stressed? worried? now those two are an understatement!
my wife and are brits, who were living in the US for 5 years - we came back to the UK (south east) a year and a half ago, and have been looking for a place to buy ever since.
due to a spectacular lack of success (mainly due to exorbitant house prices in the area we live in, plus our own particular requirements; we have 4 kids (hence me spending time on mumsnet!!), and like period properties with decent outside space, but don't have an unlimited budget) we ended up going into rented, with the hope that being chain free would put us in a good position to pounce as and when the right place became available.
so fast forward over a year to now - we have found the absolute house of our dreams - period (500 years old!), huge (7 bedrooms), decent outside space, good school catchment, and, amazingly, within budget. on our first viewing, the pair of us absolutely fell in love with the place, and that feeling just grew on the subsequent 2 viewings.
so the catch? (because of course, there has to be a catch) - its a repossession, and as such, is being marketed at a price around 50% lower than when the vendors were trying to sell.
so we braced ourselves, gathered our documentation together, and put in an offer. after a 24 hour wait while the board of the asset management company considered our offer, we got an acceptance, conditional to a 21 day exchange between issuance of draft contracts and exchange.
of course, being a repossession, the asset management company refuse to take the property off the open market, and the estate agents acting for them continue to market the property. anyone else can make an offer right up till the point where we exchange contracts. if they offer more, and are in a proceedable position, then the property will go to them.
so its been a terrifying mad rush to instruct solicitors, start searches, get the mortgage finalized, and sort out valuations and surveys. my days are currently being spent on the phone to all the relevant parties, chasing them to try and speed things through. and, of course, we are spending money at risk right now, since if someone else makes a higher offer, this will all be for nought.
i estimate we probably have another 2 weeks of this left till we are in a position to exchange...so far so good, though. no other offers are on the table, and viewings have slowed down.
its so challenging to remain cool, calm and collected, though - despite our best efforts at restraint, my wife and i are already mentally in the property, and our fingernails are already down to the knuckles with the anxiety of it all! one thing we have learned from this exercise is that we really aren't the sort of people cut out for buying repossessed properties.
but hey, you have to be in it to win it, and you never know....maybe, just maybe, it might work out...