What is it?
Gazundering, or the process of a buyer lowering their initial offer on the previously agreed-upon sale price, is a scary concept for sellers, so how do you prevent it from happening?
Below, Nima Ghasri, Director at regulated property buyers, Good Move offers five helpful tips on how to minimise the risk of gazundering when selling your home.
Set a date for exchanging
Although not all purchases can work like this, it’s always advisable to get a potential date in place for exchanging contracts. This way, everyone has a date to work to, and it will help encourage buyers and solicitors to move quickly.
Get the survey done quickly
If you know what’s likely to come up in your house survey, it’s always a good idea to get it fixed before selling your home to help speed up the survey process. I’d also advise getting your survey out of the way as soon as you can. If your buyers are selling too, apply some pressure for them to get their survey done quickly too, so everything can move smoothly and quickly.
Be realistic and honest
You should never inflate the value of your home and you should always be honest and realistic about any repairs or damages to your property. A survey will highlight any issues, anyway, so always be upfront to help speed up the process. What’s more, if you set your asking price above where it should be, there’s more chance that a buyer might lower their offer, so be realistic about the price to help prevent gazundering.
Look out for warning signs
It’s not always easy to spot, but there are certain warning signs to look out for to prevent gazundering. For example, if a buyer offers significantly over your asking price, this can be a red flag as they might be planning to knock down that price the closer you get to exchange. Although it may seem like you’re missing out, accepting a more realistic offer can prevent you from being gazundered and losing more money later on.
Move quickly
Obviously, everyone would prefer the process of buying and selling to be quicker but to avoid gazundering you should always try to move as quickly as possible. Make sure that your solicitors can move fast and that they have all of the information they’ll need from you ahead of time and stay in regular contact to make sure they’re pushing through the sale.
Nima concludes: “Gazundering is sadly a common problem in the housing market, but there are ways of going about it and dealing with it effectively. If you’re in the unfortunate position of having an offer on your home lowered, make sure you speak to a financial advisor or your estate agent before you make any moves.
“If you think that the offer is unfair and that the buyer is just pushing their luck to see if you’ll accept a lower offer, you could try standing firm on your agreed-upon price. Alternatively, if your survey has turned up some issues with your property and your buyer thinks the property’s initial price was too high considering this, you can always offer to renegotiate the asking price. Hopefully, these tips will help anyone selling their home to avoid being gazundered.”
