Argh! Whether you are selling or buying, come and moan with me! This market is s*! I am so sick of it...
Our situation: Our house went under offer a few weeks ago. We bought at the peak of the market and we have a 'first-time buyer's house' - two-bedroom terraced house in a nice part of a mostly fairly crap area in SE London. House went on market in September and it was pretty awful - lots of viewings but no offer. As you can imagine, in the current market, the first-time buyers just don't exist. Finally got an offer and it was LOW. We are selling at a slight loss but DH and I are willing to take the hit as this is a cash buyer and we really need the space (have two small boys) and it puts us in a great position to buy...
IF THERE WAS SOMETHING TO BLOODY BUY!
So we have been looking for months, even prior to putting our house on the market, we had been looking at RM. We are buying in a fairly small area because of our criteria - good state schools nearby and easy commute into London. We have been to see quite a few too and keeping track of what's selling and how much for. The one house we love has been on the market for THREE MONTHS. We have made 3 offers on it, the last offer being the top of our budget and just less than 6% off the asking price. The other houses in similar price range have sold and we have a good idea of for how much so we know how much houses are worth around there. This house is definitely over-priced at its asking price. Even the agent admits that it's the reason it hasn't sold as it's a fab house otherwise.
But the vendors won't bulge, after months of not much communication from the sellers, they have finally admitted they wanted close to asking (don't we all? 
) and will now settle for X amount - the X amount being £10k off our final offer). And they haven't even had any offers close to that amount. We actually made an offer for them to meet us halfway, and upped our offer to £5k more than our max offer on the condition they take the house off the market that day and cancelled viewings that weekend. They wouldn't and I made it very clear to the agent that it was a one day offer and our offer goes back to the same amount after the weekend.
So now we are in a stalemate. In all honesty, we are now prepared to walk away. The house isn't perfect but I love the position of it. Their agent is actually one of the better ones in the area but he has told us some porkies (the chain-free 'would-be' buyer than turned out to be in a complicated chain; the 'would-be buyer' talking to his mortgage company about funding for the house - all our competition for the house that never seem to eventuate!).
So yesterday we practically got an email from him begging us to up our offer again and he will try his very best to get us the house and we said no, we are sick of playing games.
I am sick of EA bulls*!
I am sick of this market that seems to be on the edge of recovery or crashing big-time depending on who you talk to.
I am sick of 'unrealistic' vendors.
I am sick of looking at the same houses on RM day after day.
We don't want to 'make money' on our property, just somewhere nice for us to settle into as a family and my boys to grow up in. :(