faith in your ability to complete the sale.

They don't always value it at the offer price.

But ultimately if you think you're over paying and you're not happy then you can pull out. If I was selling to you and you tried to reduce your offer for that reason I'm afraid I'd tell you no way and potentially walk away myself because I'd worry you would try it again further through the process.

I'm not trying to be mean because I do empathise. I just wanted to mention how some vendors might react. Buying and selling houses is awful so good luck whatever you decide!

buyer who* tried to reduce his offer

I don't even know what happened there

*buyer who tried to reduce his offer

I vaguely had an impression that one house was sold on that street last September, but couldn't find any information in the sold or under offer section. The sold price just came up recently. I know that I am just too silly in this occasion.

I don't think you can, why on earth would someone agree to lose money? Surely they'll cut their losses and get a new buyer?

You can renegotiate up to the point of exchange but you need to consider:

1. The sellers won't be happy about it. Especially if you're talking about a pretty big reduction like £35k so late in the day. I'm selling at the moment and if our buyers did that, I'd probably withdraw.
2. Your mortgage offer will need to be changed which will slow the process down.
3. If there is a chain, your sellers may not be able to afford their next property if you renegotiate and may have to negotiate themselves.

Only do it if you're prepared to lose the house. Our first buyer messed us around a lot throughout the whole process and then last minute, just before exchange wanted a huge amount knocking off the sale price because of work she said needed to be done. (The work came back as non urgent on the survey and our quotes were 25% of hers, which she refused to accept.) Anyway she thought she could force us into reducing the house sale price by around 10%, especially as she knew I was pregnant and we were keen to move. Even though we ended up out of pocket we told her to sod off. We put the house back on the market the same day and it sold 6 days later for more than she offered.

It isn't suspicious for the vendor to want to exchange, but it won't happen until the solicitors are ready and you have signed your contract. It sounds like you actually don't want the house rather than want money off though.
Perhaps you should go and look at it again? Might make you remember why you wanted to offer on it.

Obviously you can pull out at any time up to exchange, it's a shitty thing to do mind you.

Many vendors would tell you to piss off on principle if you try to "gazunder".

It's a pretty crappy thing to do, depending on the chain, you could be messing up a lot of people.
It's not unfeasible that a property has a price increase since September. At the end of the day, it's worth what people will pay and you have no idea the real condition of the other house.