Buyer's support thread #5

[scribblegirl]

Sorry for breaking the last one

and for all....

Congratulations on the mortgage offer.

DH had a pre-meeting with our mortgage advisor today (we're doing the application on Wednesday) who claims that it should not take more than 2 weeks all in and that she thinks we could complete in 4 weeks. I fear she is over-optimistic.

Oh shit. I got the apostrophe wrong and now I have to live with that

Please forgive me, grammar fans. I'm on the prosecco after the mortgage offer!

Thanks Thesaurus

Fingers crossed its all quick for you - I've been quoted ridiculously short dates to complete from now, I'm applying a firmly cynical eye to them all!

Ooh can I join in please?

Me and my dh are FTB's, we paid for the searches 3 weeks ago tomorrow, I rang solicitor today, she thinks up to another week for searches and then an extra 2/3 weeks until completion. We're so excited!

Hi Ravioli! It's exciting we've got to wait on searches too although it's frustrating! But you do what you've got to do...

It's taking ages! We had a plasterer go out and meet the vendor on Saturday to give us quotes for the ceilings (artex) so I'm pleased we've got the wheels going for that too.

I just can't wait to get in now. I've mentally decorated most of the house now

Haha. Waiting is frustrating, isn't it!

Our local authority apparently is very quick at responding to searches. Apparently they should only take a week! Again, I'm a tad cynical.

Haha, I saw your comment ion the old thread and tried to post 5 times before I realised what had happened! It was worth breaking it :)

Congratulations :) it's a fab feeling. Welcome to the next stage of waiting. This whole process just feels like one big queue split into different sections.

Our searches got sent off last week. They said they'll be 7-10 working days. Am I right in thinking that once they're back we will sign the contracts? Then exchange, then complete?

Step away - we applied for our mortgage on the 16th March and got the offer on the 1st April. It only took that long because th3 vendor wasn't available for the survey/valuation until the 29th.

my mortgage offer was also very quick - meeting, valuation and offer in 3 working days so it can definitely be done.

I'm so desperate to exchange - i'm harassing my solicitor hourly. fingers crossed she remembers email and telephones exist today...

Bumble and Skitless - massive favour but would you mind sharing/PM-ing who your mortgage apps are with? A friend has just had hers zero valued and is after a new lender who is quick as she's worried the vendor is getting impatient. No worries if not, just good to know who is fast at the moment!

Oh and hope today's harassing goes well Bumble!

no joy so far - my stupid solicitor popped up with more documents she needed after having the file checked by a partner. totally brainless. oh well. I've zipped them straight over so fingers crossed it wont hold us up.

is she using a broker? I think that is why my app was so fast. I had a AIP and the lender had already seen all my credit file, salary info etc so all that was needed was the valuation in order to confirm the mortgage when I found somewhere. definitely worth the money for a broker. it was santander incidently.

scribble a zero valuation means the property is unmortgageable in its current state so looking for a new lender is probably not the priority as zero valuing is quite different to down valuing. Understanding why it was zero valued and what can be done about it would be my first step.

The vendor can get as arsey as they like- it's them with the problem ie an unmortgable house.

Thanks Bear. My friend's place was zero valued because the mortgage company don't lend on properties of that type! It's not unmortgageable so much as an aspect of it is ruled out according to their lending rules (don't want to give too much detail in case of outing!) They really shouldn't have let her apply in the first place, but that's another matter...

The focus now is getting a lender and checking that they lend on the style of property that she's buying - think she will go through a broker now to ensure that.

(and thanks Bumble! - yes to a broker. We went through one and I have to say it made life a LOT easier.)

Scribble, we have gone with Yorkshire Building Society. No broker. We did everything online and only had to go to a branch to send my ID as they certified it for free.

Maybe it will be super quick then. Zoiks! (to quote Shaggy from Scooby Doo).

Ooooh! I've just opened a letter from my mortgage company. It says:

"Once we have completed our checks we will issue our mortgage offer"

That's good, right? It says will, not might?

that sounds good to me Temp! congrats!

we have finally exchanged! its been so stressful. god I need a drink.

Hi everyone.

I'm feeling a bit blue. We've got our decision in principle and our deposit is all lined up but we just can't find anything to buy!! There are so few houses in our area AND in our budget - we thought we'd found The One and had a third viewing lined up but then on a scout of the neighbourhood found some stuff that put us off :(

I just didn't think it would be like this - we're FTB and I thought once the money was sorted we'd just buy somewhere! Hoping people start putting their houses on the market now the Easter hols are over.

Congrats, Bumble

I feel your pain, Hey, I'm not a FTB but am in a similar position to you. I've been looking for 6 weeks now and not found anything There does seem to be more coming on the market since Easter but nothing in my price range....plus, even in the last 6 weeks, I've noticed house prices creeping up. Not only will I soon have no where to love but I'll be priced out of my preferred area too!

*live not love!

Ugh, Mighty, isn't it a bummer. Sorry to hear it's happening to you. And yes to house prices going up - they've not quite shooting up as fast as London here, but still on the climb!

We are nearly at the end of our purchase (oh pleaseohpleaseohplease), but haven't exchanged quite yet.

We can't seem to get the vendor to agree on a completion date. We are happy to exchange next week, once we've socked away one last deposit into our home buyer's ISA (free £50 for waiting another week to exchange? fine by me!). They aren't likely to back out or anything, and are absolutely lovely people (they are leaving us the range cooker for free!).

The sticking point for us is the fact that we're locked into a six month rental contract; our last rental payment is in May so we have until June to vacate. Fine, but we need to give notice at some point, and we need a completion date before giving notice! We want to give ourselves plenty of time to move out, but don't really fancy paying rent and a mortgage.

I'm trying not to stress. I've been stressing out so much over the past few months trying to chase paperwork and get more and more documents for the lenders. It took TWO months for the mortgage to be agreed. aaarrrggh. Our broker has been fab and we couldn't have done it without him.

I don't want to jinx things by speaking in the past tense, though. We're not there just yet....