Owning your own home

It doesn't really matter when you've already agreed - in principle anyway - to pay the pre-lockdown price. The place is as valuable to you as it was the day before lock-down, what the market thinks is, at the point after that, mostly irrelevant.

Unless you find that you now can't finance it. In which case you come back with pretty stonking apology and a begging bowl, not a demand for 1/5th off.

Oh I agree the buyer is being a twat. Oddly so, tbh - if they wanted a chance of the discount then spinning a tale of for e.g. the bank pulling the mortgage offer and only offering 20% under etc would make a lot more sense. Just saying 20% take it or leave it invites being told to fuck off.

I think we’ll be negotiating a discount when the negotiations open up again.

I guess you didn't get far enough along to have surveys done etc.

Delicate situation and you'd need to be prepared to accept 'do you want the place or not?' as the response, and then if you proceed the vibes will be bad.

In your situation I would quit the purchase, apologise and re-start the search - at least then you can get the full effect of whatever condition the market is in. You might not win, but at least you weren't trying to have your cake and eat it.

I've become pretty obsessed with the houses opposite my flat, and just found out one was sold via ModernHouse, even more obsessed now I've seen the inside of a done up one

https://www.themodernhouse.com/past-sales/lings-coppice/

No, no surveys or anything, we’ve only had the offer accepted and not gone beyond that because the seller was being really slow about looking for her next house.

My fiancé has seen an equivalently nice property that just came on the market so we do have some other options. It’s much cheaper but in a less good location (we’d really like to stay in the village but could just about stomach moving to the nearby town) but it’s a viable backup.

I guess whatever happens we’ll have to tread lightly.

We were pretty much ready to exchange when they pulled out. Surveys and paperwork done.

Fairly undecided on what to do. If we can get another buyer quickly I'd probably still press on. It's going to be a long-term purchase and even a 20% drop in the market would still "only" be £60k difference on the mortgage I'd need.

The issue if we don't get another buyer and lose the property we want to buy is going to be the scarcity of properties on the market over the next year or two (and first time buyers wanting to buy my place).

I think it's fair for a buyer to lower their offer following this C19 crisis. Paying over market value for something immediately puts you in negative equity, which is a result place to be of something happens to you (as the buyer) that means you need to sell the house.

The problem is the none binding nature of our offer system in the UK.

There is no binding in the offers on lfgss! Forget the country.

Paying over market value for something immediately puts you in negative equity

No, it does not. NE is the situation where if you sold you would owe more to the bank than could be achieved at sale.

Well, depending on your deposit... The point is valid though.

Disagree but there you go.

Buy house for £500k pre C19 agreed price.
You put in £50k and get mortgage for £450k + buy costs of £10k
House worth 20% less - £400k

How are you not in negative equity?

You are only in NE when you sell at a point where you are in NE.

Don’t want to be in NE? Don’t sell when you would be in NE.

Have no choice? Eeeesh I can’t help you there.

To be clear, I don’t think paying over the odds for things is a great idea, but I also think trying to renege on a deal because the wider situation has changed is particularly great, either. Better to apologise, bail completely and reset.

I'm in this exact position and we were already paying 30k above the bank valuation. What to do??

Edit - sorry, to clarify, the position @Señor_Bear noted.

If the risk of falling in to an NE trap > value of the place as a home, then bail and reset.

But why reset? Out of principle?
Seems pointless. If the vendor still wants to sell and the value has dropped, it's surely better to have a buyer, then have to start again where they'll only achieve the lower value anyway.

Vendor can just say no thanks. But buyer is well within their right to ask IMO.

It's odd that everyone is so accepting of things like best and final offers, above asking etc but not so much when they market is moving the other way.

Hard Q to answer as depends on many factors. Job security and how long you plan to live there would be first obvious ones. NE becomes a problem if you require to sell whilst still being in NE, you could work out how long this might be based on repayments and see how onerous over paying your mortgage could be? Or sack it off and start again.

I'd say go in with a lower offer.

I think if I was a buyer I would be reluctant to continue on an offer that predated the current situation. That sucks for sellers, but unless there is a contractual obligation to complete there is nothing to be done.

If I was the seller I would consider trying to negotiate a mid-point, then also renegotiate on any offer I was making myself.

Yeah, it will be my first place. I'm getting on and it's taken a while to get to this point - pretty annoying if I go through with it and I take a massive hit!

I'm not planning on moving anytime soon though, and after all, I need a place to live, so it avoids me continuing to burn money renting.

Feel slightly cheeky renegotiating, but agreed a price now way back in November, and they dragged their feet for ages getting their stuff together. Was expecting to be in back in Feb... I will go back and try and renegotiate - but I haven't got the appetite to go through this process again. Too much time and energy wasted.

I think the shittiness isn't in trying to negotiate down - it's the pulling out, then coming back in with a lowball offer.

It sounds very much like they're playing a game - hoping @aggi would panic when they pulled out, and then be desperate enough to accept this offer to stop his purchase falling through.

That's an assumption, but it's hard not to imagine them (or their EAs) as smug twats rubbing their hands together.

If they'd just got in touch with concerns and tried to do it in a more transparent way it wouldn't seem the same.

But why reset? Out of principle?

I think it comes down to fact that the buyer has no information on which to base their 'discount negotiation strategy'. They are just taking a crap-shoot. 20%. What if it's not enough? What if it's too much? How would you know in such a short time? Likewise the seller has no idea what to expect. You seem pretty sure but I reckon for the next six months supply will go off a cliff and then what?

By resetting and starting again, taking a bit of time to figure out what is going to happen - because we won't really know for another six months or so - you'll get to find out, fairly and squarely, you might win, you might lose, but you didn't exploit someone else's fear in the process.

Fair points, but I see this as a transaction, and when making the biggest purchase of your life you should make sure you get the best deal you can. That applies to both sides.

Isn't NE an issue when you need to remortgage?

Yeah agree and in a market that's in a really weird place right now, why limit your 'best deal' to the one place that pre shake up you thought was the one? All sorts of options might now open up. Now is the time to lowball! But not on the place where you already looked the buyer in the eye and said £X is fair and they agreed.

Isn't NE an issue when you need to remortgage?

Yes, you'll need to find some cash to get the LTV acceptable to the bank. If you can't you are stuck on the SVR which could be expensive and risky.