The colour of their money is the same - even lawyers, accountants and bank managers buy houses.
As prices are now starting to fall in some areas, you may find that this was not that bad an offer.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
OK..
But are you comparing like for like? Are the others nearby selling?
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
The situation we were discussing was where a buyer had put in an offer, which I had accepted, having assured myself *as far as possible* that the buyer was genuine, and then reneging on the deal in favour of a higher offer. That is cheating in my book. What is *not* cheating is when you tell your would-be buyer, i.e. prior to accepting his offer, that you have had another offer and therefore cannot yet accept his offer until you have had time to check the genuineness of both offers. But I assert that once you have committed to one of them, then you are morally obliged to follow it through. If not, a handshake is worth nothing today.
MM
But you do have people paying way over the Offers Over price, i.e. a stab in the dark, in an attempt to secure the property of their dreams. There must be an awful lot of disappointed buyers in Scotland!
MM
Not really. The fish preparing to spawn swim up river. The female lays eggs in depressions she digs in the gravel and the male comes along and fertilises them. Then the female covers them. That's as close to sex as it gets.
Then 95% of the spawning fish die and decompose.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Fine, but it's unnecessary to get into that situation in the first place. A verbal offer is only a verbal offer.
This is the whole point. Acceptance should be at the point of signature on a contract, not on a handshake in house buying and selling. There are far too many reasons outside the control of both parties that could cause the sale to fall through. Then all that happens is that people get upset, embarassed and call each other cheats. If you stick to a first to the post arrangement, that is a far more sensible approach because the rules are crystal clear and there is a moment in time when other bets are genuinely off.
The problem is one of applicability. It is not totally within your control or the buyer to complete the deal until all of the due processes have been completed. If you are giving a commitment before that, you are taking a risk on something that you or the buyer may not be able to fulfill.
Of course handshakes are worth something. It is a question of applicability.
I do business and agree things on handshakes with people all the time, but only when I know them really well and have an ongoing business relationship with them. Even then, I make sure that any caveats on either side are discussed and in the open. From this I can make an assessment of when and if a piece of business will proceed. Sometimes a business partner will say that something will happen; other times that they think it will happen and other times that they will try to make it happen. I make sure that I have a common understanding as to what that means, and if the business doesn't happen we certainly don't lose trust or fall out.
With house buying and selling, one is mainly dealing with complete strangers who may not have an appreciation of what is involved and are not good at assessing other strangers who in turn may do unpredictable things.
To agree things to be in some way "binding" (even morally) under those circumstances is inappropriate and unnecessary. All that you achieve is to raise expectations, which can fall by the wayside in a second through the actions or inactions of others around the periphery.
I am not saying that one shouldn't be straightforward in dealing with others, but one should use appropriate qualification of buyers and be cautious about what is agreed and on what basis. A long as everybody understands the basis of the discussion there is no problem,
It's naive to do otherwise with property transactions.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
MM must be a troll. Nobody is that thick.
Lets end this posting .
In message , sid writes
I was beginning to think this aswell, persistently taking a contrary view to any idea presented, even to the point of reading posts in such a way as to find an opportunity to post a contrary view..
However, he does have a current interest in the property market, so benefit of the doubt may prevail.
I must admit that when I first became an estate agent, I believed that every buyer and seller were honourable, and took their word at face value. As time went by, I learned that this was somewhat naive and, as more time went by, I actually reached the point where it was difficult to believe any body until they actually proved themselves to me.
As a matter of interest, Richard, was this because they deliberately set out to mislead or had rose tinted spectacles about what they and others could achieve?
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
No. Nothing is selling!
MM
Anything that close would be fine by me!
Yes, but what a way to go! Don't tell me you've never envisaged that Goldie Hawn scene?
MM
Well, there ya go! We have uncovered the virulent nest of vipers that are endemic throughout British life, haven't we just! Can't we all just get along without cheating each other?
MM
That's because you can't get your head around what I am saying. People have always shot the messenger when they didn't like the message!
MM
OK. So that tells you that they are all at too high a price, or that nobody finds the area or properties attractive, or that we are at the end of the summer and people are not quite yet interested in property.
It depends on how keen you are to move quickly. If you are not, then seeing what happens during September and deciding at the end of the month seems sensible. Obviously keep an eye on what other prices are doing and react accordingly.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
The trouble is that nobody else thinks that this is cheating. Not because they are of a reptilian nature, but simply because it isn't unless you paint yourself into a corner by promising things upon which you may not be able to deliver.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
I feel that the Govt is to blame for all the panic they have sown in the market. Remember Mervyn King preaching doom and gloom? And the interest rate rises have frightened away first-time buyers, the very ones likely to be interested in my property. It is dire. I hear that property prices actually fell in August, for the first time in two years. Oh, well. It'll be the Govt (and the tax payer) who will have to fund the temporary rehousing of dispossessed families.
MM
In message , Andy Hall writes
I could write a book about it, (but cant be bothered ).
Heres a few:
1) Buyer says its a cash purchase. I ask if he's got the cash in the bank. He says yes.2 weeks, or 6 months later, (or whatever), after lots of chasing and being reassured that all is OK, a building society surveyor turns up.
Never had cash in the first place.
This lead me to ask most people who said they had cash to prove it with a bank statement or building society book or similar. Some showed it without hassle. Others got really offended. Of those who got really offended, where we took their word, didnt have the cash.
2) Buyer says he's got a mortgage.3 weeks later we find that lender wont lend due to some financial reason.
There was a period where one of my colleagues would come up with a Buyers or Sellers "Phrase of the Week", one of these was "I've got my mortgage".
3) Buyer says this is my offer, and I definitely wont negotiate after survey.3 weeks later - buyer is back to negotiate several thousand pounds off due to "normal" things in a survey.
4) Seller says they have decided not to sell their house. 2 months later, we find out that someone who we introduced has bought it, (In most of these case, I started legal proceedings, or actually went to court, and got paid).5) Seller agrees and signs a sole agency agreement, but doesnt want a for sale board. 2 weeks later we find that they are on the market with several estate agents.
6) I lost count of the number of people who decided not to sell or buy, due to a death in the family. I am sure that this was sometimes true, but I can recall a few whose father, mother, grandparent, had died 2 or 3 timesI could go on.....
1), 4), and 5), are definitely misleading. 2) and 3) could be naive, or could be deliberate attempts to gain the chance to purchase, knowing full well that they may not be able to.I would suggest that the parties to almost every house sale/purchase, are on tenterhooks until exchange of contracts, for fear of the deal not proceeding, either at all, or at the agreed price. Clearly, there are many genuine reasons why a deal may not proceed, but there are also many devious reasons.
The message from Andy Hall contains these words:
That figures. Sid's not alone in detecting a fishy whiff.
Janet.
OK, so fibbers and timewasters. One wonders what they hope to achieve.
The guy is probably naive, or hasn't done his homework..
Buyer is playing a game, or is again naive and in the cooling off period thinks he has offered too much - the survey is a perfect way to slippery shoulder the blame.
Seller thinks you're stupid. He's again the naive one.
Seller thinks you're stupid. As above.
This is so silly. You probably wouldn't mind if people just said that they had changed their mind. Why they feel it necessary to put the blame (if there indeed was any) on something like this, I don't know. A form of saving face, I guess.
I'm not sure that I understand why people would want to enter into a prospective purchase knowing that they can't meet the price, unless they hope that they get some way down the track and can reduce the price, e.g. on survey, when the vendor is further down the track on their purchase and doesn't want the sale to fall.
All of which illustrates that whether for genuine, stupid or nefarious reasons, a sale isn't a sale until exchange of contract and that setting or perceiving higher expectations is probably unwise.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
This sorry saga is hardly surprising in the cheating, lying environment we call "society" today. Advertisers regularly use spite, humiliation and malice as the message in their commercials, e.g. why not steal a few extra chips off your girlfriend's plate? Why not steal a child's toy to get a paint match? Why not steal a kid's crisps? They're supposed to be "humorous reflections of life as it is lived", but they are just sick, sad comments on the society we have created, the advertisers being the sickest and saddest for exploiting it just to sell more chips, paint or crisps.
At least I am trying to do my bit, and can only hope that others will, too. Call me naive, but someone has to make a start on sweeping out the Augean Stables.
MM
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