Gazundering-not Fair, Not Moral And Shouldn't Be Legal

[spline]

It might not be pre-planned, during the selling process the buyer might find that a better house across the road has come onto the market at a lower price, therefore meaning his previous offer was over-valued. This too is an external factor that is part of the price discovery process, the opposite equivalent of your gazumper's "better offer".

I think that falls into the same category as the seller finding a new “minted” buyer and offering an updated deal prior to switching, so not particularly devilish. And is nicely symmetric wrto your example; the other pair of examples would include the seller who calculates how much the buyer had spent on survey fees and mortgage fees, and hikes the price up by about half that at the last minute. So we have four distinct types arranged as mirror pairs, one pair being very devilish and the other not.

I'm not sure what the relative numbers of the four are in practice, but I might guess that, on average, the gazundering is slightly more devlish than the gazumping.

Edited March 12, 2006 by spline

[Guest]

In the event, it could be settled with a mud-wrestling contest.

[geranium]

Gazumping appears more naturally to be part of the price discovery process – someone comes along with a higher offer and the seller takes it.

For as long as gazumping and gazundering are legal they will continue to happen. Both are part of the price discovery process. In a strong market, you will get more gazumping. In a weak market, more gazundering. There it is.

I have attempted to gazunder and I have been gazumped.

In the case of the gazundering I'd already spent around £1000 on a survey. At the time, prices were falling quite noticeably (Spring 2005, Hackney) and a lot of cheaper equivalent stock was coming onto the market, so I thought it was justifiable. For me, gazundering was part of the "price discovery process". However, you take a risk if you gazunder and I lost the house. It was later sold for about £20k more than my accepted offer. I believe the vendors went ahead and bought the house they were going to buy. They were £20k better off, delayed by only about 4 months, and I was £1k worse off for the attempt. In this particular case I didn't see it as unethical, just risky. As it is, the market has recovered in that area and I suspect that the buyers could now sell it on, if they chose, for more than they paid (although the rise in price would probably not cover the transactions costs). Gazundering may delay the sale for the vendor. It presents risk and expense to the gazunderer, as well as an earful of abuse from the estate agent. I would do it again if the conditions seemed appropriate.

In the case of being gazumped, it happened early on in the process and the main cost to myself was time (in instructing solicitors, filling in the mortgage application) rather than significant amounts of money. I thought, fair enough, I don't want to offer more for that property.

Edited March 12, 2006 by geranium

[Badlad1967]

In the event, it could be settled with a mud-wrestling contest.

With or without clothing