Source: http://www.fool.co.uk Homebuyers, especially first-time buyers, have spent a long time feeling powerless in the property market.First it was a challenge to save a deposit due to house price inflation, then there was the tricky business of making an offer as the asking price was exactly what the seller expected to get. After that came gazumping, where a seller accepts an offer but then later accepts a higher one from someone else. It's been going on across the country in the last few years and many first-time buyers have lost thousands of pounds in solicitors' fees. The balance of power has shifted and the buyer - particularly the first-time buyer - is now not priced out of the marketl. According to The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the gap between asking and selling prices is widening, with houses selling at an average of 9% below the asking price. Sellers in the North are being forced to accept 12.5% off their advertised price. A massive 82% of chartered surveyors reported that the gap had widened in the last two months between asking and selling prices in the region So how much should you offer below the asking price of a property? It is possible to get more localised information by looking at the records of other sales in your area. Hometrack is a property company that provides statistics on the market as a whole, as well as specific data relating to certain postcodes and even properties.  More information you can gain the better it is invaluable when it comes to making an offer. But, as with any negotiation, it all depends on how much you want a property and how much the seller needs to sell. Say you make an offer on a property that is more than the asking price and that offer is accepted. Your seller is in a chain and is holding up the sale, possibly through no fault of their own. In the meantime average property prices in your area are falling, perhaps significantly. Are you justified in gazundering, where you tell the seller further down the line that you are reducing the offer they initially accepted? They may have declined other offers or taken the property off the market and have no choice but to accept your lower offer in order to stop their chain collapsing. According to a recent Fool.co.uk survey of 1,240 people, 58% of Fools think gazundering is unethical yet, if pushed, 94% would still force the price of a house down at the last minute. At the end of the day, whether or not you agree with the practice of gazundering, it is not illegal - and it is certainly coming back into fashion.