GAZUNDER

transitive or intransitive verb (Lifestyle and Leisure) In UK slang, of a house buyer: to reduce the price offered to (the seller of a property) at a late stage in the proceedings, usually immediately before contracts are due to be exchanged; to behave in this way over a house purchase. Also as an action noun gazundering; agent noun gazunderer. Etymology: Formed by altering the word gazump 'to swindle, especially in the sale of a house, by raising the asking price'; in the case of gazunder, the tables are turned so that it is the buyer rather than the seller who is in a position to do the swindling. Since the buyer comes in with a price under the one previously offered, the word under replaces the -ump part of gazump. History and Usage: It was the slowing down and eventual fall of house prices in the UK in the late eighties, after the boom of the rest of the decade, that turned the housing market into a buyers' market in which the phenomenon of gazundering could arise. No doubt the practice existed without a name for a time; the first mentions of gazunder, gazunderers, and gazundering in the press, though, date from late 1988, cropping up first in the tabloid press and later in the 'quality' papers as well. The gazunderer goes along with the asking price until days or even hours before contracts are due to be exchanged. Then he threatens to withdraw. Daily Mirror 18 Nov. 1988, p. 4 Media executive Matthew Levin, 44, and his psychotherapist wife Vivienne have just been gazundered in Hampstead. Daily Telegraph 6 Jan. 1989, p. 11 In the heat of the house-price boom I hummed and hawed about protests over gazumping, suggesting that many victims would 'gazunder' their way to a quick buck given half a chance. Weekend Guardian 13 Aug. 1989, p. 29