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Property/DIY

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Original poster

so, what happens when you see your perfect house but yours isn't on the market yet?

12 replies

HoppityVoosh · 11/02/2015 19:12

I'm in Scotland if that makes a difference.

I'm going to phone to see if we can get an appointment with a mortgage advisor tomorrow. My parents said something about asking if they could guarantee the mortgage while we sell our house, is this something that can be done?

Or is it a case of put our house on the market and hope it's still there if we sell quickly?

I'm not making any appointments to see the house in question yet because I understand that's bad form.

OP posts:

EddieReadersglasses · 11/02/2015 19:36

We bought our existing house before our flat had sold (also in Scotland) and had a few weeks of bridging loan. However this was 10 years ago and property was selling fast at that time. Depends on how quickly you think you'll sell?
We are now selling this house and have had one very interested viewer who is yet to sell- she's going to come back for 2nd viewing once she's sold (as she thinks she'll sell quickly)
I suppose it depends on local market but I don't think its a problem to view once before you have sold (what if house is not as good as you think when you do see it? Would you still be selling your existing house?)

Original poster

HoppityVoosh · 11/02/2015 20:02

Thanks, my mum also mentioned a bridging loan but thinks they don't happen anymore. I think we'd sell fairly quickly, we bought our house 2 and a half years ago when it'd been on the market for a few weeks. That's good to know that you didn't have a problem with someone viewing who hadn't sold yet. I emailed the agent for the home report earlier and felt guilty ticking the "have house to sell - not on the market yet" box. We were thinking of selling soon-ish anyway. Ideally I wanted to have another child and mat leave out the way before putting out house on the market but that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon so it maybe is better to sell sooner rather than later but I don't want to put my house on the market then end up with no where to live! There is never a huge amount of houses in our preferred area that are in our budget. So I don't think we would be selling right now if it wasn't for this house.

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Binkybix · 12/02/2015 07:59

We did a buy to let on our old flat, releasing equity that we could out towards the new place. Then planned to sell but it didn't work out for various reasons so we're renting. It was very stressful, and I still worry we did the wrong thing but this was the first suitable thing we'd seen in about a year and we knew we'd lose the house if we weren't chain free basically.

PurpleWithRed · 12/02/2015 08:03

Definitely go and see it - or at least contact the agent. It might be horrible when you get up close, or might already have loads of interest. No point in getting all excited for no reason. Or you might find the vendors are in no hurry or want a long completion.

Original poster

HoppityVoosh · 12/02/2015 10:11

We could never manage buy to let, sadly. We're not very well off and wouldn't be able to afford it when there are gaps between tenants.

Have phoned the agent, no weekend viewings so it'll be into next week before we could see it. I do think it'll go fast. It's the worst house in the best area sort of situation, it's empty and in need of work. A real bargain.

We have decided if we can go for it (with the help of parents) without selling our house first then great, if not were not going to risk putting our house on the market and losing out on the new house. It would be wonderful but if it doesn't happen, then it doesn't happen.

Thanks all

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Dimplesandall · 12/02/2015 10:17

Doesnt being in Scot make huge diffetence? Offers are binding, no? Might be trmpted to bridge or let to buy.buy to let if finances allow. Does is rental ratio good? Good enough to cover void months?

Original poster

HoppityVoosh · 12/02/2015 10:51

Definitely couldn't do buy to let.

Yep, I'm fairly sure offers are binding. Last night my husband said "couldn't we just put our house on the market then when we sell it, if the other property is gone then we can just tell our buyers we're not moving anymore" !!!! This was my face

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OhThisIsJustGrape · 12/02/2015 18:10

Bridging loans are still available but a word of warning - they are scarily expensive!

We saw our dream house before ours was even ready to put on the market, we couldn't risk losing it though so we put an offer in and have had to take out a bridging loan. No idea how much you'd need to borrow if you did decide to do it this way but to use us as an example: we need to borrow £315,000 (we're putting £145,000 down in cash), the set up fees are £14,000 which gets added to the loan so we're actually having to borrow £329,000. If that isn't bad enough (!), we're being charged 1.5% interest per month as repayment. So, we'll be making monthly payments of over £4,000.

To everyone else, we're bloody mad but hopefully it will only be for a few months and we knew we'd regret it forever if we didn't go for the house. Time will tell I guess!!

Just to add, there are 'issues' with the house which mean we can't take out a conventional mortgage so have no option but to bridge in the short term otherwise we'd definitely have been looking at other, cheaper, options!

ragged · 12/02/2015 18:35

We house hunted in a neighbourhood where everyone seemed to put their house on the market only so they could buy a specific other house they truly loved. If their desired home became unavailable the house we were looking at became unavailable until further notice.

I guess it's normal in some areas, I still became enraged with sellers as time-wasters. We wanted to move. We rented for a spell to make that happen. We didn't hold up sale of our own house waiting for a perfect one to buy.

Sorry, this touches a nerve!! We finally bought in another town from someone with no f'ing onward chain.

WereJamming · 12/02/2015 18:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

HoppityVoosh · 12/02/2015 18:42

"We didn't hold up sale of our house waiting for a perfect one to buy“

Exactly why I'm not putting my house on the market.

We've decided not to pursue this house now. It'll cost too much. We're happy where we are at the moment so we'll stay here for a few years then sell the proper way.

Thanks all

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zoemaguire · 13/02/2015 20:02

In our case, walk past it every day for five years with a wistful sigh! We did end up buying a lovely forever house instead,but that one still feels like the one that got away! (We put our house on the market the day we saw it, but quite rightly our offer wasn't taken seriously because we had no buyers at that point.)

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