About to complete a purchase...

[Red Kite]

.... so do I offer less now?

We made an offer on a house a couple of months ago that was 20k under the asking price and were not surprised when it was accepted - as even the agent said it was overpriced. However, we are due to sign contracts in three weeks time and I reckon we can get at least another 5k lopped off the price given the current slump. Wrong or what? given that having agreed a sale on our house in France the euro is struggling against the pound.

[AshfieldFOCUS.com]

This is called gazundering and while morally wrong is not illegal. If you are happy with the risk of trying to gazunder, then it is up to you. The risk being that they may say no, and pull out of the sale altogethor, therefore all that you have spent so far on the purchase would be lost.

So, the question is... do you feel lucky?

The thing is, if they accept another 5K lopped off, you still won't be happy. You will think about... I wonder if I offered 10K off, 15K off etc.

[Red Kite]

Point taken but, are there morals in the housing market these days? I think not.

[AshfieldFOCUS.com]

Everyone has some morals. Do you feel guilty if they reluctantly accept and if they are in negative equity... they have to find that difference themselves?

If it happened to you, how would you feel?

However, the choice is yours.

Do you feel lucky?

[Red Kite]

OK, lets kick this scenario to your side of the field.

For example;

You have seen a house for sale at £100,000 which, under current conditions is overpriced as for one thing, it's been on the market at this price for the last 2 years. You offer a realistic £80,000 and it's accepted.

During the period of legalities, searches, surveys etc the market drops another 10% which means you are now in the process of buying a house that is worth less than your offer. In this case your £80,000 house now has a value of £72,000.

What do you do? It is sensible is it not to purchase any item at the then market value. Am I not an idiot to stand on your high moral ground when others such as estate agents, bankers, and more recently, MPs have their snouts in the financial trough?

Do I feel lucky? Oh yes. Do I feel immoral? Oh no!

[AshfieldFOCUS.com]

I am not judging you... It doesn't matter to me what you do.

I just know that if it happened to me, I would call your bluff.

Go the other way around... the market value was going up and up. You had made an offer, since the offer, the value has gone up another 30K. The vendor now says, I want another 20K else I am pulling out. This is a form of gazumping. Not illegal, but still not nice. What would I do if I was a buyer in that situation??? I again would probably call their bluff. Why would I do that? Probably because I won't be dictated to. An offer is an offer.

I would even go so far as to counter offer... I would go the other way to their offer. If I was buying and had an offer accepted at £100K, then they said, £110K, I would say no, and for your cheek, I am now only offering 90K, take it or leave it (and vice versa, if I was selling and someone updated their offer for 10K lower, I would then put it up 10K).