O.M.G. after nearly a year on the market, we have our first offer. Now what do I do???

[DottydotsofBloodOnTheFloor]

Calm. Breathe...

We've finally had a sane-ish offer on our house - just haggling over the last £2K (we've dropped 10K, they started £20K under the asking price, so we've almost met in the middle), but it's been so long since we put it on the market we've stopped looking at other houses etc. Never sold before so I'm starting to hyperventilate.

Some questions so I don't seem (more) stupid to the estate agents if it all starts to happen.

If we accept their offer and they get a survey which throws up lots of stuff, can we say no to any price haggling? The figure we've gone down to is our absolute bottom, so do they need to know that we won't drop the price as the result of any survey findings?

Should I sort out our mortgage now? (silly question...). There are about 6 houses on the market we would be interested in (after having spent this evening searching rightmove). Should we start looking at them and progressing our mortgage etc?

Aaarrggghhhhh. Too much stress in my life now - someone pass me a gin and orange...

omg, ftbs AND you could move in with your mum? TAKE IT!

Possibly. I'd built in about £3K for moving costs so it wipes all that out and eats into our money to put down on our next house.

I think the plan of action is to see this house in the morning that we like, and if it's The One, we'll need to do lots of sums to see if it's do-able!

I've been grumbling about this all day. How come when we were buying 3 years ago it was a seller's market, and now we're selling it's a buyer's market??

WWW - moving in with my Mum comes at it's own price...

Dotty, tell me about it re buyers market!!

take the offer!

Can't believe I wrote it's. Clearly meant its. That's how stressed out I am...

Am honestly torn - would it be better to hang on until the Spring/Summer and hope for the asking price?? Meanwhile the house is falling to bits and we can't spend any money on it, so everything looks that bit older and more knackered (just like it's owner...)?

3k moving costs?

What does that cover, in your book? If it's JUST removal costs, it won't be that much.

If it is total cost of selling and buying, you are way under...stamp duty, solicitors fees (more than when you just bought as you have to pay fees for selling and buying) searches, survey, mortgage arrangement, estate agents fees plus vat. Last time we sold and bought the total cost came to nearly £25k - and the removal costs (including packing) less than £2k!

Find out how much you can borrow / afford to borrow, go and see everything you can: with an offer on your place you have suddenly become a prime buyer - esp as your buyers are chain free / ftb. THEN haggle down the price of what you see.

the market is slowing rapidly

surely 2k is quite a small overall percentage of the price?

Oh Blu!!!! Now I really am

OK, can't move - definitely not if it's all going to cost that much.

How do I work out how much all the costs would be?? I know what the estate agents fees are (v. cheap but then they haven't sold the blardy house yet), but hadn't realised solicitors would be more because of buying and selling and stamp duty also hadn't occured to me.

OK. Will phone building society tomorrow and see how much I can borrow.

Will work backwards from that and try to keep sane.

Probably won't be able to accept their offer if I need to factor £20K moving costs.

Well, we are in London so selling and buying at silly prices which are then reflected in Estate Agents % and Stamp Duty %. I'm not sure I'm up to date on the most recent stamp duty...but under £250k it is a much lower % than over...

Solicitor - get quote - £700-1k to sell and buy?
Survey - £750, maybe
Searches £200
Estate Agent - 1.5% of selling price is typical here - plus VAT
Mortgage Arrangement fee - £250 maybe
Removal £800? (packing is well wortth it, imo...we paid about £1200 to pack and move a 4 bed house)

Unless you are buying something very reasonable in price, it is the stamp duty that is the killer. Our Estate Agent fees were outrageous, too.

But don't give up hope!

We had a drain survey (£150) and a damp and timber report (£150) and a structural engineer report (£300, I think) too, because the bank / mortgage co demanded it.

Dot - we moved ourselves. Now, I know most of mn will faint at such an idea but it did only cost us £80. Very doable if staying local and you can rope in help - County Van Hire.

I can recommend a mortgage broker (free). He was good but was a bit tied to some lenders. He couldn't get the deal we found on the internet but still worth a chat with?

Re solicitors, we got ours through Homemovers, I think they were called. Basically they act as brokers for most of the local solicitors. We got a cheaper price than when I called the same solicitors directly.

Dot I have a couple of cheap recommendations from our last move, the thrasher walker partnership on heaton moor rd, cheapest solicitors we found and they were very good, much better than the other 3 we have used. Also to move your stuff a guy called Carl Morris who is in Heaton Norris, he charged us about £120 came with a van and two guys and they packed it up and then unpacked at the other end. Was an absolute bargain.

Our costs were solicitor inc searches £1000 Survey £500
Removal £120
Stamp duty 1%
Mortgage fees can't remember added onto the mortgage
Estate agent 1%

Also mortgage broker info

oh thanks you two - have given me hope! Our estate agents fees are 0.7% which is good, and we're buying and selling well under £250K.

Going to see a house later this morning and in the meantime am going to phone our building society at 9.30am. We're on a 2 year fixed term with them at the moment - 4.5% So definitely won't want to go elsewhere as we've got until the end of January on the fixed term.

Dp came home more resigned to it all, as in, yes let's sell if we can find somewhere we like. Meanwhile I'm feeling more militant about it - how dare someone knock £12k off our house price!!

Tinker - the only thing I think we couldn't move ourselves is the piano! But we'd be literally moving about 300 yards away so it seems silly to hire proper people - will have a think.

We saw a house a year ago (when we first went on the market and foolishly thought ours would sell quickly) that you can see from our house - had visions of doing 500 trips up and down the road with all our stuff. Classy...

Because the people who have made the offer are first time buyers with no chain, then it does put them in a good bargaining position. If you sold up and moved in with your Mum then you would be in the same good position when you find a house you like. Because it has taken so long to get an offer then there is something about your house (but it could just be the price) which has made it difficult to sell. In a market which is slowing down, then this problem is likely to get worse. So, if you are really serious about moving, then I'd be very tempted to grab the offer and move in with Mum. I know what you are saying about your DP digging in her heels about the price. DH took this same line on previous house moves, but he listened to reason in the end and even although he would be reluctant to admit it, he knows I was right

But what % of the asking price is the reduction by, even including the extra 2k? And what % is teh reduction by of the actual price you realistically thought you'd get? May make you feel better?

ok, all your costs (stamp/searches etc)will be deductrd from your profit from sale of house, so you dont have to put anything down out of your own money..so if your profit is 100k and your fes are £5k, then they put (can put into bank=charge for this) or send you cheque out)95k into your account

you can get a man with a van to move piano and hire van to do rest yourself(dont envy you though, LOTS of hard work)

Let us know how your veiwing went this morn

ooh - it's soooooo tricky...

The house itself was god awful - old lady house, nothing's changed in 120 years, the best thing about it was the orange swirly carpets.

But, garden to die for - just wonderful - huge, trees, everything.

Beautiful road, beautiful houses. But, this is the end house where the beautiful road finishes and the weirdy cut through/flats/bit of scrub land starts...

Good news - I got a mortgage agreed no problem! Could therefore afford the house above if we want it. But wouldn't have a penny to do it up so we'd have to live with the teeny tiny absolutely no units in it kitchen for a good while before doing anything with it.

But there's lots of potential for an extension - lots of space to the back and side of the house.

Aaaarrgghghhhhhhh!!!!!!

Ooo, sounds exciting. Curious where it is now

Yes also curious! Good news about the mortgage, at least you know that you're good to go now if you want to!

Will attempt to post link. The garden is even more beautiful in real life - goes on forever and has apple trees!

what do you think?!

Ha, ha - just realised there are no pictures of the inside of the house - and having seen it I now know why