Listing, viewings and offers thread 3!

[Fortheloveofscience]

We filled up our old one, hoping I'm not posting out of turn by starting the next, it's the only thing keeping me from going nuts with the endless cycle of no viewings - viewings - feedback - no offer - no viewings - viewings etc!

Hope this is the thread where we all sell and get our dream houses. I'm working from home and doing 'backseat cleaning' - nagging my poor OH who has the day off to do everything for our second viewing this afternoon from the only couple to have shown serious interest.

Fingers crossed for you Gizlotsmum

I popped into the EA office this morning and spoke about the lack of viewings. EA says it's slow and also that lots of people are on holiday. They are chasing a few people who had expressed a wish to view. We also have one confirmed viewing for Friday and one for next Monday.

I mentioned about an "Open House" but we both feel that would be better left until September as ours is very much a "family house".

I've shared the rightmove URL with a couple of colleagues (who have never been to my house) to try and get some opinions. These have only been positive, but then they are hardly likely to criticize my house I guess!

Thank you Yoga. Hope your EA is right. It makes sense. We were lucky that we were on just before. I think we would have slowed down our search if we didn't have our buyer. It's hard viewing with school holidays etc.

I agree with you totally.

To be honest it was my original intention to put the house on the market in September but then I thought that the photos would look better taken in July!

Hi all.

I hope you all don't mind if I pop in and join you on this thread. We signed an estate agent on Saturday to market our house, but it's not on RightMove yet. Hopefully it will be tomorrow. The whole process is extra complicated for us as it's a shared ownership property and it's taken nearly 6 weeks just to get approval from the housing association that we can put the house on the open market, as they have their own procedures / notice periods we have to follow. In that 6 weeks we've already seen houses we really like come on the market and then go again, so I just want things to start to progress now. Even once we get offers the housing association has to review all applicants to see if they meet the requirements, and they have 3 weeks to look at each application. It's just so painfully slow! Thankfully we have a reasonable amount of equity and mortgage paid off, plus I have some inheritance money, so our next house will be 100% ours and we never have to go through this again!

Gizlot I hope you get a quick and positive response from the mortgage company, and you get some more viewings soon YogaDrone. I have to be honest and say I didn't really think about things maybe being a bit slow viewings wise because of the holidays.

Hi everyone, I haven’t been on the thread in a few weeks as I was finding it too hard to post about the lack of progress. So I took a break whilst on holidays. We also had a sewage flood in our cellar whilst we were on holiday – it turns out our neighbours drains were totally blocked and then it all overflowed into our cellar! We had to arrange all of that from abroad – three visits from a drains company, clean up and further investigation with Thames Water. All sorted now thankfully, but it was not an ideal way to spend 75% of the holiday – on the phone to the neighbour, Thames Water, drains people, EA etc. We had however also some really great news, an offer! Once we had the cellar all under control a couple who had viewed twice came back with an offer 4% under asking, and we have accepted it. We’re really happy and the couple seem to be very level-headed and have fallen in love with our lovely house. They have already sold and have an AIP in place so we are not in any chain either (we are renting). Hurrah! To be honest I can't quite believe it. It has been a long road (5 months on the market with two different agents and 4 price drops) but we got there in the end. The price is a lot lower than we hoped to get for it but we got to the stage where it was affecting sleep and relationships and it was time to move on. I can honestly say it has been the most prolonged stressful thing I have ever been through and it feels a lot to say that as I have been through the loss of a child. Do not underestimate how tough this process can be – I know I am prone to stress since I lost my boy a few years ago so maybe it’s just me. The relief is immense. I just hope that this all goes smoothly now – I may have to join the next thread along to get support there.

I wish everyone the best – I really do. Knowing I could follow the trials of others has been reassuring (misery loves company?!) and helpful. Fingers xd for lots of offers and smooth progress for everyone.

Can’t believe I’m posting this minutes after my previous post but the bloody buyers have pulled out already. I can’t believe it, I’m shaking with the shock of it here at my desk. Back to the drawing board, bloody hell.

DH has suggested we counter offer another 6% lower to overall give a 10% reduction to our 4 times reduced asking offer. I’m so all over the place that I cannot think straight. Stupid me thinking we had moved along! F**k.

Oh fuck I'm so sorry Party. Did the buyers give any reason to your EA? If you know what the issue is you might be able to fix it / re-negotiate?

After fawning all over our house and begging to accept the offer they have had a complete change of mind and have decided to buy a 2 bed apartment instead of our 4 bed house. EA seems to think they are 100% gone and that they will not discuss with us possible price negotiations. I'm devastated. DH is trying to pull in the situation.

Fucks sake Party I'm gutted for you. I don't understand how people can dick about like this, do they not know what this means to people?

I dreamt last night that our buyer pulled out - the whole process is so screwed up.

Problem with trying to tempt them back is the risk that they'll screw you more royally further down the process...

Yes, my thoughts too science, I'm worried they'll gleefully rub their hands together and figure out fun ways to screw us over. I think the trust is now broken beyond repair - in my mind anyways. DH is more willing to beg for them to come back.

This process is totally shite.

What?? why would anyone do that?

We've had no more viewings since we reduced the price again, new EAs have rung to find out our decision, we have said yes we're still thinking - but I feel that new EAs are a bit more proactive as they seem keen to get our business! So if no luck within our notice period I will feel happy moving to them.

Oh party that sucks. We need to find two bank statements for our application. I have searched high and low and because the bank changed their system we can't get them online so need to wait for them to get sent out.. argh but our broker seems really positive that it will go through...

Oh Party that is so awful I agree with Science that even if you do temp them back they sound so unstable that they'll probably try and shaft you down the line.

KitKat good luck with your sale. I wasn't aware of how selling a shared ownership property worked before but I was talking to a friend who is in your position (selling her shared ownership place) and it sounds drawn out and complex. I'm glad that your next place will be all yours

I think august is generally quiet for family houses but this year even more than usual (in our area - East Berks - anyway). We have one confirmed viewing on Friday and one unconfirmed for next Monday. Fingers crossed.

Glzlotsmum - those bank statements will miraculously reappear once you have got copies through. It's Sod's law!

Thanks for the good luck wishes Yoga. Yeah the shared ownership re-sale business is just even slower and more involved than these things normally are, so I've no idea how long this will all take. I'm hoping within a year!

Hope the bank statements come through soon Gizlots.

Party that's so awful. I hate it when people make offers or put houses on the market and then change their mind. I mean for fucks sake people have so much invested in this process, financially and emotionally, that you shouldn't even contemplate making an offer unless you're certain. I'm so sorry. xxx

Hi chaps, apologies for being incognito for a wee while. The stress and utter shitness of this whole process has been horrendous and I just could not even face posting about it.

I'm so sorry to hear about your offer Party. I agree that they sound like they can't be trusted - and because so much of this stupid bloody system is predicated on trust, you need to be as sure as you can that your buyers are genuine. Even if you did manage to talk them back into the purchase, I would be seriously worried about them pulling a gazunder or silly stunt the day before exchange of contracts.

Hope everyone else is OK - sorry I have not had a chance to catch up on the thread since I was last on it. We've had a bit of a nightmare with our vendors and ended up having to pull out. Cue endless evenings of stress-searching RM, tears, arguments because we couldn't find anything that we liked...I know it sounds terribly precious but this has honestly been one of the worst times of my life, the stress has been hideous.

We've hopefully found somewhere now, just waiting to hear back about our offer. So far we've lost almost £800 in non-refundable costs

Thanks for the support everyone . DH and I are taking a few days to lick our wounds and think of next steps. We're seriously considering renting it out as otherwise we may lose out considering all the work we've done on it. The EA thinks the shitty buyers will come back at a (much) lower offer. I really don't trust them so I'm not sure I'll agree even if they say yes, the ball is in our court at least. Bastards.

Lazy, so sorry to hear you're going through tough times. I really understand how stressful this is, I sometimes think the EA should offer counselling as a free add in service! Be strong and fingers crossed for your new offer.

It gets worse. I know it sounds utterly bonkers but I dare not even post what's happened on here in case it somehow jinxes us even further and things get worse. Complete lunacy I know, but this whole buying and selling process seems to be a complete crapshoot from start to finish!

I lost it this morning - after more bad news. Just burst out crying - again, when I actually thought I had no tears left!! My stomach is ruined and won't stop churning and at one point I was so stressed I honestly felt like I was having a heart attack.

If by some miracle we manage to get through this I am never moving again. I cannot believe how hideously awful it has been.

Party - I think we have been dealing with some relations of your buyers, as we have had two sets of sellers completely shaft us now. I'm not usually a spiteful person but I sincerely hope that their houses falls down a fucking mine-shaft!! We ended up walking away from one because the vendor was so flaky and was constantly moving the goalposts over 'the deal' - it was still well within our budget but we were so unhappy with not knowing what they were doing from one day to the next, that we decided we did not want to deal with them. You have to incur so many costs before you get to exchange of contracts so it's vital that you can trust the other party (as much as you can).

Shit Lazy I'm sorry, that sounds horrific. I know what you mean re posting on here, it's hard to put something down in black and white when you know it can all go tits up at any second.

Hi all,I'm so sorry to hear how stressful it's getting for you Party and Lazy. I hope you get to the end of this awful process soon.

The vendors who ditched us for a better offer lost their buyer today. DH told the EA we still like the house but we won't deal with those vendors again. Obviously the EA won't put it like that to them but it turns out we know people who know them well so word will get back. I know I sound vindictive but I can't help it, I just can't stand that kind of behaviour. Look at the affect it's having on you guys And of course we can't relax either, our buyer could pull out on us any day too.

*effect

Ann that sounds like Karma. I do think England should look at following the Scottish system. Still stressful but a lot more fixed once offer accepted ( in my understanding)

Ann I'd do the same thing, don't think it sounds vindictive at all.

Odd question but would you py for surveys before getting your mortgage approved?

Ann I don't blame you one bit. They deserve everything they get - if you act like a dick then don't be surprised when you get your just desserts!

Giz it depends. Part of the mortgage approval will be dependent on a valuation of the security address (i.e. the property you're purchasing), so in that sense you'll have to have at least a valuation survey done before you can get your formal mortgage offer. If, however, you're worried about the property value not stacking up - or that there might be a problem with your application - then you could always have the valuation and homebuyers (or full buildings) surveys done separately. It tends to cost more this way - as you'll have to pay for the surveyor to visit twice. But the benefit is that if you're concerned that the purchase might not work out then you're only losing the valuation survey cost - as opposed to all of your survey costs IYSWIM?

We did this with the property we had to pull out of - we were worried that there was going to be an issue with the value (and there was), so we got the lender's valuation done first (which was free) and had agreed with the vendor that we would only proceed to a homebuyer's report if the valuation was OK. This saved us losing £600 when we had to walk away.

Well the soap opera saga continues - this time unrelated to the house but basically a total stress-fest last night with some life-related bullshit that was the absolute icing on the cake of my crappy day. Can't share details as it is very identifiable, but safe to say I am really expecting the scriptwriters from EastEnders to come knocking and ask if they can shadow me for some storyline inspiration

I'm trying to keep a sense of humour but it is becoming very difficult...