Buyer is likely to ask for a discount shortly before exchange date

[Upset12345]

Hi,

We're selling our property in Birmingham at the moment and we're buying another house in Birmingham.

The owners of the house we want to purchase want a completion date of August 25th.

We agreed to do that, but our buyer is causing us massive problems.

He's already buying the propery 16k under asking price.

Initially he offered 15k under asking price, he's a cash buyer.

But after the home buyers service we agreed to a further 1k discount (although there was nothing wrong with our house).
It was just to get the sale over the finishing line.

He now says he is only willing to exchange contracts on the 21st of August.

When the estate agent asked if he could exchange a few days earlier because people have to book removal vans, he said "I don't care, I will exchange on August 21st".

On top of that he booked another viewing tomorrow at our house for a "3rd review".

He's already seen the house twice before.

He's also mentioned to our estate agent about house prices further dropping on the phone and he has sent links and articles to our estate agent describing how house prices are dropping.

Our estate agent pointed out to him that the articles are talking about the national average and can't be applied to Birmingham. They also said he's already buying the house very cheap at a good price.

What would you do in our situation?

He's in a very strong position, he's a cash buyer and doesn't intend to move into the property himself.

We on other hand have small children and I know that the other family, that's selling the house to us, also have young children.

In December our mortgage deal runs out and we would have to reapply at a higher rate :(

I'm feeling really exhausted and I've been crying a lot since we got the news yesterday.

On top of that I'm pregnant as well, so everything is a bit harder for me at the moment.

I have a bad conscience that the other family might not be able to move because of our buyer.

How did it go?

Only "a bit" racist? Well that's ok then! Yup! It's totally because they're from Hong Kong. There's a right run of them over here. Stealing our jobs, wanting to view a third time before exchanging. Ugh! Put them on the barge prison! Bloody migrants.

Upset I hope it went/is going smoothly. We viewed a third time before exchange to get a sense of costing and damage as we wanted to be prepared on moving in. I don't think it is suspicious. If anything, the U.K. is mad in that it is viewed as suspicious to want to see something you are spending so much money on!

Crikey, the HK immigrants arriving in our area have been lovely. Super well educated, very wealthy and full of drive to build businesses and extreemly polite. They put a lot of our locals to shame imo. I'm more than happy to see them arrive and lift the bar.

As I stated, it's a pattern that's been noted locally with behaviour like offering on multiple houses and then dropping off ones that won't agree to last minute reductions etc. My view is that there's one local person who is "advising" buyers looking to move into the UK (and who I suspect also just enjoys a damned good nosey around houses as well - hence the endless third viewing which was carried out by them and not the buyers themselves) and is encouraging it to happen - but it's happened more times than would be coincidence in our local area.

The other stuff - I shrugged lots of that off as not quite being clued in to how purchases run in the UK and the inevitable issues trying to communicate across timezones - but there is a definite mentality in our local area about how to handle the pre-purchasing back-and-forth stuff. Like I say - I do wonder if it's a bad-apple agent egging it all on.

I wouldn't be as happy again at the idea of a cash buyer - it rapidly became a nightmare situation for us.

No issue at all with the HK community - apparently the couple who actually bought our old house are lovely - which I'm glad for because I did like our old street and neighbours a lot. However I was warned by people when I mentioned we had the house offer that this was the situation that seemed to be happening and it did pan out like that for our sale.

I like Hong Kong people. We’ve had a big influx of them into our area and they seem like decent folks. I will say, however, it has had an impact on house sales as my friend could not for the life of him buy a house (and he was in desperate need) as every house was being bought with cash by HK people. I also notice that our already overwhelmed GPs, complete lack of any type of dentist, and overflowing schools have not been addressed. I have total sympathy with HK folks, and if I was them I’d be doing exactly the same thing, but the consequences for local communities should have been addressed better to avoid resentment.
Oh, and our house prices just keep on rising here. And no, I don’t think it’s a good thing.

Just a short update, we've exchanged on the 24th and completed and moved yesterday.

No more discounts were given and the buyer accepted that.

It was still super stressful, especially because the buyer insisted on exchange as late as possible.

The new house looks like a tip and a rubbish dump, but we're already quite happy here.

Not sure about people from Hong Kong and whether we have them in Birmingham, but we're always happy to live in a diverse area and deliberately moved to a part of the city which is mixed.

Congratulations!

We had the same thing pretty much. We insisted on two weeks between exchange and completion which led to the completion being delayed. However we still didn't get two weeks we got one and a half and had to move on an extremely inconvenient date. They actually did a valuation which was more like a survey last minute and used a dodgy surveyor who made a lot of stuff up. We made sure to have everything in place on the visit day, making it clear we were ready to remarket. We told them before the survey there would be no more negotiation. They asked for £2000 off. We said no, no further discussions. It was actually a house being bought by the daughter of a big landlord. We liked her and the mum nearly ruined the entire thing. It went ahead and we paid a firm to do a full pack and move. We were prepared not to move as the relocation was being funded by my work and the reduction meant we'd almost lose as much as we gained. It was a nightmare right up to exchange as then the buyers up the line got cold feet.

Oh that's wonderful! Really pleased for you. Good luck in your new home.

I bet you didn't bother to RTFT, but my buyer has gone ahead with the purchase at the originally agreed price :)

We have moved and are in the new house now.

So jog along

I have a couple of friends with their house sales, were being very open with sorting little jobs out, a small reduction in price; generally the buyers being a pain. Eventually when the requests came in to reduce the price further or they would have to pull out of the sale, the answer was a firm OK we will instruct the EA to remarket our house, On both occasions, the purchasers proceeded with the purchases, they were just trying it on to see how far they could push.

@CoffeeWithCheese what are you even ranting about. this is a new market and new generation and new demographic looking for property in 2023 and onwards, people can view a house as often as they want and not your oldie ways of max two viewings for 15 mins each with an agent breathing down your neck. making a huge offer into the hundreds of £thousands is madness.. no one should be making an offer on property without checking what they're buying properly. this is a new age and era, get with it or lose out