What I learnt when buying a house...

[twinklecow]

Feel free to add...

1. By far the biggest lesson was having good solicitors in the chain. We asked our estate agent and she was brilliant but we would have moved weeks earlier if the solicitors on either end of our chain had been good. I would make it a condition of our offer/ acceptance that each person in the chain is using a solicitor whom the estate agents knows to be good.

1. Think really really hard about all practicalities of any offers you make. We made two offers on lovely houses one at the top of an incredibly steep hill, the other with no shop/pub/ anything near by. Still drive past both and thank our lucky stars we were out bid.

1. The right house is probably the one that scores highest average on most of your criteria. Not the one with a wow but compromises. We adore our house but it wasn’t obvious to us at the time.

1. “They want to sell to a family” is an estate agents trick to bid up you and any developers.

1. Cash buyers aren’t necessarily an advantage in your chain. They are usually investors so subject to the vagaries of the market and not emotionally invested in the purchase.

1. Get your buyer emotionally invested in your house. If it’s a family send them

Links to/ news about local schools, couples - same with local venues, send pictures of garden as it blooms etc.

1. Expect to spend money even if it looks lovely, houses where people know they will sell are rarely well cared for in recent years below the surface. We have replaced a blown up boiler, sorted various plumbing issues and other more minor repairs.

1. You can’t book a removal company without exchanging and it’s hard to find a removal company that’s decent if you only have a week between exchange and completion.

Useful ? What did you learn?

Absolutely nothing and I don't know how we got through it!

Eagerly awaiting some wisdom from this thread, thanks OP!

Some interesting points there. I have to add my bit based on 20+ years buying & selling in answer to some of your points though.

1, Estate agents frequently lie & recommend solicitors who give them the biggest backhander. We almost had a sale fall through & certainly caused it to be far longer & more stressful than it should of been after going with the alleged "in-house solicitors" who turned out to be 50 minutes drive away. Word of mouth is by far the best option. Failing that, assume they'll all be shit & simply go for the cheapest, because chances are whoever you use will be shit!

5, Cash buyers are GREAT! Trouble is they know it & offer accordingly! If you get an offer you can accept from a cash buyer it is, without doubt, a MASSIVE advantage to your chain & will increase your buying power on your ongoing purchase! Cash buyers know this, hence they offer low!

8, YES you CAN book a removal company prior to exchange. Who on earth misinformed you that you cant? Many people exchange & complete on the same day. I've done it myself. Its nerve wracking & awful. You have to pay upfront & risk losing your money, but many families do this every day!

My best piece of advice would always be to present your house properly for sale. De-clutter as much as possible to maximise space, de-personalise. Make sure rooms are presented in a way that makes it easy for a buyer to imagine themselves being there, for example, something as simple as having a table in your kitchen to indicate a dining space.

Another good tip is if you have a particular location you are keen on don't be afraid to do a leaflet drop in the area to try & drum up those who may be considering selling. You may save yourself a fortune if you can get a discount by doing a private sale.

Some great tips here. A few to add:

1. Have a decent pot of money set aside, on top of the money for agent/removal/solicitors fees etc. As a pp said, you always risk losing money if things fall through at the last minute. Try not to get rid of things until the last possible moment (we sold some white goods two days before our sale fell through).

1. We have offered on 3 houses before, all ‘unique’ (not quick sellers), all had been on the market for a few months. Coincidentally, at the same time we offered, there was another ‘interested party’ who funnily enough had offered £2-3k more than us! We smelled bullshit every time and we were right every time. Unless you’re offering on a perfect house that’s just gone on the market, always assume that the agents will magic another buyer up out of thin air who is offering more than you. Stick to your guns.

1. The most ‘trustworthy’ buyers might still screw you over.

That just because the offer has been accepted and the process with solicitors, mortgages etc has started does not mean you will live in the house. It's not yours until you get the keys. Learnt this over the years with sellers and buyers changing their minds, being gazumped, chains collapsing etc.

I never would have had such a short time between exchange and completion! We've always had at least 4 weeks.

Too early in the morning for me to comment properly but OPs point 1 is ridiculous. As a former solicitor the estate agent knowing the solicitor is not relevant at all to the chain moving. The solicitors job is to act in the clients interest not the agents. I never in my working life ever offered a back handed to any agent. If I had a sniff that had happened on any deal I had worked on I would have reported the solicitor to the law society. You get what you pay for. Solicitors are not shit, they are their to make sure the title their client is buying is solid. We’ve an issue with our property, dh on his own would have been scared by the legal jargon, I took a view. My solicitor wasn’t shit, far from it.

Be wary of others in the chain using internet conveyancers

Solicitors do not give estate agents back handers.

However a lot of people who do conveyancing are not solicitors and some will be connected to the estate agent's business. This may well be what you are referring to moving.

“I would make it a condition of our offer/ acceptance that each person in the chain is using a solicitor whom the estate agents knows to be good.”

EAs often tout a favoured solicitor who may be the ‘best ‘ from an EA pov: get the thing sold, never mind those irritating but important details.... Remember, if this is on an offer, the EA is working for your vendor, not for you. This is s nice fantasy scenario, but a chain can span a wide geographical area, and EAs won’t know who all the solicitors are, up the chain!

Some people complete and exchange on the same day....

Wow Moving, I was just intending this to be a friendly thread. It’s what I learnt on a difficult chain last year but to answer your points:

1. I’m really not sure where you get your evidence on “bungs”. Having worked in the legal industry for years, it’s simply not a behaviour I’ve seen, accepting there are crooks in every industry. There are two commercial reasons for this. First, residential property isn’t really that lucrative an area of law. You are far and away more likely to get stung by someone who has taken on two many cases or is just bad at their job. Second, estate agents are measured on their monthly sales, get paid on commission and are also used on a word of mouth basis. Put simply, their bigger pay day is in getting the house sold quickly.

1. We made the exact assumption as you have re a cash buyer, choosing between identical bids on this basis. Maybe in a hot market that would have been right, but as I said if it’s an investor they’re not emotionally or practically invested. They didn’t give a shit about the moving dates the rest of the chain needed, and renegotiated our buyer at the last minute, very nearly causing the chain to collapse, becauce they could.

1. The miserable day I spent phoning 15 removal firms and the two who cancelled my booking told me that. Yes, toward the end I was so desperate I offered to just pay the deposit, which was nearly a grand. The firms I spoke to explained they didn’t want to do this as they would pick up moves which paid the full price for the day, rather than have a deposit and no work. Maybe if you’re in a quieter area or a quiet time of year it’s different but I had thought exchange and completion was quiet common, but ten days or two weeks would also have been easier. It also made it difficult to get some services up and running - broadband, mail redirect.

As I said just sharing what I learnt and why!

I would say so t use estate agent recommended solicitors, they are usually recommended because they pay them a commission.

Agree with internet conveyances. Two experiences, both the pits. We are currently selling to people using them and it is painful.

And I agree with you on the removals thing OP, we had a nightmare arranging them and it was November, so not a busy time of year. We exchanged and completed same day and ended up doing it ourselves with a sprinter van in the end. Awful day.

One thing I HAVE learnt buying and selling is that everyone’s experience is different! Just because it didn’t happen to YOU doesn’t mean that it won’t happen to someone else.

Always expect the unexpected when buying/selling, unfortunately!

Don't use.

1. Cut out the estate agent and sell privately.
2. Don't assume that just because you've paid a £200 deposit and had 60 boxes from the removal company that they are going to turn up on the day of moving. Ring them beforehand to confirm.

Don't complete on a Friday and never complete on a Friday before a Bank Holiday. It's just asking for problems.
(have completed on a Tuesday and Thursday and have been putting new keys in new front door before lunchtime both days)

Other than that, agree whole heartedly about never using any legal adviser recommended by the EA. Infact use that as a guide for who not to use...

Solicitors are not paid a commission. Not in my experience. I would report if I’d got a sniff of that. Do not mix up solicitors with licenced conveyancers.

After several moves over the years:
Trust no one, one seller, sold to a different buyer using a different solicitor whilst pretending to sell to us! One seller hid all the junk furniture in the cellar and attic and left it there.
The house is not yours until completion.
Estate agents are only there to make money, therefore want the highest price for a property, regardless of how they get it. They are not your friends.
Select a solicitor through personal recommendation from real people who have used them.

This has probably been mentioned before, but when you make an offer, the EA will either just say nothing, or wince theatrically and then say nothing.

Nine times out of ten, the buyer will then panic and up their offer by ten grand to fill the gap in the conversation.

Learn to enjoy the silence like Depeche Mode.

Oh yes, I agree don’t complete on a Friday. A day earlier in the week allows time for any money hold ups to be sorted and removal firms aren’t so busy.

Hi FirstOf

I’m the OP, I didn’t make the point on solicitors and backhanders ! We were blown away by how good the solicitor recommended by our EA was - she made all the difference to the chain. Similaley our vendor sacked their first solicitor and went with one recommended by the EA after 6 weeks of crap from the first solicitor, and they were equally great.

Before doing this we had always gone with personal recommendations they were OK but often a bit dated.

I’m just making the point as I wouldn’t have previously asked the EA and I wish I had made it a point of acceptance on sale and purchase ie that they have a reputable firm - everyone in my chain agreed it would have been much better in hindsight.

On the other point about solicitors skipping over important parts as they’re close to the EA, again that’s not at all been my experience (we had an adverse possession issue on a perfectly standard looking semi detached) nor is it in the EAs interests (as this things can derail a sale at the last minute) or the solicitor (who would be liable in negligence). Again, you’re far more likely to get mistakes if your solicitor is doing it for very little pay or has too high a work load.

I don’t agree with all of these, estate agents make more on sales than most conveyancers so I doubt they bung then anything, it’s more of a good/known working relationship. There are great estate agents out there as well as fly by nights,
You have to remain proactive during your sale and notvtotally rely on agents and solicitors to keep things moving.
I’ve never had problems with removals, they know the score so understand they won’t know the moving date when you book-maybe not completing on a Friday would help with this?
Internet conveyencers are crap
Think about what a seller wants when you offer-we just had an offer accepted because we offered to clear the remainder of the house out as part of the offer (not too much stuff, nothing massive and we have to get s slip anyway) this was a big relief to the sellers
Don’t be an arse-I’ve had buyers who have pissed me off with their messing around, this is someone’s home you’re buying and people are emotionally invested. Having said this I think you have to think like you’re in business to keep a level head during the process.

My tip would be NOT to over invest yourself emotionally in a property until you have actually exchanged. Always keep in mind that things can and do go wrong. I lost a dream property years ago when they suddenly withdrew it from sale (no reason given) after weeks of the usual paperwork and weeks of my dreams about how living there was going to be. I was totally bereft! It was ages until I could pull myself together to look for another property. Ever since then I have always kept an emotional distance during housebuying.

Buy a new build with cash = no chain

My tip would be NOT to over invest yourself emotionally in a property until you have actually exchanged [...] I have always kept an emotional distance during housebuying.

This is totally true Lucisky. I've discovered recently that I am almost entirely unemotional when it comes to houses. My settled view is that memories, hopes, dreams and ambitions come with me when I move in, and they leave with me when I move out. The house is just a vessel.

Great thread!