In spite of a shortage of supply in the UK property market, the quantity of UK purchasers being gazumped has fallen the past 10 months. According to an earlier report by propertywire.com, " Gazumping has fallen by 40 percent since October 2014." Gazumping is defined as a situation wherein a buyer makes a higher offer for a house than someone whose offer has already been accepted by the seller and thus succeed in acquiring the property as stated in a report by propertywire.com.
Basically, when someone experienced gazumping, that purchaser has just been swindled. Gazumping generally means that there is a verbal agreement with an agent or seller to buy a property at an agreed price but the property is not sold in the end due to the price being changed as stated in a report by fairtrading.nsw.gov.au.
Last year, 22 percent of all homeowners had been gazumped during their property acquisition. On the other hand, this has now reduced to 13 percent, particularly in Brighton which is no longer the gazumping hot spot with a fall of 68 percent in the practice as further reported by royaldockside.com. Although London has received a higher percentage of investors coming in, the city was also affected. Gazumping is also down in London by 46 percent with just 17 percent of buyers in London having experienced gazumping first hand as stated in a report by propertywire.com. This could probably due to the prices and demand that have levelled out for the past months.
Another affected area is Sheffield. It is even called as the fresh gazumping capital of the UK. Some 29 percent of buyers in the city have been gazumped when looking to purchase a property, an increase of 25 percent over the last 10 months as reported by propertywire.com.
It wasn't always like this for the region of Sheffield. The region has seen a stable increase in demand, higher by 35 percent overall. According to an earlier report by propertywire.com, "This is almost certainly the main contributing factor to the increase in gazumping, as desperate buyers scramble to get a foot on the ladder by any means possible."
No one is entirely sure as to the reason for the higher percentage of gazumping in the regions of the UK. Other cities where gazumping is still more prevalent despite a drop are Birmingham at 17 percent, Leeds at 16 percent, Manchester at 15 percent, and Brighton at 11 percent. At just 2 percent, Southampton had the lowest rate of gazumping in the UK as stated in an earlier report by propertywire.com.
