A Sure Sign It’s a Buyers’ Market
Murmurs in the marketplace are telling us that “Gazundering” is back!
For those of you that don’t know, “Gazundering” (gazumping’s evil twin) is when a seller accepts a bid on their property only for the buyer to reduce their offer, just before exchange of contracts.
It’s an unpleasant tactic that’s widely employed by “huckster” quick cash homebuying companies against “distressed” sellers and now it seems, regular buyers are at it too.
For vendors that find themselves in this situation, they’re faced with a hard choice – accept the price reduction or lose their sale.
Gazundering was last seen on a wide scale in the recession of the early 1990’s and its re-emergence is yet another clear sign that the market has turned - buyers are sensing that they are now in a position to haggle.
Up until June, buyers were plentiful and in most areas of the UK would have to offer the asking price (or more), just to be in with a chance of securing the home they were after.
Not any more! The gap between “asking price” and “achieved price” is widening (and not in a good way). If you’re currently on the market and finding difficult to sell, now may well be the time to review your “guide price”.
You can find out what trend the “asking price” to “sale price” gap has been following in your area (for your type of property) by looking at the free data available from Hometrack.
So, what can you do to protect yourself in this sort of market?
The single most effective defence is to adopt a “take it or leave it” attitude to your sale. After all, buyers will only successfully be able to “chip” your price, if you’re desperate to sell.
For most vendors this means that putting in an offer on a new house, having that offer accepted and then rushing to sell their current property is probably going to be a poor strategy.
It’s an unpopular scenario but selling your house first and becoming a house-hunter second is the best way to maintain a strong negotiating position against buyers looking to take advantage of the weakening UK property market.
Tesco Throws in the Towel
After only 3 months, Tesco have called it a day on their property website. In August Tesco launched a private sale service but after a review from the OFT, they have chosen to suspend all activity.
The OFT has intimated that through their website, Tesco has been engaging in estate agency work, as described by section 1(1) of the Estate Agents Act. As such they would be required to adhere to all aspects of estate agent’s legislation – something they currently do not do.
No one knows whether the Tesco service was proving to be a success or a failure. Tesco are reluctant to comment but given that a similar service can be purchased (at a cheaper cost) from established private sale sites such as Houseweb, thelittlehousecompany and MyPropertyforSale, it may be that the whole concept was flawed from the beginning.
Initially Tesco has hoped to create a “super portal”, one that would combine listing from the all UK’s major property websites (Rightmove, Fish4Homes, Primelocation, Findaproperty & Propertyfinder).
Unfortunately none of these portals (except Fish4Homes) wanted to play ball and so the genuine usefulness of the site was undermined from the outset.
However, Welcome Home brings together lots of the above property website feeds using its technically advanced property finding service which aims to make it as easy as possible for you to find property to rent and/or buy in the UK.
Not willing to lie down and rollover, Tesco are considering whether to become online estate agents and re-launch their site with a modified offering.
If you want to learn more about selling houses privately, online estate agents and private sale websites read the Guide to Successful Private House Sales.