Renegotiating mistake

[istheresomethingwrongwithme]

Feel like a complete idiot so please don't flame me, just wondered what others thought of this situation.

Viewed a house a month before lockdown. Guide £435,000. Offered £375k, negotiated up to £400k which was our absolute maximum. We are procedable buyers so in a fairly strong position. House needs alot of work. There had been a few other viewers but they all needed to put their houses on the market etc.

Then coronavirus got serious and on the advice of our solicitor and surveyor, we asked whether there was the possibility of renegotiating due to the current climate and expected property/economic downturn. We suggested using our original offer of £375k.

This has completely backfired and the vendor now wants the full £435,000 despite everything that's going on.

When I write it down, it sounds like a really shitty thing to have done and I wish we'd never bothered. His reaction does seem extreme though. We were genuinely nervous about this and had considered pulling out altogether - not to be flakey buyers, but things have changed massively since our offer was accepted. I'm a SAHM and my husband runs his own business, so of course there are financial concerns as there are for many at the moment.

Fee really awful and deflated. Our solicitor said most of his sales were proceeding but at reduced prices, so his advice seemed reasonable. No way will we pay the £435k, so if he vendor has made up his mind on that we've lost it.

Well from your post it sounds like you're not 100% sure about it anyway?
I think you either walk away or advise your seller that your original offer of £400k stands.

Just walk away🤷‍♀️

You were asking him to drop far too much. It's not a great time so I'd walk away. We all make a cheeky offer but that was a bit much. I agree, walk away. If he's that fussed he'll sell for the 400K.

Have your finances actually changed or you're just concerned they will. Whatever price you agree, you should have enough contingency to cover a few months gap in case of illness, change of work etc. So if you couldn't afford that at £400, you should walk away.

It sounds to me like you didn't have genuine grounds to change your offer so you've annoyed the vendor and he's changed his mind to see if you're time wasters.

From what you've said you should walk away, but if you still want it and can afford it, go back with your original offer and see what happens.

Walk away. Current climate you don’t want to be maxed out.

Re our finances, the thing that will stretch us is doing the work to the house to make it suitable for us. Of course, we don't know the price of that yet but we estimate it being £200 - £250k including all the fees, planning, VAT. It needs to be extending to about twice the size and the current house needs completely gutting - new roof, windows etc. So we can comfortably buy the house but the work is going to be vast.

I can entirely see from his point of view that it looks like we're time wasters who are pushing our luck. Feel so stupid.

Walk away. Buy a house that better suits your needs.

Thanks for all tour comments and for helping me see the wood from the trees. Maybe it wasn't the right place for us. Thanks also for not being harsh because I'm feeling awful and didn't sleep at all last night.

It's difficult to know whether our finances will change. DH is furloughed but as a director of his company a large part of his income is dividends, so we won't know how that will be affected until it happens if that makes sense.

You don't know that the vendor would have proceeded at 400k anyway. Especially if he is reacting like this now. I wouldn't blame yourself.

So does that mean you actually have 200k in addition to the 400k “maximum” you would pay for this house? Or are you planning on living in it and raising the rest..?
Just as if you really like the house, think it’s a great project/potential, I’m surprised you reverted to 375 and you should apologise, revert to 400k as final offer. But if you don’t like it that much walk away!
Have you done a project of this scale before? I’d be wondering if it’s best time to embark on such a large project tbh but I’m a stresshead!

I don't understand why you would expect the croranavirus to reduce the value of the house by £25,000. A structural issue that a survey uncovers might do, but if you are concerned about the potential economic market you should probably delay any move until things have settled down in 12 to 18 months.
I see a house purchase as a long term purchase and even all house prices dropped by 50% they are still all relative unless you are only purchasing this house as an investment. Were you considering dropping the price of your own house by the same amount?

Firstly I would say that you shouldn’t feel stupid. The current situation is unprecedented, everyone is nervous, and you had professional advice. I may be going against the grain but I don’t think you’ve been unreasonable.

The vendor is entitled to react as he has but I think he has been far more unreasonable than you. He could have said ‘£400k, take it or leave it’, couldn’t he.

I think in current circumstances I would pick a price between £375k and £400k and leave it on the table. What is the seller’s position? If they can afford not to sell to you then you will have to walk away.

He has seemed like a reluctant vendor all the way along. He took several days to get back to us each time we offered and the estate agents said he was difficult to read. I do wonder whether this has been a blessing in disguise - if he had decided to pull out at a later stage it would have cost us fess etc. That said, if we already knew he was slightly on the fence we shouldn't have pushed our luck.

We would have a mortgage to do the extension which we'd have to do before we moved in. We have accommodation for the build period. Comfortable with the logistics of a big project, it's just the uncertainty of the economy at the moment that gave us the jitters.

We've actually been in the position of the people who you are buying from, and I can tell you how it felt. The shittiest thing ever - we also pulled out of sale at that point and later on supposed buyer wanted to re view and I refused. It's a really shitty thing to do and I sympathise with your buyer.

Thanks @NiteFlights - we were also expecting him to come back with a '£400k is what we agreed, take it or leave it' response if he wasn't prepared to consider a reduction.

The house also needs a mundic survey due to its age. This should have been done prior to marketing and will hold up a sale to us or anyone else. That obviously can't be done at the moment. As part of his £435k deal, he also said we have to pay for the survey to be done if we still want the house. His reaction does seem to be out of proportion, maybe he had changed his mind about moving and this was a way out for him.

I don't understand why you would expect the croranavirus to reduce the value of the house by £25,000.

Basic economics and how the housing market works.

@Mitzdob I appreciate that and I can understand how it must have felt. In hindsight it was an awful thing to do and I wish we hadn't followed the advice. We only considered it due to the unprecedented uncertainty at the current time, but in that case maybe we should have just pulled out altogether and said 'we're genuinely sorry, but we're nervous due to the changes in climate and we apologise for wasting your time'.

Definitely pull out, OP.

@SoupDragon can I ask why you are so sure we should pull out? That isn't meant to sound obtuse, I just can't see the right path at the moment and it would be good to have reasoning from an outsider

He is obviously very angry , and decided you have messed him about and thought if they want it pay full price. That's part of buying houses lot of emotions involved and not always much logic . I don't think sale is going anywhere. Did you reduce your price post cv19 ?

I agree, you should have just pulled out. Sounds like that is probably the best option all round anyway?

Seller obviously not desperate for the sale either.

Draw a line under it and move on.

I would pull out tbh. If you need to do that much work just to move in etc then I would say it's not the right house, the fact you would need to get an extension before you moved in is what would decide it for me. Also the way everything has played out, I'm a big believer in things happen for a reason and would take this a sign it's just not for you and your home is somewhere else.

I sympathise with your buyer but also with you a bit. We’ve been viewing houses for ages (and I know there have been multiple threads about this in the property section so I’m not alone) about people, mostly but I’m sure not all, older people, selling houses that they’ve had for a long time that need work that is almost the same price as the house, being hugely offended that their arbitrary headline price (many multiples of what they paid for it back in 1993) is being left on the shelf.

We just left a listed building in a less prosperous part of UK (NI) as it needed AT LEAST £250k (remembering that 50k of that is vat). On at £400k for a terrace ( terraced def not the norm or as popular here), no offers in over a year and older lady owner had another house that she wanted to go to, and still estate agent and builder implying that £375k would be heinously low offer. We had been thinking of offering £325k and settling at £350k but just walked away.

Also a theme in our parts: ‘I buy large old house in 80s with reasonable garden for £80k. Spend 30/40 years there and in the last 15 do no maintenance but get planning permission for over-large new house in garden. Cut off entire garden as a site, build monstrous new house with all soil stacks, bathroom windows now facing orignal house. Now am confused as no one wants to buy orignal property (now a dilapidated older house with no garden and giant new build overlooking main reception rooms) for £750k?!’

House hunting is fun

I suspect that the vendor thought that you would turn into one of those buyers: the type who ask for another £10k reduction on the eve of exchanging contracts because they think that they have the vendor over a barrel.

In his position I think I’d have been a bit annoyed that you anticipated a fall in house prices and unilaterally decided that he should take the pain. I know that you had advice, but he’s allowed to be irritated. If there was plenty of other interest, albeit from people who needed to sell their own houses, he may have decided that he doesn’t want to sell to you.