In this city where real estate buying has long been a competitive sport and house prices are among the highest in the world, gazumping is the familiar problem.
That’s when an owner selling a property decides, at the last second, to back out of a verbally agreed sale in order to accept a late-breaking higher offer. The practice for more than a decade has been the bane of British real estate, collapsing long chains of sales each dependent on another and leaving would-be buyers in tears or shaking their fists.
Now, though, it’s payback time for fickle sellers. As Britain’s property market has taken a nosedive, with house prices collapsing 11 percent in the last year, would-be buyers have turned the tables and begun gazundering sellers. That means dropping their offers at the last second and threatening to walk away from a near-finalized deal unless the lower sale price is accepted.
In areas of Britain particularly hard-hit by falling house prices and a credit crunch that mirrors the one in the United States, almost half of all sales are now being gazundered, real estate experts say.
The tactic — which can work with a desperate seller — has its perils. Agents say some of those infuriated by gazunder attempts are walking away from deals entirely, leaving would-be buyers to start their house-hunting effort all over again.
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— Page compiled from Tribune news services
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