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HOME SELLERS BEWARE RETURN OF GAZUNDERING

Many more estate agents are faced with calling their clients to tell them buyers want price cuts

Wednesday May 7,2008

By Chris Torney

MOST potential home buyers would consider threatening to pull out of a property transaction at the last minute in order to force a seller to cut their asking price.

New research from financial website Fool.co.uk found more than 50 per cent of buyers would try to force down the price of a house just before exchange of contracts — a process known as gazundering, as opposed to gazumping, in which a vendor chooses to sell to a rival buyer at a higher price.

However, most would-be gazunderers said they would only employ the tactic if their own purchaser did the same, or if they felt property prices had declined significantly over the course of the sale.

Donna Werbner at Fool.co.uk said: “Falling house prices create a terrible moral dilemma for buyers.

“If they don’t gazunder, they could potentially find their property has fallen in value before they have even bought it.

“People may think the practice of gazundering is unethical or even immoral. But homeowners have benefited from astronomical increases in house prices over the past decade, and are trying to sell at the peak of the market.

“If the seller’s property is no longer worth the amount that has been offered, then maybe holding the other party to the original offer is not all that honourable or admirable either.”

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