There has been a significant rise in gazundering, with vendors being pressured to accept reduced offers, new research shows.

With buyer demand low compared with recent years, owing in part to higher mortgage rates, more sellers experienced gazundering last year, with more purchasers reducing their offers at the late stage of negotiations to try and pressure the seller into accepting less money, and that trend appears to be continuing into 2024.

A new survey of home sellers to have sold in the last 12 months, commissioned by Open Property Group, found that 26% had been gazundered, with a third of those reporting price chipping within two weeks of the exchange of contracts. The study also revealed that 78% of those who were gazundered decided to accept the lower offer.

When asked why, the predominant reasons given were that they didn’t want to waste more time finding another buyer (35%), they didn’t want to jeopardise their onward purchase (22%) and they didn’t want to go through the wider process of selling again (14%).

The main issue cited by gazundering buyers was issues found when conducting the survey (35%), however, 24% were simply trying to get a better purchase price, while a further 16% gave no explanation.