Home Buyers' Support Thread, Part 4

[BeaufortBelle]

Here we go.

Good luck everybody x

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/2139089-Home-Buyers-Support-Thread-Part-3?pg=40

We had a second viewing of a property last night, well my second and OHs first. He really liked it and I felt even more positive about it. Our flat has an open day on Saturday and our estate agent feels very positive about good offers (based on other flats where we live selling quickly, highly desirable area for commuters) but obviously still not in a good position to put an offer in based on that. The vendors of the house we like are in exactly the same position.
The estate agent is calling me today for feedback and I want to tell her we are very interested and keen to put an offer in although I'm aware she won't accept it yet. We don't think the house is worth what it is on for... It went up for 475 and reduced quickly to 450 (it's with one of those nor tortious estate agent as who always over value properties) but also just based on selling prices of similar properties last year and in current properties on the market in slightly better areas with maybe a bit more sq ft, we don't think we want to pay the asking price. How low can you go without it being insulting? You don't get if you don't ask but even so..I'm a newbie to this. As far as I am aware, there are no other buyers looking at this house.

oH was suggesting go in at £420k with a view to going up to £445 max...

Mummyme87 - I started negotiating at 10% below the asking price. It wasnt accepted but it opened proceedings, so I think 420 is reasonable. honestly though, it just depends on what the seller will accept. You can come up but you cant come back down. If you put an offer in, you can start to get a steer on what the vendor is looking for.

I need survey results advice - I'm not sure what to do. the survey came back with a couple of things that arent great. A chimney breast was removed in a non-buildings reg way that means there is a risk that the chimney on the other side (its a semi) could leak into our potential property. It was done years ago I think so I can take a view on that. there is also signs the roof has been leaking - is the best thing to do to ask the seller for information? it looks like it has been reroofed recently.

and finally, that old chestnut, damp. the outside wall of the property and the bay windows are really damp. the surveyor thinks the problem is the type of render that has been put on the walls. we would need to strip it off and start again - I think we are looking at 5k.

do you think I should go back to the vendor and ask for a price reduction? the sale price is 375k. i'm torn - the house isn't going to fall down if we don't do the work and I'm not sure I need the stress. But equally, if the house is very damp and we know why, we need to fix it. What do you all think??

Sounds like a fair amount of cost to put right Bumble. I'd definitely go for a reduction in price. Can you get a builders ball park on how much. It would give you leverage on the reduction.

I would be particularly worried about the chimney breast issue, although it may look ok, it might have caused some instability.

good point JT05. We are getting the experts in to have a proper look and to get quotes to make good. I've flagged the chimney breast issue and the fact there is also penetrating damp in the other chimney (a leak) to the EA, as well as the damp to the walls. fingers crossed the vendors are reasonable.

Hello, sorry to wade in but I haven't used mumsnet since trying to get pregnant and remembered how helpful it can be! We're trying to buy a house at the moment but it has an 11kv (high voltage) power cable running next to it. It looks like the pic attached - wooden pole and 3 cables running horizontally. I don't suppose anyone lives near one of these or knows anything about electromagnetic fields?! Feeling very anxious about it as I love the house otherwise!

Fingers crossed we are nearly there and should be exchanging next week. There are a couple of enquiries outstanding and we are waiting for our vendors to confirm when they want to complete (everyone else was happy with a particular date then they said they didn't think they could be ready by then). It has been a rocky ride for our purchase and I just want to draw a line under it all now.

There have been a number of threads about electromagnetic fields from sub stations etc recently and I think that mobile phones and your wireless router are worse for that kind of thing and in closer proximity.

Thanks wowfudge, I don't suppose you'd know where I'd find those threads (in which section I mean). House buying can be so stressful can't it plus not sure if I'm making a mountain out of a molehill with this!

I think if you search for substation you'll find some threads. Have a look on MSE as well. There have been a spate of these recently.

The issue from power lines isn't the electromagnetic radiation at all, it's other people's fear of it.

We looked at some houses near power lines (bigger ones than you're thinking about, and quite noisy ones at that) and looked into it. There's no danger and some of the 'research' that suggests there is is hilariously bad (one study found increased risk of cancer from powerlines that had never been installed at all, for example). But, the issue is that a significant number of potential future buyers (if you ever need to sell) will be completely put off by powerlines and totally believe they're dangerous. So you need to factor that in really.

We decided not to go for those houses in the end, but tbh the location wasn't great anyway because of distance from transport links and significant road noise.

wowfudge I'm so jealous! our sellers are now being very difficult about access to the property for investigation of the damp problems/chimney issues. arrgh. the sellers havent responded to any initial questions yet either. god i'm so stressed. all our ducks are in a row, I've even got searches back.

The worst hing about it all is the not knowing what is going on sometimes and the lack of control over much of it. My DP is great at keeping the lines of communication open and everyone in the loop, so I'm not even doing any of that! I do form filling, research, worrying etc. Oh and driving past our future home periodically - not that it's much use as you can't see the house from the main road.

We've just put an offer in on a house today so we're waiting to hear back. The house has been on the market for 9 months now with no price drop. It's on for £365k but we've offered £325k based on the sales prices of other houses (and explained our reasoning) in our email. A pretty much identical house sold for £320k in the latter half of 2015 (while this one was on the market) and a very similar house sold in January this year for £317k, so we think it's a pretty good offer really.

The vendors appear to be pretty keen to sell. They're relocating internationally and are having to run two houses (on different continents) while they try to sell this one. Only one family member has stayed behind to try to sell the house and the rest have all gone abroad. So in their position I'd be super keen just to get rid of it and get on with my life.

But, who knows?

Our vendors have been slow to respond - typically at least a week to turn things around although there were some follow up queries from the searches which came back in two days earlier this week. I just hate the whole process and want to move and forget about it all for a very long time.

We've just had our offer accepted 😀! We've no chain and the upward one of 2 is ready to go, as a previous sale fell through.

Sorry to hear of your difficult sellers Bumble it sounds like they have something to hide. Stay firm and insist! Can you give them a deadline to respond by?

Step- I hope your offer is accepted, especially as they are definitely moving.

Excellent news JT.

I hope our offer is accepted too. We can afford to go higher (we've been looking at houses up to £450k, so it's not a budget issue) but it's more an issue of not wanting to put in an offer that will be more than a mortgage valuation so we're not wanting to offer much more given the sales prices.

Just had a phone call from our EA, our buyer's surveyor would like to come round tomorrow. Hopefully nothing horrible should come up.

We did all the work that came up on the survey we had when we bought this house. So the roof has been done and we have new windows, for example. So hopefully it'll be fine. It appears to be a more basic survey rather than the full structural so I guess that's good too (we had the full structural and the house isn't about too fall down!).

thats good news JTO5! I've just had the EA on the phone, apparently our damp/structural specialist person can have access tomorrow. bit of a turn around.

its all just odd really? surely they would also like to get this all sorted and over with?

Our offer was rejected, with nothing more than a 'no' from the vendor.

It's a bit annoying as the vendor is being monosyllabic and evasive with her (utterly useless) EA. DH said to the EA that we're willing to continue negotiations but the vendor actually has to communicate with and through her EA. The EA said she hoped she might be able to actually speak to the vendor on Saturday.

The house has been on the market for 9 months. She's living on her own in a cold and mostly empty house trying to sell it so she can join her husband and young children who are now living on another continent. But she doesn't communicate properly with her EA - she only responds to emails; the EA can't get her on the phone at all. Even if you are busy, you'd make time to speak to your EA to negotiate so you can sell your house. Surely?

The EA tried to get DH to just give a 'best offer', but he's pointed out that this is a long way from a best and final offers situation. There are no other offers. The property is clearly not going anywhere fast. It's a kind of a seller's market here at the moment, but only for those who have been realistic about price. There are two types of property: those that sell very quickly (because they've been priced sensibly) and those that sit on the market for years and never sell. A rightmove search with sold stc left in is very illuminating; the ones that are sold stc go quickly and are priced sensibly; the majority if what's actually available is overpriced and has been on the market since summer 2015 or before.

So DH has told the EA that she needs to find out what price the vendor would be willing to accept so that she can move on and get on with her life and we can work from there. The asking price is too high and even the EA admits it. Either the seller is serious and wants to sell and move abroad or she wants to stay there indefinitely. We are willing to come up a bit (which I'm pretty sure will involve taking a hit on LTV ratio as I can't see the mortgage valuation coming in anywhere near the asking price) but only if we can get a sense that the vendor is participating in negotiations.

We're in a good situation (our buyers have completed and moved in with parents, their surveyor has been round today) so things can move quickly and efficiently. But we are concerned that the vendor's lack of availability and poor communication up until this point is indicative of what might happen during conveyancing. Is she actually going to respond to her solicitor properly?

Ugh - sounds like a ludicrous situation Step. I wonder if she really wants to move?

that sounds like a minefield step... if she is being difficult now, I think getting any responses to enquiries might be hard.

change of plan - our sellers havent decided they cannot after all accomodate the damp survey today despite a positive response yesterday. apparently we can have a suggested date tomorrow, after the seller has spoken to his wife. I'm not sure why he cant call her?

I am definitely learning about patience...

That's annoying Bumble. Maybe the seller and his wife seem to have the same aversion to communication that my seller does.

It's totally bizarre. Maybe she is happy living alone and thousands of miles away from her family?

DH has impressed upon the EA that she's not coming across as a serious seller at all, or someone who'll be easy to deal with further along. The EA has said that the vendor hasn't responded to her texts today but she's going to phone her from home after work today so she can actually talk too her. DH thinks the EA is keen to explain to the vendor that she needs to basically shit or get off the pot (as the saying goes).

We probably wouldn't even be interested at all if the market weren't so much of a ghost town locally because there would be better houses to view and offer on. The thing is, in this situation, not moving at all is always a possibility, which is why the overpriced, unloved and/or badly situated stuff is not going anywhere. If it were a market on the up, that stuff would be selling too but it's not.

The houses on this particular estate also suffer because they're very recent new builds (so less popular anyway) but the developers are still building loads nearby so the people who love new builds can (and do) just buy off plan (with part exchange and such like) instead of dealing with all the rubbish that comes with the normal property market. So it's even quieter than the market where we live (period houses, better location etc).

If only DH wasn't insisting on a detached house. We could have a beautiful, big Victorian terrace in a really popular (and convenient) location for our budget (although those go quick, so we'd have to compete with other buyers).

I can relate to your situation Step. We have been looking in an area which is very popular and once there people tend to stay. We found a house, seriously overpriced, needing work and owned by someone who had gone into sheltered accommodation.
We made a sensible offer, based on local selling price and taking into account the big crack on the rear wall! She refused to negotiate at all, even though ( within reason ) we would bear the cost of repair!

We left the offer on the table. But then another house we liked came back on the market, so we're buying that one.

As you say, do some people really want to sell? It costs to keep an unwanted house on the market. I'd rather have the money in the bank and move on!

At least you've found another house now. The owner in sheltered accommodation probably won't sell at all, or at least not for a long time.

It would be nice if sellers could colour code themselves. Those just having a bit of a punt but who won't actually move unless someone offers them the moon on a stick could colour code themselves an unpleasant mustardy brown so we can all know not to waste our time.

I like your thinking Step

Step- it sounds like she doesn't really want to sell? You definitely need bucket loads of patience when buying and selling houses and nerves of steel!

We went to see the house we are buying today, having not seen it for months. It was lovely to be back and really exciting. However it was really shocking to see how much damage the person renting it has done to the garden in a short time. He has created a mini landfill site and tried to burn glass bottles, beer cans, waste from his business, dog poo everywhere. It is in a terrible state, much worse than I thought it was going to be. It is going to need professional help to get it removed.
Whilst there the Estate agent discovered the tenant running an illegal online business with stock everywhere. He was absolutely fuming. Inside the house there were beer and wine bottles everywhere (including in sinks and baths!), dirty mattresses were on the floor. The bloke stayed in the house as well which seemed odd.
I am appalled how people can rent a beautiful property and then treat it so badly with no respect for the house or owner. The owner has promised to turn it back to how it was when we first viewed (it was immaculate). Fortunately we still the love the house!