Support thread for MN's trying to buy a house

[financialwizard]

I can't find another thread like this, and I thought we could do with a sister thread to the trying to sell.

Thought I'd kick off with my rage!

Currently exchanged on the house that I have sold and living in husbands work accomodation so my situation is not dire, but still.

We offered on a property in August. It is a vacant property, and we said that we would like to exchange contracts 18th October with a view to complete no later than 1st November. We got the house at 95.8% of the market price.

So far we have not received the fixtures and fittings list, even though the vendor completed them the week before last. I have been back several times to measure up for lino in the bathrooms/curtains/take pictures of holes in the wall (for my decorator - there are lots). Went back this weekend just gone to check a couple of things (I always forget something) and the vendor has taken all of the bathroom fittings (toilet roll holder, etc), all of the curtain poles, all of the blinds. Now I am beginning to get a bit worried she is going to pull up all the carpets as well (not budgeted for them). I know I am going to have to wait until I get the F&F list but I am feeling slightly nervous at the potential cost of replacing things like carpets now (the whole house - 5 bed is carpetted). Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhh.

My old man is going away for business just as we are due to complete as well, so it is going to have to be me to deal with it all. Really looking forward to this move.......NOT!!!!

Never EVER doing this again.

I'll name and shame as they've pissed me off now - we were going with London and Country - they seemed full of promises but have come up with absolutely zilch with not even a call for an update! So we're sacking them!

We're going to try the one based at the estate agents - we had a meeting with him before we made our offer and he already has all our details, and thinks he can sort something out for us quickly. It's Your Move - do you know if they're any good financialwizard ?We were put off him at first as he was determined to sell us a few Aviva products as well, but after the experience we're having with L&C he seems a better bet (and we know where to find him haha)

That really really surprises me about London & County tbh. I have never heard anything bad said against them.

The only thing I will say about using the guy at Yourmove is please check that they are whole of market.

I would have suggested L&C or Mortgage Advice Bureau or John Charcols website (although I think they now charge).

Not a mortgage related question, but is it acceptable to get a friend who's a builder to have a little look around a house before you even get a survey done? Before we complete on our sale we only have enough money for one survey on a house we want to buy. There is one we have an eye on but it needs a lot of work. If we have a mate take a quick look he can give us an idea whether we are wasting our time - we have a finite amount of money once we sell as we will be going for being mortgage-free.

And, on the same query, would anyone have a ballpark figure on the cost of putting in central heating and a new kitchen in a 5 bedroom Victorian Terrace?

marykat definately go for a 'second viewing' with your builder friend and let them pick over everything. Most of the time they will be more helpful than your average surveyor.

Cost of central heating? Could be looking at 3-4k dependent on whether you need new pipe work or not.

New kitchen can be anything from 3-30k dependent on how big and who you go through. A friend of mine said if you go to Howdens or somewhere like that make sure you get your own fitter quotes.

Thanks, financialwizard. Will do. Just can't wait to get an offer on our place. I think we'll take the builder on our next tour of houses if he's free when we go look. There are a couple we have our eyes on, all need a little work..

If you have narrowed it down to 2/3 houses definately do that. I wouldn't take them to every house you are looking at though.

We've officially sacked our L&C adviser now - not only did he NOT speak to Nationwide as he'd said, he also told us he had contacted the estate agents for us which we have now found out never happened either! I want to put in a complaint once we have everything sorted as it's caused an extra fortnight of stress for us.

Our new broker is being very thorough, we've had a couple of credit check problems (Experian hate me even though I've always paid everything off in full for some reason!) but he's going through options we have and keeping us updated regularly. I suppose you get what you pay for! Fingers crossed.

marykat

I had an estimate for a new boiler + 4 radiators , 2bed bungalow, in Thames Valley area 4 years ago, from b British Gas with £200 discount, and was £4,600, another firm wanted £5.800. Guess it depends on where you live.

My brother for free would have done a better job than my Surveyor, but he valued the house at £5,000 less than the asking price, which is taken into account by the estate agent. I always had a surveyor first.

Where do you live digerd ? My 2 bed mid terrace in Hampshire (Not far from Winchester) had a new boiler and piping done for 1.6k about 5 years ago.

financialwizard - I mean for second-look viewings. I wouldn't take a builder on first viewing because houses can turn out to be very different to what you see online. Sometimes you can walk in a place and just think "no way" right away. So if we had it narrowed down I would take a builder friend.

Thanks for central heating quotes. This was a massive house but I have found out that the offer we would have to put in was too low anyway.

And now getting pessimistic about selling or being in a position to buy before Christmas.

So... when does the market pick up again? February? March? April?

Hello all. I've been lurking on this and the sellers thread for a while. We've put our house on the market and have had some interest including a low(ish) offer.
Only problem is that I am now unsure we can borrow the amount we need to make the move. We have really hefty childcare fees and I think it means we could not borrow enough with the lender we were looking at. I just phoned L&C (I know someone upthread had problems with them but I don't really know any other brokers) and they said there are some lenders who only look at multiples and that we could get the amount we need at the moment anyway. One they mentioned was NatWest but when I did their online calculator they ask for monthly outgoings and our lending power drops back down again.

I know this is all for a reason but I have costed it all out and while it would be tight I think we can cope with stretching ourselves. I'm a bit unsure now though whether we should be taking our house of the market. I don't really want to be the collapsing part of the chain but we could really do with more space.

marykat I thought so, I clearly was having a brain fart.

Hi SunsetSongster, don't worry, our L&C adviser has miraculously come back to life even though we sacked him and rang earlier as he thinks he's found us something! So we're keeping our options open - just not making any plans to wait in for his calls!
Our OTHER adviser has uncovered a couple of mistakes on DP's credit file which explains us failing a couple of checks, so that is being sorted before we apply again - we're passing all the affordability checks with flying colours.

My built in spice rack is still in sight though

Fab new ruby at least things are slowly coming together for you.

I had some good news last night - the tiling is not going to cost as much as I thought it was, and he is going to be able to do the tiling next Friday, Excellent news!

I think I am going to be exhausted by the time we move in.

Can I join too please? We had an offer accepted on a house nearly two weeks ago, and I have been lurking around this board picking up no end of useful advice. We are buying from an estate and not selling our current home immediately as the new house will need some renovation, so things could move quickly if all goes well.

Now we are waiting (nervously and impatiently) for the survey and it is driving me mad!!

Fingers crossed for you nerdgirl72

15 sleeps and we are moving into our new home

Thanks to everyone on this thread I have kept semi sane!

Thanks financialwizard, we are expecting survey to come tomorrow hopefully. We know the house needs a lot of work and so am kind of dreading seeing how much we are letting ourselves in for. We may also need to try to renegotiate the price depending on what comes out, which could hold things up or jeopardise sale I guess. It could be a great family home so just want it not to be anything dealbreaking!

Will keep my fingercrossed for you nerdgirl. All this buying houses malarkey is very stressful.

It is, but you are so close to moving in so the end is in sight. Only 14 sleeps now!

I know, so exciting!

I still think that we should be looking at using a similar process to the scottish one though. Then a lot of the stress would be taken out of it.

Hi all,

I have been awol as I've been away on business. Just got back to the UK and read the building survey report. I need to rewire the house (probably not a full rewire), recommended to change radiators due to evidence of leaking in the past, replace garage timber frame as it's rotten, clean the guttering as we have a some lovely plants growing in there and to top it off we have asbestos ceilings

Realistically, how much should I deduct from our asking price? I am hoping to write to an email by the end of this week to the estate agent in the hope that the vendor will agree to the change in asking price.

I do not wish to alienate the vendor and need to tread carefully. Any pearls of wisdom will be gratefully received. We are practically first time buyers and need all the help that we can get.

Thanks.

Update time! Well I am patiently still awaiting the official offer from NatWest. This was held up thanks to the home report being out of date and needing refreshed but I spoke to broker on Friday who chased them and also got them to switch to their new lower rate that was published that morning.

Today is the day.

Apparently.

Would love some advice.

We've found a fixer-upper that ticks boxes in terms of location and layout - but definitely needs money spent to make it a home (currently tenanted).

It's on at that annoying "Offers between X and Y" price - with a 40K gap between X and Y.

We put in a cheeky "10K under X" offer but have been told there's a "very high" offer on the table. We'd like to offer more and can afford to, but have had a sale fall through previously due to offer being accepted but low surveyor's mortgage valuation.

But - as there's 50K between us and Y, we're completely in the dark about how much extra to offer.

What would you do?