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 😬🤞🏼

Once the gavel is down you can’t do that as you are already way past any type of Under Offer and the buyer will have put down their 10% deposit within minutes.
The seller pays the auction fees on property auctions

Its worth pointing out I wouldn’t bank on doing this as the sellers are rarely there and if they are they keep quiet hiding at the back 😆

I know. It was analogous

What I have done when I’m interested in house that’s under offer is just say to the agent / vendor that I am very interested, and if the buyer pulls out then please let me know as I have an offer of £x (whatever that might be) that I would like to make. But I make it clear I don’t want to disrupt an existing purchase - it’s for if the buyer doesn’t buyer proceed. It’s worked twice over 30 years, and not come to anything 3 times.

I think it’s a shame to miss out on a dream home because of moral scrupulosity. The other buyers could be awful people for all you know!

And yes perfectly above board under our flawed system.

don't hate the player hate the game!

@CharlotteLightandDark 👌

@CharlotteLightandDarkWell a house like this will not come up again that is for sure. It really does ticks every box and clearly has a higher value to us personally as we would be willing to pay even more if we had to. Tbh I didn’t even question it morally as until the estate agent said this isn’t standard practice and until I was completely vilified here 😅 I genuinely didn’t know this isn’t the thing to do. I’m not a bad person, not that I need to justify that to anyone. I’m just want this house.

The only other to note is that it’s all very well saying you’d pay even more, but if you’re relying on a mortgage it’s not necessarily a view that a lender will take…. Of course, if you don’t need a mortgage then it’s fine. And also potentially makes you a more attractive buyer. I say potentially as sometimes ‘cash’ buyers are seen as riskier as they have less cash invested pre exchange. But, if you move quickly and keep the pressure up as a non mortgaged buyer you should be able to more very quickly indeed.

Hopefully, you've not collapsed a chain too.

The issue here is the amount of money has been spent by people investing in the process.

I think, until you've had a house fall through, you don't understand how bad it is and what it costs, in emotions, time and money.

I've bought and sold a lot of houses and it does rely on trust.

The less people behave in good faith, the most the processes cost as solicitors and estate agents have to factor in ever more risk. My estate agent is on the verge of refusing to sell leasehold altogether as it's so difficult these days.

Mumsnet is a really bizarre place.

There is virtually no where else where someone would loudly, proudly and bold as brass draw demand attention to the fact they weren't raised right and lack even basic manners and morals.

Then saying you where 'ignorant' or knowing right from wrong is ridiculous, any decent person with a conscience could figure out this is bad behavior.

As everyone else has said the Karma can be a nasty bitch though.

You being willing means absoloutly nothing?

By the sounds of it theres a very good chance your mortgage broker is going to slap you down to reality when they devalue the house and refuse to meet your offer.

There is a REASON first time buyers don't just buy expensive houses and offer over the standard market amounts... its NOT your money, its easy to pretend to spend the banks money but there not going to let you play fantasy.

@housethatbuiltme
Mumsnet is most definitely bizarre and people like you prove that. You have no idea who I am, my line of work, my family or anything about me to presume I was raised wrong because I made an offer on a house 😅 I have never brought, sold or even made an offer on a house to know what is standard practice and what isn’t. All I knew was we was still in with a chance so we went for it. As I previously stated

@housethatbuiltme
Willing to means financially able to. There is a reason why as first time buyers we wanted to wait to be able to buy our dream home rather than just any house to get us onto the ladder, we could have done that years ago. So thank you but a large chunk of it will not need to be mortgaged.

It will also mean you avoid stamp duty every time you move.
Try and push to get this through really quickly to avoid the SD increase in April which for a first time buyer will kick in at £300k, so lower than it currently stands @£425k. If this is relevant to you OP

@StiraboutYes thank you this was our aim.

In which case don’t fall into the trap our buyers have.
Their conveyancer left checking their finances for fraud checks till after all the searches etc. It’s standard to leave fraud checks till the end.
As you have a substantial deposit they will want to look at this for fraud and I would definitely ask them to do those checks in tandem with other stuff ie searches.

Conveyancers are snowed under at the moment so you won’t be the only one trying to beat the tax hike.
Keep pushing your solicitor to rush this through and for them to ask the sellers solicitors to do the same.
Dont ‘fall asleep on the job’ so to speak. If you keep quiet there’s always another buyer there to take up your solicitors time.

Good luck

If you can't take the opinions that arise from your actual post. It's probably best you didn't. Did you think everyone was going to have the same views as you? Enjoy the house fingers crossed for smooth sale 🤥

You don't NEED to have done something before to have empathy, sympathy, common sense and know right from wrong.

If you had basic morals you wouldn't need to be told that what you did is a shitty thing to do. Its not something you 'learn' at adult age through experience its something you know as a person who grew up in a society where other people matter too.

It might have been the aim of the people you gazumped too 😥.

When you say you didn't know this wasn't the thing to do, I'm wondering how you thought it would feel from the other side's point of view. Just because you haven't been through a process before, doesn't mean you don't consider it from all sides before acting. So I'm guessing you thought it through and considered it might not be a great thing to do. After that, you might have done a bit more research and found out it's known as gazumping and is generally looked down upon. All that you could have done before phoning the estate agent.

Ours was still showing as “Under offer” on RM after we had exchanged, completed and moved in! Then straight to “Sold”. Some EAs leave properties up there forever to make it look like they have more stock than they actually have.

Gazumping is unethical.

You have been unethical in order to get what you want.

I mean it’s not illegal to have an affair with someone else’s husband. I wonder how you’d feel if someone has an affair with your husband because he’s what they want and they wanted to have him so they did.

Just remember that next time you are on the receiving end of unethical behaviour - you basically think that unethical behaviour is OK and you have dished it out to a stranger.

House buying is horribly stressful. You added significantly to someone’s stress and I bet they are really upset.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🫶🏻

And yet they made it illegal in Scotland because it’s widely recognised as being an abhorrent thing to do - sad state of affairs when a new law has to be introduced because people
can’t be trusted to act in a shitty way isn’t it? Hopefully similar laws will follow in England and Wales before too long.

To take your other point - they could be fabulous people and it could be their dream home - and they have done everything by the book. You can dislike the player AND the game, given that the player doesn’t mind playing a morally repugnant game. I also don’t buy all this “I’ve never done it before I didn’t know it was bad” schtick. If you’re looking to make the biggest financial investment in your life to date then you make sure you know the process before you even starting looking.

Thanks @Stiraboutwill definitely be on to that.

@ArlanymorIt’s not actually “illegal” in Scotland it’s still possible just more difficult. I do not know the first buyers, it’s a business transaction and although I know it’s a personal and emotional purchase it’s nothing personal to them. If it was done to me then it would be ‘pissed’ yes but it’s just one of those things where someone else is in a better position than me, again not personal. Anything can happen during the buying process who’s to say they would have even go ahead with the sale.

Renting is exactly the same. We had to move and rent to be within the catchment area for the school we wanted for our children, there was so much interest we had to offer to pay more monthly and 6 months upfront. We had to make an offer that put us in a better position than others to secure our children’s future and we’ve only done so again. They can match our offer if they want it that much, we’ve only offered the actual asking price. If they don’t then they clearly don’t want it enough and the sellers are neither immoral or bad people for accepting a higher offer on their own house they’ve worked hard all their life for.

To all intents and purposes it is illegal because of the penalties involved. You have to legally pay the penalty - hence it is entrenched in law. And given your answer it turns out you DO know about gazumping as a concept despite feigning innocence earlier in your post. You can't predict what would have happened in the future of the sale process because you have disrupted it. It's not an excuse for acting poorly in the first place.

Renting is not exactly the same - what a nonsense analogy - it does not require the same financial investment for a start. Plus what's all this crap about: "They can match our offer if they want" - you know their financial status do you? They have access to unlimited funds do they? For all you know they offered at the absolute limit of their ability and also have children that they want to be in a certain catchment area.

It's not to do with 'wanting it enough' (that's a massively ignorant, patronising and childish assumption by the way) - it's about wherewithal. They have doubtless also worked hard their whole lives as well - but we don't all do the same jobs, we don't all have the same salary - the one advantage they had was that they were more on the ball and got in there first, and you shat all over that because you have access to more finance.

The more you post the worse you sound. Done with this thread. How awful. I initially thought you had just done something horrible, but with all of this doubling done I now think you are horrible.

Are you even barely in touch with reality? @Arlanymor already said everything that needed to be said. I'm just clinically curious by now.