20% of sellers being gazundered

A shocking one in five sellers get lowballed by their buyer after having previously accepted a higher offer, research by property purchasing specialist House Buyer Bureau has revealed.

The good news is that while one in five may have been gazundered in cooler market conditions, this number has, at least, fallen.

The same survey from House Buyer Bureau found that at the start of the year (February 2023), as many as 31% of home sellers had been gazundered.

Chris Hodgkinson, managing director of House Buyer Bureau, said: “It would appear that while the market is still underperforming, an air of growing stability has at least led to a reduced level of gazundering on the part of buyers.

“That said, one in five sellers are still being subject to a lower offer, many within two weeks of their intended completion data.

“With the ability to find a buyer in a proceedable position proving difficult at present, many sellers are left with little choice but to take the hit on asking price if they want to move and, for those who don’t, there’s a high chance their sale will collapse.”

Of those to have fallen foul of a lower offer in the last six months, nearly half (47%) were gazundered within two weeks before their completion date

Three quarters (73%) of those who have recently been gazundered also stated they had no other choice but to accept the lower offer submitted by their buyers.

The main reason given for doing so was that they didn’t want to jeopardise their onward purchase (32%), while many sellers also didn’t want to waste time finding another buyer (24%) – a task that is no longer as simple as it was during the heights of the pandemic market boom.