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!

God how awful. We had a similar situation where ours pulled out on the day too. Wankers.

Oh OP I'm seething on your behalf.

Also I'm terrified because I'm about to exchange in the next week or so.

Well you seem philosophical about it! Fingers crossed for the viewings.

Oh no
What a time wasting wanker

Oh man what a dick head, so sorry OP

What a complete dick OP. I'm so sorry.

I think he would have pulled out on you even if you'd dropped the price OP. Commiserations though.

Argh the fucking twat! So sorry but hope you find a nice buyer instead.

Brace yourself for the unreliable buyer to approach you again in a few days with the lower offer again. It's been known and there are threads about it on here.

I hope you get a reliable buyer who doesn't mess you around this time.

Are you changing estate agents op? I think I would be.. And will this affect your purchase? In any case, I hope you find some lovely buyers for your home.

What an arse your “buyer” was, ilove! I wish them an over-priced money pit with a sea of hidden issues.

Hopefully tomorrow’s viewers will fall in love and give you an even better offer. Stern words with the estate agent about checking status etc.

Did they say why this time? A pox upon his (new) house.... fucker

I think it's unlikely he'll come back. His solicitors are returning all papers to mine. Correspondence today got quite heated and emotive and there's too much bad feeling on both sides now.

Yes we are in serious danger of losing our onward purchase. But our plan is to get back on the market (which we have done) at a very reasonable price (the price we had accepted from twatface buyer) and accept the first chain free offer we get.

I'm going to draft an email to our seller to ask for maybe two weeks' grace and I'll set out what I've said above (i.e. I won't wait for the best price - if I get what I need it's all go). If we get a chain free buyer we can move quickly - after all, the work on the purchase is done. Our seller would have to start from scratch too (poor woman - her last buyer also lost their buyer so she's been stung twice now) so I hope she'd give us a week or two if we promise the above (no guarantee though I know).

Any other tips/things to mention?

What a twat. Hope you get a new buyer soon.

And if he comes back tell him to take a long walk off a short pier. Fucker.

Happened to us. DH was selling his first house and we were buying together (my first house). Couple of doctors were buying his. It needed work- reflected in the price- on the day of exchange, they demanded £20k off. We were in 2 different countries. Stressful. He dropped £10k. So this time, when we bought/sold, I was a total nervous wreck throughout the entire palaver.

I think gazundering is a sign of things to come

I think the do it because it works

If you all stood firm and refused it wouldn't happen

Good luck OP (I would've put it on for more money because everyone likes a discount and it would give you room to move and then maybe move again if necessary)

What a git! Good luck op.

Gazundering is so unethical. My mother had someone do thisx18 months ago. She refused and almost lost the house that she wanted but it all worked out,

The original buyer came back with another full price offer, which my mother rejected. She told the buyer that she was refusing due to their lack of ethics and moral fibre. That buyer was a magistrate, interestingly.

High five to your mother sofa

What happened? Did he come in with new demands on Exchange day? Or was he always planning to pull out as revenge for not letting him bully you into a lower price?

Not that it really matters because he's gone now and you are right to be looking forward.

Yes, be honest with your seller and do what you can to assure them that you'll probably be able to exchange soon as you are doing everything you can to make that happen.

You might consider fixing those roof tiles too, since slipped roof tiles mean leaks, which means damp. And failure to deal with them raises the question of what other basic maintenance has not been done leading to damage to the structure of the building. For a buyer, this is the risk, along with a fear that the market is about to drop (so being able to show that the price is discounted will help reduce that risk).

I've never gazundered, and I know it's really unpleasant to be on the receiving end if it. But can I ask you all this:
if you were going to buy an expensive item of clothing, and you believed that the same item would be cheaper tomorrow, would you still buy it today? If you did decide to buy it today, would you try to offer the shop tomorrow's price? Because that's gazundering,

mmzz
I think the difference with your example is that it hasn’t cost thousands to get to that point and you don’t fuck a ton of people off in the process.

Sorry you’ve had to deal with such a wally ‘buyer’ op! How stressful!

Gazundering doesn't happen because people think that house prices are going down. It happens because people are chancing their luck because they know the sellers are in a vulnerable place. Unethical. Just mean really.

Exactly tomboy
I work in commercial property and have never once seen this type of behaviour at the point of exchange. It only happens in Resi and it is vile.

Nevertwerknaked that's because your buyers are professionals. They know that they would blow their professional relationships and reputation if they did this once which would seriously harm their business.

On the other side the members of the general public have more invested ie get it wrong and they'll regret it for years. And they get nervous when the market looks like it will fall.
If you think about it, it is one of the few times in life when non-professionals trade with each other. People take advantage of businesses all the time and think nothing of it (eg go to the high street, use the facilities of the shop (paid staff, premises, stock) to decide which model of electronic goods they want and then buy it online from a retailer with lower overheads). However, when they behave badly to each other, it's considered terrible behaviour.