Gazundering...told my buyer to piss off

[ilovewinterpansies]

My buyer has at the last minute asked for £5k off my house which is already being sold at a bargain.

We have told him to piss off (obviously the estate agent has put this in more polite terms).

Mortgage offer is in, survey done (and apparently says our house is in good order so I'm not sure why he wants £5k off) and enquiries are almost all done. We are on the cusp of exchange.

How much is this just the buyer chancing his luck? Shared experiences will be very welcome!

I know someone who is buying a house and has done both. They gazumped another buyer to get their offer accepted. Then they had an issue with the mortgage valuing the house lower, so they lowered their offer, once things were well underway.
I can see why the sellers held out, they wouldn't drop as low as the buyer wanted for a few weeks.
I bet the original bidders were pissed off, especially if they offered the same or more than it has eventually sold for!

I sold a house last year, and the buyers asked for further surveys/checks to be done at the very last minute. I was paranoid they were going to drop their offer, we'd just scraped through to break even as it was.

I hate hate hate gazunderers! We sold last year and 2 days before exchange of contracts, our buyer gazundered us because (This is really hilarious looking back on it but at the time I was ready to explode!) she felt the price she had agreed to pay was 'unlucky' and could we please kindly accept 2k less in order to make it a less unlucky number for her... We agreed just to get the sale to go through.

In the end she pulled out on the day of exchange - we almost lost our onward purchase and subsequently lost £13k as we then had to accept a lowball offer. I think gazundering is a sign of things to come and a good hint not to trust your buyers - if they're willing to risk the entire purchase by doing such a stupid thing, it's a sign that they're not properly invested in the purchase.

@ChocolateChoux this is precisely what I'm worried about.

Why did she pull out on the day of exchange?

I'm not sure how to avoid this other than to push for exchange asap. I'm even tempted to exchange on our sale before our purchase although I know that might leave us homeless!!!

You sound desperate to have the house you are moving into. Don't let the twat buyer know this!

We had his on day of completion 2 weeks after contracts had been signed they tried to pay £5 less than was written in the contract!

Lawyer told them to fuck off.

Posted too soon!

If you exchange on the property you are in now and have to move out, you'll have to pay 2 x removal costs and storage (and rent, but you'd presumably be paying mortgage on your new place anyway so that cancels that out more or less).

Work out what that would cost you and that is the cost of exchanging "early".

I had my first experience of the house buying system here recently and was horrified that there is no protection against this sort of thing. It's the biggest purchase you'll make and it's in jeopardy until the last minute!

I'm outraged for you, winterpansies, and hope things work out for you. Stay strong!

@ilovewinterpansies There were lots of reasons, the 'official' reason she gave was that she was ill (she had the bloody flu, not like she was seriously ill or anything!) and couldn't proceed with exchange at that point. But really, the reason was that she was bat-shit crazy and we weren't letting her get away with messing us around anymore so she realised she either had to pay what she'd offered or drop out.

In hindsight, there were so many signs throughout the process that she wasn't a good buyer and I wish i'd dropped out sooner and changed estate agents (I massively blame them). So I would say listen to your gut - that doesn't necessarily mean drop out and re-market just yet or rush to exchange before you're ready (that'll just put you in a more stressful situation) but treat the guy with caution and tell your agent in no uncertain terms that you're not putting up with any more shit from him.

Thanks @ChocolateChoux - will definitely make that clear to the agent.

@NoSquirrels That is a very good point re exchange by X date otherwise back on the market - I've added that in. Gloves are definitely off.

I'm still so cross and I'm actually at the point of just walking away but I'm trying to remain calm and remember that some CFs will always try this shit on.

Update: our buyer has agreed to proceed on the originally agreed price and to move asap for exchange this week.

Obviously good news but I'm still nervous (and will be until exchange) as I've lost what little confidence I had in him.

Wish me luck! And thanks for all your responses - massively helpful to have your words of wisdom and shared experiences xxx

Congratulations. Some people just aren't happy if they think that maybe they could have paid less, even if they have a bargain. (IME That applies to holidays, flights, books, DVDs, just about everything... but most sellers are not accustomed to other people's buyer behaviour, so it comes as a shock when it happens in a property purchase).

Well done
Can’t stand people who do this, great you said no

Great news OP. You are wise to be cautious but fingers crossed now he knows you won’t stand for this shit he will just get it all finished up ASAP. Good luck and keep us updated!

Brilliant! Well done ilove. I'm so pleased. Hopefully you'll exchange ASAP and can get on with things.

Delighted for you OP. Fingers crossed for a smooth conclusion!

Well done. Good luck with the rest of it.

I’ve been reading this thread with interest. I’ve never sold a property, only ever bought one. Is one of the messages here that even though estate agents get their money off the vendors, they will want to keep the buyers happy ( just as much as the vendors) because if the purchase falls through they get nothing? Therefore it’s important not to assume the EA is on the vendor’s side? Just wondering.

Not exactly, whataboutbob. Estate agents aren't trying to keep anyone happy. They are trying to earn their fee by getting a sale to go through.

If that means keeping both sides happy-ish, then they'll do what it takes.

Estate agents tend to lean towards buyers and sellers with the market. In a strong market, where things are selling fast, as an estate agent, you'll try harder to please the seller because they could easily walk away from the sale and maybe take their property to another agency (and you'll lose your fee).

In a weak market, the buyer is king. Any buyer in a given area will have their pick of properties (and their pick of agents to buy through), and al the agents will be competing to get that buyer to buy one of their houses so that they ca earn their fee.

In this case, there was a deal in place, it just needed to be nursed through the final stages. So the agent would look at both parties and work out who is likely to blink first and then lean on them.

Thanks mmzz. Many a time I’ve tried to guess an EAs thinking ( when looking at properties to rent and buy) and usually have been a bit mystified so this is helpful.

Well done OP! Hope the move goes well.

V good news!! Well done for holding firm, it seemed like a total piss take in these circumstances. Fingers crossed the sale went through

(Goes, not went!)

I've just sold an investment property to ghastly buyers.

They started with a really low offer because "the kitchen needed replacing". No actually. It was not new but in good working order. I eventually accepted a lowish offer, but them had months of questions about boiler guarantees, fire assessments, covenants and so on. (I asked others with flats in the block, including some who had bought recently, and it was the first time any of these questions had been raised.) My instinct was they were looking for anything to hang a demand for a reduction on. What they did not know is that the letting agent (not the sales agent) had told me that should the sale for through, one of their landlords would be interested in buying and would pay more. (Genuine - as I know of other properties he bought.)

It all became a bit bizarre as they were quibbling over everything and I was more than happy for it to fall through. I kept just saying no. Eventually they got the message. I was selling at that price and nothing lower. Four months in and I finally set a deadline of completing before the end of the tax year. It took six months for investment buyers to buy a simple, well maintained, purpose built and easily mortgageable, two bedroom rental flat generating a 6% return.

Easy though as I was not in a chain, it was not my home and I had another buyer lined up. The big lesson though should I ever sell again would be to decide from the outset that you wont take reductions (except perhaps if there was a major surprise), and have a plan B rather than being held to ransome. And to be clear with both agent and solicitor that you have negotiated a price and do not plan to reopen negotiations.

I never met them, but I remain convinced that they simply wanted to "win". It made it all quite unpleasant.

Update: my buyer pulled out half an hour before exchange.

Lots of lessons learned here - first one, be choosy with your buyer!!

Complete and utter timewashing shit.

Nevermind - have viewings booked in for tomorrow. Part of me is relieved not to sell my much loved family home to that arsehole.