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Original poster

Who is actually in process of buying a home?

46 replies

NoseyNooNoo · 14/07/2010 11:09

So who is buying a home at the moment.

We are buying at the moment. Exchange is imminent but I daren't get too excited. Completion would not be until end of August though.

Anyone else?

And who is looking - and what type of property are you looking for?

OP posts:
cakeywakey · 16/07/2010 12:23

Hope you don't mind me crashing in with a 'YAY! We've just completed!'. Really want to tell people but didn't think that it warranted a new thread

Heading off to pick up keys once DD has had her lunch. Good job we're finally there as I'm due to have DC2 in four weeks

Original poster
NoseyNooNoo · 16/07/2010 12:27

Well done Cakey Wakey - I hope you have a chance to settle in before your baby arrives.

OP posts:
OrmRenewed · 16/07/2010 12:30

Yes. In the process of buying and selling. Seems soooo slow but the EA reckons it could be done and dusted by end of the month. Sadyly the elderly couple we are buying from are not keen to move out so quickly probably be middle Aug.

sethstarkaddersmum · 16/07/2010 12:33

Congratulations Cakeywakey, that's wonderful news! So glad you have managed to get there before the baby arrives.

BornToFolk · 16/07/2010 12:35

We're buying and selling. Selling was easy, the first person who viewed it put in an offer after one viewing. We had to ask her to come back for a second viewing to be sure she wanted it! That was about 3 months ago as it's taken us that long to find somewhere to go to.

We had an offer accepted a couple of weeks ago and should complete within a month. It should be straightforward as the house we are buying has tenants in and our buyer is a first time buyer but I'm not counting on anything until we've exchanged...

cakeywakey · 16/07/2010 12:40

Thanks Nosey and Seth, could really do with this baby holding on until her due date. I could do with a few weeks to lumber around the new house and get semi-straight at least.

sethstarkaddersmum · 16/07/2010 13:05

LOL, it's the perfect moment for the nesting instinct to kick in!

mumzy · 18/07/2010 23:13

we're in the process of buying and can't believe the asking (aspirational!) prices for some properties. We've found their are 2 types of sellers the ones who need to sell and so price their houses realistically or are willing to drop the price if no offer within a month of being on the market and then there are the chancers who will only accept near enough their astronomical asking price and so end up on the market for 3 years. Sellers need to wake up to the fact that they are not in 2007 when the market was rising and credit was easy. Except for some tiny hotspots I would say selling prices are on average 10-15% below the asking price. The worst chancers are the retiree sellers who don't need a mortagage as they are downsizing and so don't get a reality check from the bank and believe the EA who will get them the inflated asking price. I have viewed a house in a not great suburb for £950,000 the house was dirty everything needed replacing and stank of dog. I thought the seller was delusional

sethstarkaddersmum · 19/07/2010 09:27

I agree Mumzy. There are people near us who have their house on the market for over a million ('offers above', too). It is a lovely house and would be worth that if it was somewhere else, but round here that is simply delusional. To make things worse they have sold off two building plots in the front garden so the house won't be secluded any more, and I am fairly certain that buyers with that kind of money want privacy. They got a bargain with the house they bought that they are moving to but it doesn't seem to have occurred to them that that's to do with the state of the market which will in its turn impact on their sale

LadyBiscuit · 19/07/2010 09:39

Gosh BeenBeta - you seem to know a lot about people's motives given you've never bought or sold a house

I have put my flat on the market at a price based on what other similar properties around here have sold for over the last six months. FWIW, they go for around 97-98% of asking price.

mumzy · 19/07/2010 18:21

we've also viewed a house where the vendor wants to sell off half of the garden as a building plot. I can't see how anyone would want to buy a house only to have someone else's building site at the bottom of their garden.

mumzy · 19/07/2010 18:27

And the asking price for the house with 1/2 a garden was £830,000 LOL

LadyBiscuit · 19/07/2010 19:18

That's absurd mumzy. There is a flat two doors down from me for sale for an absolutely astronomical sum which was owned by an old lady who had a massive stroke and has had to go into a nursing home. Clearly the family think that they need to cover the cost of the home PLUS still get the inheritance they were hoping for so they appear to have bunged a couple of years of home on top of the asking price. It's a bit silly. Just to give you a frame of reference - it's a bit bigger than mine - maybe 1/2 the size again (but a lot of that is cellar, rather than useable living space) and it's on the market for over 200k more (we have the same number of bedrooms too)

BeenBeta · 20/07/2010 22:18

The bottom line is the housing market has and still is in a bubble. It will burst in the next 12 months and anyone who has unrealistic expectations on price will not sell and end up chasing the price down.

laga · 20/07/2010 22:30

I agree, there are so many buyers that decide what price they want and convince themselves it is worth that. I am under offer and accepted a fair reduction on asking price but house I want to buy will not budge downwards! Estate agent keeps telling me she can totally see their point but noone else has even looked at it! It is so frustrating.

minipie · 20/07/2010 22:33

We're looking for something to buy at the moment and are in a real quandary.

On the one hand we would dearly love to buy somewhere now, get settled then start a family next year. We are living with family at the moment, will have to move to renting if we don't find somewhere to buy soon.

On the other hand, there is so little on the market (so we'd have to compromise), prices are ridiculous (so we'd be paying a lot for our compromise house), and I believe - and the commentators are now saying - that prices will drop during the next 18 months.

What to do? Buy a house now when it's the right time for us, or wait and get a better price (and possibly a better house) but cut it very fine in terms of being settled pre-kids?

argh.

mumzy · 21/07/2010 20:09

What is really frustrating is all the big 4+ family houses we've seen are occupied by 1 or 2 people and they will not accept a reasonable reduction on the asking price as everyone else is having to do so. The reality is the banks will not now lend on houses with unrealistic valuations. So the scenario is the retirees moan that the house is far to big garden upkeep too much for them and they would love to retire to the coast etc if they could get the asking price while families with children are crammed into tiny houses. I suspect Beenbeta has hit the nail on the head and retirees see their house as a cash cow and are trying to squeeze every last penny from it. I suspect once public sector jobs are cut and interest rates rise house prices will start to fall

notnearlyasblondasiwas · 21/07/2010 20:52

We are hoping to move. Just accepted an offer on our house today - has been on the market since Easter and finally got a good offer today - YAY! I have seen a house that I really like but DH wants to move to a new area. I will have to humour him and go and look at least. Am seriously considering renting for a year, especially if we move to a new place just to make sure I like it. Sigh...is so hard to know what to do for the best

magichomes · 22/07/2010 00:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mumzy · 22/07/2010 07:06

we saw a house in October 2007 for an asking price of £700000 it was far from perfect and eventually sold 2 years later for £595000 after about 4 price reductions. I know because the EA kept asking us if we wanted to buy it every time the couple reduced the price and the only reason the couple would reduce the price was because they needed the money to finance a self build.
We also saw a house which I thought was fairly priced at &6850000 a couple of weeks ago but we wanted a bigger garden so passed on it & it sold within a week then a smaller house & garden came on the market on the same road a week later priced at &740,000 which needed more doing to it. I suspect the latter one will linger on for a long while

artyjools · 24/07/2010 07:42

Minipie, we are in the same position as you, but we want to move because of schools. We need to move soon, before our eldest starts his GCSEs. I'm tearing my hair out as I have lined up a school for him and for my youngest two - places available for September but no chance at all of us having exhanged by then as we can't find a house. Prices on the few that are up for sale are ridiculous. It seems to me that if a really lovely house in a good area is on the market for a couple of months, and there is little else on the market, then it must be overpriced. When more properties come onto the market after the summer holidays, people will have to rethink their strategies if they genunely want to sell.

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