Sellers roll call part 2. Who is still on this treadmill?

[MovingThisYearHopefully]

I thought it was about time to start a new thread as this one is close to 1000 messages.

Who is still here & what is your story?

Heres me: I have been trying to move since April last year. Had a buyer, buyers lost their buyer in October & still haven't got a new one. We remarketed at a low price in November in order to continue buying the house we were at point of exchange with, but were unable to get enough to move on & lost the house in February.

Prices are definitely falling here in Surrey. Realistically we're looking to get 10% less than our original asking price, if we're lucky. Getting viewers has never been an issue, regardless of price. This process has been stressful beyond belief & almost split me & DH up. Surely our luck must change soon?

One thing that seems to be helping us get more interest than other properties is that we have now agreed to go chain free. Is this a possibility for any of you struggling? If offered significantly less than asking price then as far as I see it you are within your rights to say chain free was based on near to asking price & not affordable at a significant amount under! Worth considering perhaps?

Twinky and Yikes Goodness I didn't even realise this. We paid £500 to a broker last time. Could you pm the brokers details please. I have asked locally so I may go to one that's just around the corner.

We have never met our broker, nor will we personally pay him a penny. He gets his commission from the lender. You do have to be careful with this because some of them will steer you towards the product that offers them the most money.

Had our initial conversation with the conveyancer earlier & we also went to the development to look at all the plans related to our house. Exciting times!

I have been reading this thread for a while, we have had our house on the market for 2 months and our agents haven't got any viewing or interest. Heard nothing from them in 6 weeks so chased them up, they suggested we drop the price. So we reduced the price majorly but still nothing.
Then this week a friend who has sold wants to buy ours. Should we be honest with the agent and tell them we have sold privately or just try terminate the contract due to lack of communication and no viewings? I really don't want to pay free when they've done nothing to sell it!

*pay fees

These EA can be tricky buggers. Are you still within the contract period? If not I'd be inclined to cancel the contract first. If you are still within contract you could see if you can cancel early based on lack of contact & effort. I'm sure someone on here did that. It is vital to get confirmation from them that the contract is cancelled though. Its unlikely to come to anything if its entirely a private sale between friends & your friend has at no point contacted the EA, not on their mailing list etc. Worth covering yourself though.

It's a 12 week contract which ends early Oct. Our agents have shown our friends another house before but have never mentioned our house as a possibility to them...
I also remember someone on this thread cancelling with agents, it really is tricky!

Depends how desperate you are to move. To be ultra careful I'd give them notice now tbh, because often they want 4 weeks notice to terminate, so you'd be looking at doing it soon anyway. Theres nothing to stop your friend getting a mortgage agreed in principle etc & getting solicitors instructed & getting papers out prior to the contract end. You may find the EA pull their socks up when given notice. Its often the case. You could end up getting more than your friend is offering. (Taking fees into account of course) Have you agreed a figure with your friend that you're happy with?

Thanks Movingthisyearhopefully, that's really helpful
Our friends are happy to pay full asking price and are hoping we can take it off the market so no one else gets it!

Oh wow! A bit of a result for you all there then. Just take a quick look at your EA contract to make sure you safeguard yourselves.

FFS, our buyer have NOW a couple of days before exchange decided they do in fact need a survey and so instructing one for the end of next week! I wouldn't care but 5 frigging weeks into the process.

Hi everyone, I’m a FTB and I’m just wondering if you’d give me some insight- those of you who have had your property on for a while, ie 4 months or longer, would you consider taking a lower offer or do you have to hold out for the minimum amount to make your next move? Also how valuable is an offer from a FTB to you? For example, would you take a FTB’s offer who has all their paperwork in place and only needs to give a month notice in rental so could move very quickly, or would you take someone in a chain who offered a few thousand more? I’m asking as we’ve been looking since around March this year and at the start of summer we managed to about double our budget by taking into account my self employed income, but unfortunately there has been barely anything come on during summer. So I started looking at properties 10% above our max budget (£246000, in north east so looking for a futureproof family house in a decent area) and ringing up the estate to ask if it was worth our viewing - ‘our max budget is ... but I noticed it’s been on the market for a while so I wonder whether the vendors might be willing to negotiate on price considering our proceedable position?’ - all the times I’ve done this we have been told the vendor absolutely won’t go lower than .. and there’s no point us viewing. In our area all other properties that are reasonably priced sell quickly judging a search on Rightmove with ‘show STC properties’ filter on. So I’m basically wondering at which point you might start considering a 8-10% reduction? Also whether FTB are as valuable as people keep saying (everyone says ‘you’re only FTB once so use it to your advantage’ but that doesn’t seem to be working!)
Thanks- and I hope everyone gets good news soon!

lolly It's not the FTB aspect of it, it is about being chain-free.

Ime first time buyers can be quite naive and likely to mess about. Someone who has been through the process before but currently living with family/in rented would be more valuable to me than a FTB.

I see! What in particular has given you the impression that FTB mess about?

Sorry not been around much. Signal crap here.

beautician shit what do u mean about natwest and childcare? Thats prob only way we can get a mortgage.. if we can't we literally cannot move....

Ive googled but can't see anything?

Flamingo on the 21st August they updated their childcare affordability calculation and it now uses actual childcare figures as opposed to the previous ONS affordability. If you go into the Natwest mortgage calculator for how much can I borrow and click the info tab it now says Childminding/nursery fees to be entered. It didn't ask that previously.

Pineapple it was me that ended our EA agent contract early, well DH. He phoned up and complained that we hadn't heard anything at all and that he wanted to know exactly why we were paying them. So they released us from our contract.

Lolly for me it's all about being chain free too. As for offers I would accept a bit under my asking price but I simply need a certain amount to move. If I can't achieve that then I will take the property off the market and try again at a later date.

Hope you're having a nice holiday flamingo!

Does anyone have any viewings lined up for this weekend? Nothing for us - when do people tend to get 'the call' about viewings? We tend to hear on a Weds / Thurs for weekend viewings.

There seems to have been lots of houses going up for sale these last few days around here, hoping that things will get moving after the summer lull.

I’d love a ftb who wants to move in a month. I’m moving to my other property and will be leaving my house empty if it hasn’t sold. I don’t need the money to move..I have an amount I’d like but don’t need a certain figure to move. I know I’m very lucky but ftb would be my ideal

Thanks we did have a nice holiday! Delayed 3 hours coming home and then hit a rogue traffic cone on the motorway on the way back from the airport! So not a great end but it was a nice week!

Oh shitting hell beautician i bet we wont get a mortgage now... that would mean porting our mortgage to another house of the same value and missing out on the one weve got..... seeing stepdad/mortgage advisor tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed for me that he can sort something out!!

Flamingo I'm sure there will be another mortgage lender out there that can help. I'm hoping so as we are the same. I'm actually considering leaving work until we've moved so that we meet affordability. It's ridiculous that on their calculators it makes us worse off. Our new mortgage would be less than our current mortgage and loan we are paying off. It's so frustrating.

Im just looking now beautician and nobody will lend us more than 40 grand......

My fucking luck never changes. Absolutely no fucking idea what to do now

Flamingo have you looked at L&C online brokers.

Oh Flamingo, can you go to a broker? Remind me where you are in the UK? Ours has been fantastic, I'd be happy to pass on the details....

My stepdad is a broker hes looking into it as we speak but literally all lenders now take childcare fees into account and ours are £776 a month....

I have a job due to start on Monday and am now thinking of turning it down as I'll only be earning a small amount after childcare costs anyway and it means we can borrow more. It's ridiculous the way they work it out. I'll have less incoming but can borrow more ???

Oh bugger, that's absolutely rubbish