To feel so upset about galumping, has anyone found nicer afterwards?

[Lambzig]

Just got gazumped this morning on our dream home and cannot stop crying. I worked so hard on negotiations, sorting finances, plans for renovation on the house, not to mention the cost of the survey and architect time and all for nothing.

Is it worth selling your home and renting to make yourself a cash buyer (buyer only offered 2k more which we could have met, but seller not interested as wants cash buyer despite us having mortgage approved)?

Has anyone got gazumped and then found somewhere better?

Feel so upset, nothing else on the market at the moment.

Oh I don't think the vendor feels guilty at all. I could hear him in the background when I was on the phone to the estate agent (i knew because the estate agent said he was with the vendor now) saying "tell her tough shit".

When I was looking to move to this area in the mid-90's, a small house we'd offered on fell through.
We weren't gazumped, just told we weren't the sort of people the owner wanted to sell her house to (too common, apparently!) and she'd found some buyers more suited to the area.

I was very upset but my Mum told me these things are meant to be.
We did find a much nicer house - in the same town as the seller, so we could all be uncouth together

It has some big issues in it so is it wrong to hope that when they see it they walk away and stuff the vendor?

Good grief no!

Fingers crossed, they'll withdraw their offer and/or make a substantially smaller one on seeing that survey

Lambzig, what a horrible thing to hear him say! I think 'what goes around comes around' should be your mantra now, and I will join you in hoping that he loses the new buyer when they see the survey.

And the thing is, the buyer must be a pretty horrible person too. We didn't even view properties that were under offer because we didn't want to fall in love with one and be tempted to gazump; I don't know how some people can sleep at night really.

It sounds like they deserve each other.

Tanith, how ridiculous. I hope the estate agent didn't pass that on to you

Sell the survey and put the money aside for a party at the house you end up in.

I promise you the one you buy will be better

that kind of person would have been a nightmare the whole way tjrough the process tbh. I think you are better off without.

Our house that we lost was a project house. The house we ended up buying was much bigger, in much better nick and ended up costing us much less because it needed a lot less doing. Also in a better area. It was certainly for the best but it felt like the world was against us at the time.

What a cock, Lambzig!
Right - that house is deffo haunted.

Buying and selling is a nightmare. FWIW on the the two times I bought somewhere I lost 3 properties I really thought I wanted. Not all gazumping actually - one was I offered a day too late, one was progressing nicely until we found structural issues and I had to back out and one because the owner accepted my offer and then a month later changed her mind. And all these "losses" definitely worked in my favour - I ended up with places that were better for me in lots of ways. Take heart - your home is out there!

I think I am too emotionally involved in this move.

It's a drastic lifestyle change, we need to buy a bigger house as there is no room for our new DS, we need to be in catchment area for a good school for DD (we will be applying in jan), DH needs a saner commute, we need to release capital to pay off some debt that's killing us.

We also would like to buy a family home we would be in for a while.

It's all a bit too emotionally loaded to lose the house that ticked all those boxes.

but a project house will big issues in the survey has the capacity to be a big money pit that may have landed you worse off.

We could have never afforded our house at the money it was originally advertised at. They dropped the price into the top end of our "we will look at but only if they will take an offer" bracket. Our top price was just under 10k below what the new asking price was but the vendors needed to sell and we really wanted the house.

Sometimes everything adds up when you very least expect it. We got the house for 37k less than the asking price 2 weeks before we offered.

maybe the power of mn can find you a better house? what's your criteria? can you tell its my housework day?

Lambzig, yes it was the estate agent who told us. I can laugh about it now, and wonder why on Earth I was so upset at the time (who wants to live in an area where they're considered not good enough?!).

We went with different agents, too - a friendly local agent rather than a well-known national, notorious at one time for messing buyers about, 4 letter word beginning with M, last two letters the same...

Good luck with yours - I often growl to myself when DM comes out with her predictable "It was meant to be..." but, if I'm honest, she's usually right.

I take your point Tanith, but I'm not very good with "meant to be", Its a bit passive for me. It doesnt sit well with some pretty tough things i have been through.

The trouble with the house search is that we want to live in a specific town, walking distance to the town centre, in a period property and there is nothing else on the market at the moment within £100k of our higher or lower budget. In fact the only thing at all in our price range is a hideous but enormous bungalow which i really cant do. I guess we are just going to have to wait for something to come on, I am no good at being patient

Have you been inside the bungalow, Lambzig?

You never know - for a few years you might be able to hack it.

I see you've got period property as one of your requirements, and of all the requirements, it's the most disposable.

I know you're emotionally involved - could you take a step back and imagine you're talking a friend through this?

Oh and Tanith I used to live in a posh bit of London where two neighbours had sold off a bit of their substantial gardens of their enormous houses for development. I lived in one of the row of five terraced houses that had been built there.

The owner of one of the houses that sold their garden continually acted as if she still owned it all. I remember her telling me that it must be lovely for 'someone like me' to be allowed to live on such a lovely street and I should be grateful to her for allowing it (err, I bought the house) She thought she had the right to tell me where to park, what to plant in my garden and even what colour curtains I should have as she had to see it all from her back windows. She used to drop little notes through our letter boxes telling us this stuff and saying she knew we would be grateful for a pointer from her as she appreciated we might not know the right way to behave. I used to think it was funny (not sure I would now), but one of my neighbours ended up reporting her to the estate committee. I often wonder if she has an asbo by now.

Haven't been gazumped but did have the owner of what we thought might be our dream house, turn round and say she wasn't going to sell to us at the last minute.

It turned out to be a godsend as we moved into a stop-gap house (only had a few weeks to find somewhere to live) which actually turned out to be a wonderful home for 3+ years.

We met some wonderful neighbours - one family we have become very good friends with and another couple who recommended the school our DC are now at (and which i probably wouldn't have looked at otherwise).

Minou, I think for us a big point of moving is to get a house that we love that can be a family home in an area we like. I would rather not move than compromise on that.

I dont want to spend the best part of £55k moving costs (SD, EA fees, solicitors and removals) on moving to somewhere that I would want to move on from ASAP and have to fork that out again in a year or so. Also we need some location stability for schools.

We don't HAVE to move, our house is too small, but people live in smaller with two DC. We could just have a lean couple of years then extend it.

The two RL friends I have texted about this today both came back with sympathy and told me not to compromise as I wouldn't be happy.

In that town, there is period property in and near the town centre, then moving out of town there are 60s estates which really aren't for me, then further out some new build which is too far from town. Lots in the surrounding countryside, but we don't want that. We looked at masses of places before deciding on that town too.

When we were first looking here there were three potentials on the market, one was too cottagey, one we just missed out on and the one we offered on. I suppose I have to hope something else comes up.

Have you looked at auction properties?

Part of my job is helping and advising people get their homes, (then rebuilding, restoring and maintaining)

In this area, I would certainly advice that you get rid of one house before attempting to get your new home, you would be very unlikely to get an offer accepted, if you have another to off load,

Quite a few of my clients are people moving to the area, and find they need to rent until they can make offers, demand out strips supply, so any seller is only going to entertain offers that come with no complications.

Something that happens here with increasing regularity is lower offer being accepted , which is extremely frustrating for those who are offering more, people do this for a variety of reasons, some social engineering, some because of cooperation.

A lot of properties in this area never go on the open market, people tend to register an interest, then when the owners eventually want to sell (sometimes years later), they contact the interested parties directly, who put in bids.

We have a lot of people waiting for the right property to become available, usually a lot of compromises have to be faced.

Any signs of heel dragging (such as surveys) would eliminate you from the process.

Wow quote, what county is that (as obvs you don't want to say where). I know of a couple of private estates in London where that happens (the private sale, not the social engineering).

I don't think that is the case here. The house we were buying had had one offer fall through post survey, then sat on the market for nearly three months before we offered. I think we have just been unlucky.

If the new buyer drops out and the seller gets back to you should say "Of course I still want to buy the house but I'm only willing to pay £50k less than my previous offer now".

It's not so much the county, but a particular bubble in it,

On the social engineering, mostly it is people refusing to sell to second home owners, as it kills the community. We do have another types going on, but on the whole it is positive, but a few worrying ones.

Estate agents don't get much of a look in, in our particular village, as if you do open it to open market, a card on the local shop notice board will get you half a dozen buyers in the first 24hr.

Most people letter drop through properties they are interested in, usually a flier type thing, asking if anyone would like to sell,

Our newest neighbour in our hamlet letter dropped for six years until someone decided to sell. They consider themselves luck to have found someone to sell.

We get at least a couple of letter drops a week.

Our sellers pulled out at the last minute (divorced, he wouldn't sign the papers). We decided to go ahead with selling our flat and moving into a rented flat. Our logic was that we had a great price for the flat and having a good buyer was a bonus, and that because we would only ever buy a project (dh is an architect) we were putting ourselves in the strongest possible position for auctions or as cash buyers. We also reasoned that we would be living in a rented flat whilst doing the work to tr project. It all fell into place - we booked a fuck it holiday, then dh found a perfect project house and our offer was only accepted because we were cash buyers. Location is far better than house %231 in a street we never dreamed we could afford. We had been ttc for over a year. Dd was born 9 months after our holiday and 6 weeks after we moved to our perfect house, finished and amazing.

If you are definitely looking for a project why don't you sell and rent in the right catchment area for your dd to get into the right school?