Buyers just pulled out

[Changingusernameasalways]

As the title says, our buyers have pulled out today with no reason given. I'm devastated. We had so many viewings and only they offered and I'm worried now we will lose the house we're supposed to be buying. We're in a chain and the people buying our house were the bottom of the chain and first time buyers.

Any advice on what to do now? Who do we need to tell first? Any success stories welcome!

Your agent (if they are any good) should be contacting all the previously interested parties. The only worry I might have is that if only that one offer came in from so many viewings - then your asking price might be a problem. I would have an honest conversation with your agent about where you need to be on price to get another offer in quickly to save your purchase.

Agree with the above poster word for word. Good luck

Hi, we had two buyers pull out on us. It was third time lucky and actually ended up selling for 5K more than agreed with the first buyer and kept the chain intact. That’s the success story bit….. BUT my word was it stressful!
Not sure how far along you are but we were able to placate the rest of the chain by reminding them we weren’t starting from scratch as the 2nd (and 3rd) buyers were able to buy the searches from the first ones which sped things up. Keep in contact with the agent of the place you are buying, lots of reassurance that you are doing everything you can to sort it quickly - remind them that they’d have to start afresh if they ditch you.
You need to find out why the buyers pulled out as that makes prospective viewers nervy (in fact it was a query raised by our 3rd buyers lawyers), you don’t need to be polite to them anymore: ask your agent to explain how difficult this has made your position and that the least they can do is give an explanation.
talk to your agent about his remarketing strategy. Originally our house was on at 350, we accepted a lower offer. When we went back on the market we put the price as ‘offers over 310’ as the offer we had accepted was 310. So it looked like a price drop and agent told sellers it was remarketed lower to try and save the chain (true!) but in reality we ended up with two offers both above the original 310. It also meant we were in the lower ‘zoopla search bracket’ and I’m sure that meant we got more viewings than previously.

good luck OP. I hope it works out for you.

Also I forgot to say - dont rush to tell the agents of the place you’re buying. They’ll find out soon enough and it’d be fab if you’d already found another buyer by then! Once they know the. You need to stay in close contact with them making sure they know you are super committed to the chain….

Thanks for all the words of advice. I will speak to my agent in the morning, I don't think they even know yet as the message came at 4.50pm today from my solicitors! No reason was given so I don't think it was because of anything wrong with the house specifically, especially as no surveys had happened yet. We're 4 weeks in so far so not awful but we were on the market for 4 months so feels horrible to be going back on.

I was at the point of giving the agent notice and then this magical offer came in. Think we need to switch now and have a new advert and new agent. I will look at the price but we did lower it significantly a couple of times after getting no offers at the agents valuation. I'm gutted.

@JinglingGin how long did it take to get your final buyer after you lost the first?

Ah how frustrating. Our estate agent was straight on it for us and it was sold again within less than 2 weeks - we actually ended up with 3 offers the second time! Although was awful at the time.

It was a while ago so can’t exactly remember but…we went on the market beginning of September, didn’t have any offers first few weeks. first offer accepted mid October even though it was low it was our only one in 6 weeks and many many viewings. they pulled out a few weeks later I think. We found another buyer fairly quickly I think - I can’t remember exactly how long, I think they were someone that had expressed an interest before. they strung us along for ages before pulling out just before exchange at Xmas. We then found our 3rd buyer the following weekend and things moved quickly and we moved 6 weeks later in mid Feb.

Found out today that the wife wanted to pull out as her ex husband lives a couple of streets away. She shares a child with him so I'd be shocked if she wasn't aware of this before offering.
Going back on the market with a new agent at the end of this week. Fingers crossed we have better luck. New agent thinks we are at the right price.

The positive is that the reason for them pulling out was nothing to do with you or your house OP. Phew. Now lets hope this new agent is fabulous!

Thank you, I need to be positive!

this!
also it sounds like they weren’t fully committed so better that they pull out now than further on down the line - did they get searches started? If they have you could offer to buy them and have them for your next buyer (talk to your lawyer about whether this is feasible) to speed things up.
Best Of luck with the relaunch…

I will look into whether searches were ordered. I know they paid their £500 to solicitors like we had to, which covered the search pack so I'm assuming they were. Will ask mine to find out. Thanks for the information!

I would have stayed with the same agent who held the details of all the people who viewed the house previously.

I can’t actually see what the first agent did wrong as they got you lots of viewings and the new agent agrees with their valuation. But I wish you luck in finding a new buyer asap.

I appreciate your response but they did a lot wrong including valuing our house 80k over what it ended up being offered at so we lost out on selling quickly as a result. Instead we reduced multiple times over a period of months and I was always the one ringing them saying I think we need to reduce as no one is offering. Had loads of feedback that the house was lovely but no one was wanting to buy it. You'd think they would have said we've made a mistake with the price and we need to lower it. Over 50 viewings we had and 3 offers total. 2 were not proceedable and the only one that was has pulled out.

We've gone back on with a new listing today which means all that price history is gone and will be a fresh advert with new photos. I'm sure some people who've been looking for months will recognise it but anyone new to the market will see it as new.

Ok @Changingusernameasalways with that information I can totally understand why you changed EA.