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.

Hi all, can I join you? :) I have finally sold my property (14 months on the market-!) and put an offer in for our dream house. Currently waiting impatiently for their response.

Situation is that a small group of luxury houses were built by a developer who went bust before completion, so have now been reposessed by the bank. The house we're looking at was incomplete but has now been finished by contractors. However it has no carpets, all the paintwork is just undercoat and some of the fittings have been rushed and/or are low quality. (Others are really good quality!)

An identical house they built but on the road opposite sold a couple of months ago. It was listed at £310k but I think sold for £290k, from speaking with the EA. (Price not published yet.)

The difference is that the sold house was the show home, so completely finished off with flooring, better fixtures and fittings. It also has a South facing garden (as opposed to North) that is 1/3rd bigger and isn't on a private side road. (i.e. no road maintenance costs required.)

The house we want is listed at £300k, since May. We've gone in with a starting offer of £250k and cited the reasons above and stamp duty.

Do you think we have a chance? We can go a bit higher (and afford the jump in SD) if necessary... But might have to live with no floors for a year!!

I would imagine they should bite your hand off at that, Spirael. They'll just want to get rid of it. In fact I would have advised going in at £235k to give you room to settle on £250k! But I really think they would be silly not to accept that in the circumstances. Fingers crossed!

Oh lordy.

Closing date was 4minutes ago... Our offer is in...

Good luck Spirael and KatoPotato

They've only gone and accepted our offer! It was 'very very very close' apparently! I think our £250 may have swung it hahahaha!

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooooooo so pleased for you. Let the stress begin

Things not going quite so smoothly here, the EA got back to me with the old "We have a higher offer on the table..." ploy to get me to increase our offer. Funny that another offer should turn up now after months of no interest.

Well, I'm rubbish at negotiating so have been persuaded to £265k. Though to be honest I think that's a more realistic price anyway, given the house/area/etc. It's still fractionally lower than our best and final, and I won't feel like we're being ripped off, though we wouldn't be getting a bargain. But then we're not after one - we're after our forever home!

Our higher offer has got the requirement that they lay flooring, which the EA didn't think would be a problem. Apparently they were expecting that. Having flooring laid would save us quite a few thousand and a lot of hassle.

Been told there's no chance of a response before next week though, so will have to sit tight for the weekend. :( Will prep to brace myself to be hard nosed if we're refused, present our best and final and then walk away.

Would be a lot easier if I didn't love the house. But if I didn't love the house I wouldn't be prepared to spend over a quarter of a million pounds on it!!

don't worry spirael - its always hard to negotiate when you love the house. We're chain-free in rented, with a tiny mortgage to port over from our last house sale, and we still only managed to get 2% off the asking price of the house we're buying. Reason being, we fell in love. It happens with every house we've bought over the last 10 years, we've never managed to get a 'deal'. However, as a result we have always lived in really nice locations, and been able to transform the houses into stunning homes, which we have enjoyed living in, and which people are prepared to pay a big premium for when we sell. So it all works out in the end.

Grr, I hate waiting! We informed our buyers immediately with our decision(s) during the negotiating stage. Stupid banks, stupid EA's! They'd better come back favourably next week after taking all this time to decide.

I'm fairly certain there is no other offer, outside the EA's head. DH and I were 99% sure our first offer would be refused as too low anyway, given recent sales in the area and such. I'm guessing this is just the EA's tactic to increase it.

Assuming the competition is imaginary then we're optimistic our higher offer should be accepted, or just need a tiny increase. Especially since it turns out the other house went for £285k rather than £290k. Thanks for dropping that one, EA.

Anyone else had any experience of EA's making up offers?

No big premiums here, we lost at least £20k selling our house, tedglenn!

Yuck yuck spireal fingers crossed! I am continually sceptical about the other offer on the table in our case, but we are happy with what we bid and not going to dwell on it.

Hope you hear soon

Ugh... Drove out this morning just to double check the house/area and there was another couple viewing, without the EA. They were parked in the drive and peering through the windows. So it looks like we do have rivals after all.

They were an OAP couple though and they didn't notice/realise we were there, we stopped far enough away we could have been visiting someone else on the street. So we have the advantage that we know there probably is another offer on the table after all, whereas they might not be sure.

We also can guess that they've probably been asked to increase their offer - which is why they were having another look around this morning. So hopefully they're wavering on whether or not to and will decide to back off!

We're not maxed yet, we have another £10k we could increase by relatively comfortably and not feel like we were overpaying. I reckon that's around what the house is worth at the moment. It may decrease throughout the remainder of the recession, but we're planning on staying for the long haul so that's not a huge concern.

The EA would come back to us if the other couple's offer increased ours, right? To give us a chance to bid higher, so the house sells for more and they earn a bigger commission? We're in England, so it's not the closed Scottish system.

Hmm... Or would we be better to jump in right now with the higher offer?

This is basically the only house we like on the market in the area at the present. If we don't get it, we'll have to go into rented for the foreseeable and wait for another forever house to come along. Meaning moving twice, finding a place for the cats and all that chaos.

[sigh] It's gone to best and final offers. Well we've submitted ours, now we just need to sit tight until they announce the results on Wednesday.

Not looking hopeful, is it? :(

Oh well... At least I've found somewhere we could rent. Not great, but workable for the next few months. Guess we'll end up sitting it out until spring and hoping some new potentials come up at that point!

We're in! I'm now having a serious purge of belongings after filling 2 trucks from my little 2 up 2 down terrace

Our lovely vendors left us a card and a bottle of bubbly. She must be a mumsnetter.

The boiler packed up at our old house today. I had it serviced last week for the new owner, but I feel so embarrassed anyway.

Congratulations Kato Potato!! Excellent news!

Spirael - what rotten luck! But it's not over until it's over. A long wait until Wednesday though. Sorry.

We are here waiting. Turns out the sellers solicitors did respond to enquiries over a week ago and our solicitor is the one who hadn't moved on it! Annoying as I just clarified the 'waiting' position last week as I need to transfer some money from abroad before we can exchange (and close) but was waiting in hope the exchange rate would improve. Looks like I'm going to have to suck the bad rate and just get the money over here and ready to go. Hopefully then we'll exchange this week and actually close on the 31st. In the meantime I'm annoying our builder by continually changing my mind on heating options (underfloor - electric or wet, skirting board heating, designer rads??). Also, our mover has just told us he can't do the dates we'd thought we'd agreed. So I think we're going to have to change movers, or dates.

In the meantime, I am having a good clear out. Toys, clothes, clutter and crap beware! Our new house is going to be organised, beautiful and never get dirty. We will become responsible people who have lovely routine, mow the lawn every week and our children will go to be at bedtime and not stir until 7am. I live in delusion hope anyway

Congratulations nancerama

We have decided to move in early December when my DH is back from his travels. Impatient me doesn't want to wait but it is probably a good decision.

Spirael I do hope it's good news for you. We were in a similar position earlier in the year. A place had been on the market for ages with no interest - even the owners told us how disappointed they were that there had been hardly any viewings. . We put in an offer and went in at asking price because we loved the house so much and didn't want to mess around. The agents kept making noises that they couldn't get hold of the owners, but it transpired that once our offer was on the table they had a renewed marketing push and spent the next week showing loads of people round - someone put in a higher offer and we lost it. It worked out OK for us though. Our new place is in a better area and is much bigger.

Wendybird if you're based in the South East, I can recommend Winchester Removals. They did the most outstanding job for us - speedy, efficient, careful and really lovely guys. They came good for us when we had to find a company with just over a week's notice.

Congratulations, nancerama! Must be a relief to finally be in and sorted. :)

I wish I had a crystal ball so I knew how everything will play out here. I wouldn't mind waiting if I knew there was definitely light at the end of the tunnel and how long it would take to reach it-!

But with the absence of a crystal ball, I'm busy climbing the walls here. Trying frantically not to get stressed, ending up stressing myself out more - argh! After taking 14 months to sell, I thought this would be the easy bit. :(

As well as dwelling on the flaws of the house we've offered on and ignoring all the good points, I'm currently trying to convince myself we've lost out and prepare accordingly, in an effort to not be too distressed on Wednesday.

So, has anyone here sold and gone into rented accomodation while searching for somewhere to buy? Got any advice for how to go about it?

We'll be temporarily downsizing from 3 bed semi to 2 bed flat, most likely, before eventually moving into a 4 bed detached! So we'll need to arrange some storage, as I want to keep my lovely furniture for when we eventually get a house big enough for it.

nancerama Congratulations!!

Spirael Best of luck with everything!

Well, I've just found out that we still do NOT have the mortgage approved yet (for the residential property). It's been 22 blooming days. Does anyone know long this usually takes?

London I am an ex mortgage underwriter so know quite a bit, if you want to PM me the lender and what has happened so far I can talk you through it.

Hi everyone, it's been a week or so since I last posted.

Good luck spirael and congratulations nancerama!

London, give the bank a kick up the arse! I bet someone's gone on holiday and forgotten your file.

Really struggling here after the high of winning at auction. 5 weeks now until settlement date and hopefully have an answer on the mortgage within the next couple of days. Major stumbling block we have come across is that I stupidly put the title for the property we are borrowing against in our shipment from China. Luckily the moving company has fucked up our shipment so everything will should arrive within time to complete settlement but it looks touch and go. Have asked the bank to complete settlement without the title on the proviso that they will receive the settlement as soon as it comes out of the shipment.

Really frightening though - if they say no and something happens to the shipment then we will lose the house and lose the deposit. Fingers crossed.

Sorry this isn't hugely interesting but I needed to vent.

Good news is the official valuation for the house we are buying has just come in as equal to what we paid for it. Thank god as I was bricking it that we had massively over paid. Still waiting for the valuation of the property we are borrowing against and fingers crossed for a good outcome there too.

Fingers crossed and best wishes to all.

Spirael I keep checking to see if there is any news from you?

Yes, spirael?? Hope it went your way.

We exchanged yesterday and complete next Friday. I suspect the vendors are miffed that we are going to be 2 days late, but the mortgage co takes that long to release funds, so nothing we can do. It is quite exciting as I can start ordering things now. Now if only my builder would get back to me with answers to my questions so that I can order the right things so we can actually get this work done and get moved in. I can't believe it is all going to go so smoothly - we offered the end of September and we've gotten this done in just over 4 weeks. final last words

Finally got our answer today after days of chasing and waiting... Our offer has been accepted!!

All go here, gotta get a variety of information to a variety of people, but our whole chain seems motivated to get the move arranged ASAP and be in for Christmas. Fingers crossed it's smooth sailing from here-!

Very excited for you Spirael and wendybird77

Good news from me too, I completed today. Have the keys in an envelope on the coffee table. Can't open them yet though because I promised my husband I'd wait until he gets home.

Tomorrow we have someone in to measure up for the flooring we want put down, and am going to be having a chat with my decorator to confirm how much it is going to cost for the whole house to be re painted.