Making an offer on a house already under offer

[bettyboo4]

We’re first time buyers with no chain and viewed a house in last year that is our dream house but because of my fiancés work and family/life issues we had to hold off the buying process for a few months.

The house had been on the market for over 5 months before going under offer 2 weeks ago. Shoot me but we called yesterday to put in an offer for the full asking price, cheeky I know and I do feel bad but alls fair in love and property until contracts are exchanged any why shoulder the owner get the best possible price for their property. Not something I would have done on just any house but for us personally this house ticks every single box and more and I genuinely know if we don’t get it we won’t get close to this again.

The house price is higher than most in the area because of the street it’s on and has less/ smaller rooms than other houses that are cheaper in the area (but perfect for us). I assume that’s why it was so hard for them to sell given the price. The owner told us they had an offer on the table for 10k under the asking price and given it was on the market for so long I assume (only assume but they might be wrong) they’ve had to accept a lower offer.

The estate agent sounded shocked and said this doesn’t usually happen but also sounded surprised we was putting in an offer for the full asking price. What’s the likelihood they will accept given we have no chain and potentially a higher offer? Waiting for a call back from the estate agents today after them putting our offer to the owner 😬🤞🏼

@MyDeepZebrathey clearly accepted as they wanted to sell their house after being listed for almost half a year. If it was a fair offer they wouldn’t have accepted ours.

Well, don't you sound nice (not just talking about the gazumping but your subsequent unpleasant posts on here).
One day, Karma will strike you. Please come and post on here when it does.

They got greedy, shafting people in the process. Not people I’d trust.

They never do that. But sometimes silence is just as powerful. I've seen it happen in lots of unreasonable threads on here 😂

That argument doesn’t even make sense.
They accepted your offer because they are greedy and have questionable morals, just like you.
Don’t you care at all the prospective purchasers may have already paid out for survey and conveyencing fees?

Well @bettyboo4 I can see why you didn’t post on AIBU.

@PickettyPick I don't suppose she gives one shiny shit. Apparently, "all's fair in love and property."

@bettyboo4 "Luckily the owner doesn’t feel that way and we wasn’t buying from you" It's "we WEREN'T buying."

"Might start a bidding war now but hopefully not."
Hopefully yes, and you'll see just how morally sound your vendors are.

Again...that's not how it works (less than 6 months isn't that bad for the housing market, at present...it's pretty good in fact).

They were happy to accept the offer. It was fair.

All this proves, is that they, like you,
have poor moral values.

And someone could easily gazump you. Because the vendors have such low morals.

I really feel for the people who had an offer accepted, paid out for surveys/conveyancy, whose chain may now fall apart, they may have ordered furniture, have kids that were reliant on local schools etc. Nightmare.

The situation you described happened to a neighbour of mine. As someone who has bought and sold several houses over the years I personally despise gazumping (it’s a stressful enough process as it is) and wouldn’t have entertained your offer. But back to my neighbour, the house went to sealed bids, the gazumpers put in the highest price and won the war (£30k over asking on a £750k house), sale fell through as the gazumpers couldn’t get the mortgage for that value, meanwhile another house on the street goes on the market (at a much lesser value, house half the size), the originally bidder purchased that, sale went through quickly, they submitted plans to extend - the people who lost out now have the nicest looking house on the road, the original house is still on the market. Love it when karma wins 😬

It hasn’t gone the way you hoped OP, has it?

It may be legal, but it’s morally dubious.

If I were the other purchaser, I’d have expected the agent to remove the property from selling sites, once it went under offer.

Depending on the price 10k under asking may not be that much, unless it’s a low value house.

You have demonstrated disdain for the other purchase, who will have already spent money they can’t recoup. Many sales fail to go through, people pull out at late stages, but that’s because something has gone wrong. We pulled out of a sale recently, when the purchasers lied about their ability to buy, after twelve weeks.

You never know, the original purchasers might outbid you and then you’ll have the bidding war you didn’t want.

You are going to get flak on here because so many people will have encountered the horrible side of the English property market.

My 80 year old mum lost three buyers who were clearly just jerking her around. One simply ghosted the agent, and got in touch a month later to apologise they had “gone on vacation for a month and dropped their phone down the loo” so they “couldn’t” get in touch.

So I would never trust ANYONE in a property sale, least of all the estate agent.

What you did isn’t nice, but a large number of people would do the same.

We had this happen - we were gazumped. The gazumpers pulled out after a bad survey. We didn't trust the vendor at all because we knew if he'd done it once, he'd do it again so we didn't buy. And he didn't sell and had to take it off the market.

If the vendor is happy to fuck over one set of buyers, they're going to be happy to do it again.

My understanding from the first post is that the estate agent did take the house off the market when the first offer was accepted. But unless things have changed, I thought estate agents were obliged to pass on all offers to the vendors, so I don't think the agent's behaviour in unscrupulous. However, I think the vendor and OP have behaved very badly and deserve each other. I could never have been involved in gazumping when I've bought and sold property.

Presumably it was taken off the market when the first offer was accepted. Therefore immoral to then accept a higher offer. Esp if the other buyer had started the process with solicitors, surveys etc.

We're in the process of selling my late in laws house and I couldn't sleep at night behaving like that!

The amount you're trying to justify your actions in your OP tells me you know what you did was wrong, but you don't give a fuck anyway. I despise buyers like you, and sellers like your vendors, who screw other people over like this. Hopefully karma will strike you both along the way.

Mean girl vibes.

Very foreboding start to a new life in a new house. Some houses remain tainted. Bad karma and bad energy, but best of luck anyway, at least you are happy for now.

Yes, OP has posted in order to find validation for her actions. She knows it's a nasty approach and wants us to help her with the denial; make her feel better about doing the dirty on another person.

Really shitty behaviour.

We have been gazumped twice, once 3 days before exchange. Neither time did it work out well for the vendor (buyers couldn't actually raise the funds) and both came back to us later to see if we were still interested. We weren't, because moving house is stressful enough without dealing with people who would do that. Both times we found better houses, so it worked out well for us in the end.

It is not something I would ever do and actually op, you have no idea what the searches/valuation etc will turn up or whether someone else will come in and offer more, so I wouldn't crow too loudly yet, you've a long way to go.

I wouldn't have done it, but your posts do indicate a certain personality type, so there you go. It's odd and a bit weird to me that you would gazump someone and then blame them for not offering enough in the first place (which is not how buying houses works!). You seem to have no empathy with people who will be absolutely devastated today, and who will already have sunk money into their purchase.
I mean, you could have done it and had empathy at the same time, but you can't even muster that.

Bloody hell, this is awful. Your poor mum.

I would expect any decent agent (not that there are many IMO) to refuse this, rather to take your details and let you know if the original deal falls through.

I assume this England? The whole conveyancing process needs an overhaul. It's so antiquated and long winded.

Hopefully karma will come around for the OP