Thinking you speak to a broker before viewing houses?

[avalanching]

Ok maybe not the first viewing, I understand something nice may come up which peaks interest and you want to get in quickly, but to do a second viewing on a property bringing the whole troop of family would you not have an AIP or in the very least have done an affordability test online? Hate time wasters.

Affordability calculation, yes. Agreement in principle, no, because they typically are only valid for 90 days, and the average house sale takes longer than this.

But agree time wasters are the pits (have had would be buy-to-let buyers lie through their teeth about having the finance sorted out, only to pull out on me at an advanced stage).

We had our aip before we started looking as it meant we knew what we could afford and also lots of agents wouldn't let us view without one

Fair enough that's true, but yep they hadn't done anything and when they did speak to their broker they were miles off the asking.

We actually sold our house to a couple who didn't have a mortgage in place on the date it became theirs. They were an English couple who didn't realise that the Scottish system is different, and that they had signed legally-binding documents... we got an emergency bridging loan to pay our buying costs, and they paid the fees.

There are plonkers out there.

@HirplesWithHaggis oh wow! Some people are so clueless about it all, and ignorant to the impact it has.

Wow, Hirples! What a nightmare for you.

We didn't, but we instructed a broker within the hour of having an offer accepted. Not ideal, but we didn't expect to love it so much, and if was an issue with the sellers which held us up in the end; we knew though it was around £100k less than our upper limit having looked extensively into it before. If we were close to the upper limit we definitely would have had one in place.

Yeah, we had moved across country and didn't find out till about 2pm that they hadn't paid, so we couldn't. A wee bit panicky, but our lawyer sorted it out for us. They took ten days to make their arrangements.

@Sandybval at least you acted quickly, it took our potential buyers 4 days to even get into their broker to tell us they couldn't proceed. We kept it on the market so it hasn't actually impacted us perse but we got our hopes up too much (our fault on that front I know) as we are in a major rush.

I agree with you. What's the point in looking at properties you may not even be able to afford?

Most estate agents want you to have an AIP as it proves you're not a time waster (it's not like you're tied to the lender that you get an AIP with). I don't understand why you'd view a house without even doing an affordability calculator, how on earth do you know what price range to look at?