What do you do when the owners of a house tell you they’ll sell the house to you but then secretly raise the asking price?

That’s what happened in today’s story, and a friend of the potential buyers had a plan to get the sellers to lower the asking price.

Let’s see what happened…

We reverse gazumped a greedy landlord and it was glorious.

“Gazumping occurs when an agent or seller accepts an offer you make to buy a property at an agreed price but the property is sold to someone else.

This usually happens when the vendor sells the property for a higher amount.”

This happened 15 years ago and it is one of the proudest moments of my life.

OP’s best friend saved up to buy the home they were renting.

My best friend and her husband have 5 kids together. They lived in an expensive city and rented an old 4 bedroom house for $400 per week.

The house was very rundown with a disgusting kitchen and stink drains but it was all they could afford at the time. Still, they made it work.

The owner was a nice old lady who was extremely wealthy and very fond of my friend. She froze the rent for 5 years and promised to let them buy the house once they had saved enough to get a loan from the bank.

As she had helped other people in a similar way, they knew they could trust her, and so they saved every cent they could.

It took them 5 years but they finally told her they were ready.. Two days later, the nice old lady passed away; before anything was put in writing.

The new owners agreed that they would still sell the home to the family that was living there.

Enter the new owners.

The lady’s 4 children. Each extremely wealthy in their own right; they inherited a huge portfolio of properties.

When they first spoke to my friends, they assured them that the sale would still go through but they would have to wait until probate had settled.

Confident, my friends started making some changes to the place. They started by stripping wallpaper, painting and making plans.

Finally probate was settled and the owners agreed to go ahead with the sale for the previously agreed price.

The owners raised the price on the house without telling the family that had been saving up to buy it.

My friends applied for the loan but to their shock, it was refused.

The owners had raised the asking price by $80000 without telling my friends.

To make things even worse, the house would be put on the open market.

In 7 days there would be an Open House and, with the market the way it was, it would probably sell immediately.

My friends were devastated.

The situation kept looking worse and worse for the potential buyers.

They might be able to borrow enough but it would take longer than a week to get.

To make matters worse, property prices had soared recently and rents had gone up a lot whilst theirs had been frozen.

Not only were my friends going to struggle to get the money.

If the place was sold to someone else and they were asked for a higher rent or were evicted, it would be nearly impossible to find an affordable place with more than 2 bedrooms.

OP wasn’t going to let the owners get away with this.

I was scared for my friends but I was also incandescently angry.

Those greedy sods were some of the wealthiest people in the city. They were messing with a struggling family for less than $20000 each.

They didn’t need the money. It as pure greed, and it was obvious that they’d always planned to do this.

So while my friends scrambled to come up with the money, I started plotting.

OP had a plan on how to prevent the owners from selling the house.

I looked up advice on what helps to make a sale.

We needed to make the place as undesirable as possible without making my friends look like bad tenants.

Making the place look cluttered and smell horrible were just two of OP’s tactics.

Uncluttered: We moved all the furniture in from the walls, added some extra furniture and borrowed ornaments and hung a load of motorcycle memorabilia on the walls.

The place felt more smaller.

Smell: My friend boiled a head of cabbage on the stove and we sprayed ammonia around the front and back doors (because it smells like all the neighbourhood cats had been marking their territory). We also poured 2 dozen rotten eggs down the drain to make it smell like sewer gas.

OP made sure the neighborhood looked undesirable as well.

Neighbourhood: We obtained a mouldy old couch and dumped in the front yard of the neighbour across the road (with permission of course).

Neighbourhood x2: We started calling friends for help. Anybody with a loud and crappy car was asked to do a few laps in front of the block during the Open Day. The street was unusually busy that day. Everyone we knew found a reason to drive by. It was practically rush hour.

Neighbourhood x3: We called out mates from the rugby club (full contact football without any of that soft padding). A big portion of our club are very large men. The next door neighbour set up a bbq in their front yard and we offered free food and cheap beer. They came on motorcycles, wearing their roughest gear. There was quite a crowd.

One partygoer tried to tank the sale for the one person that appeared mildly interested.

A lot of people showed up for the Open Day.

Quite a few were in and out within minutes.

One lady sat in her car and watched the party next door before driving away.

The one bloke who stayed any length time, was brave enough to start up a conversation with someone leaving the party. He asked if they were often there and was told every couple of weeks or so, they have an after party morning and the party the night before was 3 doors up.

The party goer also helpfully mentioned the troublesome drains that are always getting blocked by tree roots and stinking up the place. The potential buyer left without making an offer.

OP’s friends got the house.

So my friends were the only ones to make an offer.

They still had to pay more than they’d planned but not as much as the greedy owners wanted.

My friends signed the papers and paid the deposit that day.

So when the brave buyer put in an offer of $30000 more than my friends, there was nothing the owners could do about it (strict anti gazumping laws).

I would have loved to see the owners faces when they found out.

OP put the friends’ rent in perspective.

For all the people who are saying they had cheap rent. They didn’t. $400 was the rent in 2004 and that was pretty high back then.

By the time the lady died, average rent for a house that size had only gone up by about $40.

Nowadays, 4 bedroom houses in that area go for approximately $800 per week.

It’s great that the family ended up getting to buy the house, and it’s nice how the neighbors and friends pitched in to help.

Let’s see how Reddit responded…

This reader doesn’t believe that the story is true.

Another reader praised OP for being a good friend.

This reader also loves how OP helped out a friend.

Another reader praised the neighbors for working together.

This reader pointed out that what OP did wasn’t exactly legal.

In the end, the original owner’s wishes were granted, so that’s what matters most.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.