Property gone sale agreed but significant jump in sale prices may mean a change of mind.

A

Acorn22

Registered User
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Hi,

I went 'sale agreed' in May on a property we own. Its been on the market since February. It went 5 grand under the asking price. It is currently unoccupied but my spouse uses it as office. It is costing us approximately 900 a month to keep it (the house) going.

I have noticed a significant jump in house prices in our area.

Contracts have not been signed and my ad is still on daft. Enquiries continue to roll in (slow rate -one every couple of weeks). Should I ask the purchaser for a few more grand (the asking price) or leave it go as any future money we make may be eaten up by current mortgage on property due to starting from scratch again with the sale process?

Thanks
 
Well personally I would tend to move along the lines of you agreed a price with this other party which you were happy with and should stick to the agreement even if contracts haven’t been signed as of yet.

Also if you’re only talking about a couple of thousand it may not be worth the risk of the sale falling through should the purchasers decide not to follow through.

At the end of the day it’s up to you as to whether or not you believe it is worth the risk or if you have any qualms about pulling out of an agreement.
 
kingvagabond said:
I have noticed a significant jump in house prices in our area.
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You've noticed a significant jump in asking prices.


kingvagabond said:
Should I ask the purchaser for a few more grand (the asking price)
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You are within your rights, but it's kind of bad manners.


Unless you get an unsolicited offer that is five figures more I would stick to Plan A.
 
Over the years I have heard/known and involved in property sales/purchases where, before contracts have been exchanged, either party can and have pulled out of agreed sales/purchases for trivial or non existent reasons.

At the end of the day it is your property and of course you want to realise it's full potential.
BTW I think an agreement to buy made last May that it would be usual for contracts to have been exchanged by now.
However we don't know if the offer was accepted the 1st or the 31st of May.
 
Doesn't appear that the buyers are fretting so you would be in your rights, given passage of time, to withdraw from the sale
 
SparkRite said:
Over the years I have heard/known and involved in property sales/purchases where, before contracts have been exchanged, either party can and have pulled out of agreed sales/purchases for trivial or non existent reasons.

At the end of the day it is your property and of course you want to realise it's full potential.
BTW I think an agreement to buy made last May that it would be usual for contracts to have been exchanged by now.
However we don't know if the offer was accepted the 1st or the 31st of May.
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Thanks for reply. Holidays are getting in the way of things moving on.
 
Nordkapp said:
Doesn't appear that the buyers are fretting so you would be in your rights, given passage of time, to withdraw from the sale
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Going sale agreed in May (which at worst case scenario is 8 weeks ago) is hardly an excessive amount of time prior to contracts being signed.
The OP hasn’t stated if they or the purchasers are currently the ones stopping proceedings. Without knowing where the property is located and also what the agreed price is it’s also very difficult to even speculate on whether or not any of the single enquiries every couple of weeks are even serious purchasers or just somebody interested in viewing before moving on.
As I said before I’m of the opinion that for a small increase the risk of the sale falling through, which would lead to starting the process from scratch and is no guarantee of an increased offer next time, is not worth the potential upside.
 
Eireog007 said:
As I said before I’m of the opinion that for a small increase the risk of the sale falling through, which would lead to starting the process from scratch and is no guarantee of an increased offer next time, is not worth the potential upside.
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I agree up to a point.
We have very sparse information to go on, so we don't know whether it is a 'small increase' or not, but what we do know is that the sale has NOT progressed from May. So to my mind would not be a hell of a lot different to 'start from scratch' again. It's akin to being in Limbo at the moment.

If I was the vendor, I would be pushing to get contracts exchanged next week or it's going on the market again.
 
kingvagabond said:
I have noticed a significant jump in house prices in our area.

my ad is still on daft.
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kingvagabond said:
Enquiries continue to roll in (slow rate -one every couple of weeks).
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I don't think you have any cause to ask for 5k extra unless you have an offer from another party. If your house is significantly undervalued vs other properties in the area I would expect more interest. Now perhaps when people make enquiries the agents tell them its sale agreed, which stops any further offers.

Agents have different strategies for asking prices.
 
SparkRite said:
I agree up to a point.
We have very sparse information to go on, so we don't know whether it is a 'small increase' or not, but what we do know is that the sale has NOT progressed from May. So to my mind would not be a hell of a lot different to 'start from scratch' again. It's akin to being in Limbo at the moment.

If I was the vendor, I would be pushing to get contracts exchanged next week or it's going on the market again.
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I don’t really disagree with you either, depending on what exactly is holding up things on the purchasers side. As you said we don’t have all of the information so it could be anything from no contact at all since going sale agreed to regular contact between solicitors that is just dragging on because of a number of niggly details in the sale (which would quite likely arise in any future sales if this is due to an issue the solicitors feels requires clarification before sign off).
I would suggest that in the vast majority of cases an additional €5k is a small increase compared to the likely agreed price, especially if the property is in Dublin.
 
The solicitors are on holidays but the last I heard everything was lined up to go over the next few weeks. Unless solicitors from other side begin taking annual leave.
 
kingvagabond said:
The solicitors are on holidays but the last I heard everything was lined up to go over the next few weeks. Unless solicitors from other side begin taking annual leave.
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Ah ok I understand, in that case it seems that everything is in motion and it’s just your solicitors being on annual leave causing the blockage.
In my view then the purchasers are engaging in good faith and the sale will be agreed as soon as your solicitor returns.
In the end it comes down to if an additional 1% or so is worth the delay or potential loss of the sale.
 
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Surely your word is worth something
You *went sale agreed* .in other words YOU agreed to sell at that price.

Have a think of how you might look at it from the opposite angle...
 
Personally speaking if it was me I'd be honouring the the deal that I've made with the purchaser
If you couldn't get the asking price the first time is there any guarantee your going to get a new increased asking price??
Now if the purchaser starts to delay the proceedings then yes withdraw the property and relist it at a higher price

Didn't we have this a year ago but it was the purchasers looking to reduce their offers because of covid??
 
Why would the purchaser agree to increase their offer if the property is still on the market and you are not getting any higher offers?

At the end of the day, a property is only worth what a willing purchaser is prepared to pay for it.
 
How many bidders were there? What was the second highest bid?

You might gain €5k or your potential buyer might walk away and leave you facing up to a lower offer than you had.
 
noproblem said:
You either have a "word", or you don't. If you have to ask what that is, then you don't have one. Your loss in that case. Just my opinion by the way, and know what? It gets you through life with a good feeling about yourself..
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Yes a sense of integrity has to feature in all of this for me.

Another exact same property type house around the corner went for 5k more at the same time but the bidders were just not there for my property at the time (apart from 2). I'm beginning to think that luck has a lot to do with this. You either get a good bidding war or you don't. I didn't get that.

We've also noticed on the Property Price Register that the houses (different type house - semi/detached etc) in general are going about 10k over asking price. I regret not putting mine 10k over recommended asking price but there you go.

I think I'll just rock on with the cartoon - push it over the line and be done with it.

Thanks for all opinions. I was thinking along those lines and a bit torn so thrashing it out here has helped.
 
kingvagabond said:
Yes a sense of integrity has to feature in all of this for me.

Another exact same property type house around the corner went for 5k more at the same time but the bidders were just not there for my property at the time (apart from 2). I'm beginning to think that luck has a lot to do with this. You either get a good bidding war or you don't. I didn't get that.

We've also noticed on the Property Price Register that the houses (different type house - semi/detached etc) in general are going about 10k over asking price. I regret not putting mine 10k over recommended asking price but there you go.

I think I'll just rock on with the cartoon - push it over the line and be done with it.

Thanks for all opinions. I was thinking along those lines and a bit torn so thrashing it out here has helped.
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That’s completely understandable wanting to get the best price for your property but as you said it can come down to the luck of the draw sometimes how the bidding will fall.
In the end just getting the sale through and completed will be well worth it as opposed to spinning the wheel again.
Best of luck either way.
 
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