Advice on pulling out of house purchase

[OrangSky]

I need some advice please! How bad is it to pull out of a house purchase approximately 6 to 8 weeks after offer was accepted? We don't even have an indicative completion date yet. Would the estate agents put a black mark against our name and tell all other estate agents in the area to steer clear of us?
Do you have to have a very good reason, or is it acceptable to just say we have changed our minds?

Hang on, so you already have buyers for your own property? How long are they prepared to wait until you have found your perfect house?

In both houses we have owned we have compromised on the way the garden faces as we wanted to be on those particular locations and houses in our price range just didn't come up very often. Our previous house faced north. It wasn't the end of the world. Like someone else said upthread you can always place the garden furniture into a spot that does get the evening sun. Our current house faces east. We have the sun on the patio until at least 4 pm at the moment and it's in the middle/ at the top of the garden in the evening.

Anyway, we have had property chains collapsing because of people changing their mind. In one case this lost us almost 2000 pounds!! It sucks.

What?..You have buyers? So they also need to find somewhere else to buy now too, because if you pull out you need to tell them to pull out too.

You need to tell all these people ASAP. You’re clearly not going to find anything you want in budget, this was the best as it was. And you say you looked a long time. So you need to tell your buyers and the ones you’re buying from you’re pulling out and that you need to stay put Because you can’t compromise and can’t afford what you want.

Staying put op is your only option now, until you can afford more than you currently can . But telling the chain is a critical next step and not screwing everyone over further.

Please don’t do this to people again and let everyone know first thing tomorrow. Don’t make it worse.

@Nandocushion

Your reasons are fine but tbh if the location is great I'd probably put up with the other stuff, especially as you say you can't afford a better house in the same area.

Agree with this.

We’ve just bought a house in the best location we could have imagined in a city we’ve wanted to live to for ages. It has work to do - quite a bit - but the thought that we can look out every morning over beautiful parkland and yet be five minutes from a vibrant town centre is enough to swing it for us.

You can change pretty much anything about a house except the location!

It sounds like a sensible buy to me, if you can’t afford what you really want. The alternative is staying put indefinitely.

As a side note, have you had a look through sold properties on Rightmove? I did when I was looking and realised that only 2 houses in 5 years met my criteria so we adjusted our expectations
This is very good advice.
If you're pining for the "what if", do be aware that sometimes those perfect houses don't even come onto the market as they're sold privately.
This is particularly the case at the top of the market.

Yeah it's a shitty thing to do. You KNEW all of these things before offering, it's not like something came up in the survey? Waiting 8 weeks is shitty; if your seller has had an offer accepted on a house they want to buy then you'll destroy the whole chain which could be 1/2 a dozen families or more

Sounds like you are looking for something that doesn't exist in your budget so you have to take the next best thing

Sure it's a shitty thing but it happens all the time and you just can't proceed if you've got cold feet like this. Don't beat yourself up about it and just pull out of you're happy to wait potentially years for the right one to come up. It's entirely up to you.

If the right one hasn’t come up yet, it’s unlikely to do so any time soon, which means the op is at significant risk of prices continuing to increase and pricing her out totally. The increase in equity in her current home, if it’s worth less will not be as much as the increase on a more expensive property, hence widening the gap in terms of what she can afford.

However if she doesn’t like it she can’t go ahead.

Op, hopefully you’ve told both your buyers and the sellers you’re pulling out this morning already and were straight on the phone at 8. Morally to keep these people hanging on now is not ok.

I was watching Location, Location, Location last night. The couple involved were a bit yin and yang: one very gung-ho and the other very cautious. The Cautious One was dragging her heels so Kirsty took her to one side for a chat. The C.O. wanted the Perfect House and was holding out for that. Kirsty asked, "when you met your wife, did you happily enter into the relationship or were you always looking over her shoulder for the next person to come along, the Perfect Person?" It was the kick up the backside she needed, the couple agreed on the house, bid for it and got it. Happy Ever Afters all round.

Maybe ask if you can view again, that might settle your mind?

Op, hopefully you’ve told both your buyers and the sellers you’re pulling out this morning already and were straight on the phone at 8. Morally to keep these people hanging on now is not ok.
That's a point. It would be shitty to drop it immediately after the prime viewing period (Bank Holiday).

You will be the subject of a mumsnet thread by the disgruntled sellers but ultimately it's up to you

I've learned the hard way that you have to do what works for you and not be a people pleaser when it comes to things like this. This isn't about buying a pair of trousers to please a sales assistant it's the purchase of a home.

We pulled out of a purchase recently. We were the first viewers to see it, I was in love with it, we had been looking for ages, it was top of budget but the area was so so gorgeous... heart clouded head.

Then, almost the minute our offer was accepted, the doubts started to set in. Went back for another viewing just 2 days later, this time with very practical parents... it was like the clouds suddenly parted and I saw harsh reality. Small house, no potential to extend further, dark front living space with low ceilings, no real space for the kids to run and play in the narrow garden, given that half of it was taken up by the office... small rooms, etc. I had been so blinded by my optimism, none of this had even registered when we viewed it! I had fallen so desperately in love with the village and the views. When the shock of what we had done had properly set in, I called the estate agent immediately. He was annoyed, but professional.

I was absolutely crucified with the knowledge of what we did to the sellers, even though it was chain free on both sides and only 2 days in! 8 weeks - goodness. However... the feeling is the same, no matter when it strikes. If it is not the home for you, best it hits you before the sale goes through. It's a horrible thing to do, but you won't make the same mistake again. X

If you pull out you should consider very seriously moving into rented otherwise you will lose your own buyers and be back to square one. You can then take your time finding somewhere that fits all you requirements.
Our sellers pulled out after we had surveys, searches & legal fees. Cost us over £1000 in fees. It's a really shitty thing to do that far down the line.

We pulled out after 12 weeks (though 8-9 of those were in full lockdown so the housing market was closed) because I was at risk of redundancy, the property was too overpriced and unaffordable on 1 salary, and during lockdown we realised we didn't want a flat anymore. We were also naive first time buyers who got our offer pushed up in a bidding war, then regretted going up that high. It's a part of life, it happens, the estate agent was pissed off because "they could have sold it to someone else".....it's been sat on the market for 2 months now and they still haven't.

We were basically being pushed into sticking with it by a pushy overzealous mortgage broker, who kept saying "you may as well wait till you get the mortgage offer (that took 12 weeks), you may as well wait till end of lockdown". We did, we still didn't want it, when we got the mortgage offer my heart sunk and I got the shits.

Learned a lesson for next time though!

Yes, it's not a very nice thing to do eight weeks into the process, but you really can't buy a house just because a thread on MN is guilting you into it! I fear those niggles you have now will still be there the night before exchange and then it definitely will be too late and really, really shitty to back out. Trust your gut - if it's telling you to walk away, do it now. This is your house, money, future, not anyone else's.

And yes, agree with PP who says sell yours regardless and move into rented. It's a buyer's market with the stamp duty reduction and you might find you won't get as much interest or the same offer if you leave it.

You can pull out but if I were the seller I'd be so cross. You knew these things at the outset and its wasted 8 weeks where the seller could have completed with someone else

Go and have another look before you decide. You got a real feeling it was the right house for you when you viewed it before - I’d trust that feeling! How you feel now is typical during the buying process in my experience.

I think an east-facing garden would be lovely. Our garden faces north so I was scared it’d be dark all day, but it’s lovely. Stays shady near the house so it’s cool in summer, plus it’s blazing sunlight from halfway down the garden right to the end. So we just planted sunny stuff up there, and shade-loving things like bluebells near the house.

Op, you must do what's best for you, but word of warning to be careful:

We compromised on a few things to buy our place, its not my dream but it ticked the non-negotiable boxes re: size and location.

I kept my Rightmove alert up though (glutton for punishment!), and NO better properties, or even as good properties, have come on the market in the last 6 years.

It turned out, as I probably knew deep down, that we couldnt afford to tick all our boxes.

Why have you waited so long (and are still waiting) to tell the sellers? Of course they will be annoyed especially if that means they lose a property they might have put an offer on and the estate agent certainly won't consider you a trusty buyer from now on so you will probably have to give that particular agency a miss.

Also, I think location is always the main factor when looking at a property. If you can't afford a bigger/nicer property in that area I don't see anything wrong with buying what you can afford and doing a bit of work on it.

It is unlikely that if you have a lower budget you will find a house that meets all your requirements in the perfect area anyway...

Frankly make up you mind and tell the seller ASAP, they don't need to have more of their time wasted....

As you’ve already been looking for a long time, maybe you need to accept that house buying is not always love at first sight, and there are compromises to be made. Our purchase fell through due to our sellers, but we sold to our buyer and moved into rented.

I looked round hundreds of houses and the more I looked, the pickier I got - I wanted all the ‘nice bits’ of various houses but nothing ticked every box. Being in rented was expensive and frustrating in a rising market - in the end I saw a house which definitely had compromises, but which had some pluses - it was detached and in a nice location. We went for it, knowing it was a practical house and we knew we could sell it if we wanted to in a couple of years. I hated in when we first got the keys.

Now, four years later, I wouldn’t be anywhere else, I love it. It’s near the train station so the teens are independent, we have expansive green land within walking distance. We did a garage conversion and put down new carpet, we bought new furniture and we love the fact that area is quiet and our neighbours are friendly.

I have no idea which direction the garden faces, but I’m saying that the more you look, the further away ‘The One’ becomes. Location is everything, buying the worst house in the best area is miles better than the other way round.

Be realistic about the alternative possibilities, if you definitely think you can do better then pull out - but second thoughts are normal. I’m assuming you will have made a stamp duty saving in the interim period, so practically if you move and hate it, you could move again without it costing more than you were originally expecting.

Our neighbours pulled out of selling due to taking the wrong advice (older people) and were barred from even going into that EA afterwards They made a genuine mistake which they regretted
It is a large agent in a small town
What is worse when they genuinely tried to move again another agent sold for them but the first agent would not let them
buy from them So another agent
lost a sale and so on
The system is based on trust as far as I can gather nothing legal
till contracts exchanged
What was such pants was that the first agent even sold it knowing they had nowhere to move to Rubbish