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?

@MovingThisYearHopefully

Oh i didn't realise that was something they could do, or were even willing to consider.

I may ask the EA down the road who originally sold this place to us (Goadsby), though i dont know if YOPA have a tie in period before you can list with others so will have to check.

It's definitely worth finding out. DH wouldn't part with any more money until the EA I had round suggested making the reduction.

Update on ours. We went to the development today & had a brief word with the lady in the office as she was leaving. We spoke about the reluctance to communicate on the part of the housing association our buyers part own their flat with. She mentioned in a matter of fact way that they had said something about Japanese knotweed. As far as I'm aware having JK is right up there with subsidence almost in terms of how bad it is to be found at a property. Now we're worried that history will repeat itself & we will have another set of buyers lose their buyers (as happened exactly a year ago) & end up losing our much-wanted house yet again.

@MovingThisYearHopefully

Oh that's unfortunate :( i dont know much about it either but have heard it is troublesome.

Fingers crossed its not so bad and it can be removed.

If i had the choice i would just sell ours and move into rented so my purchase was with cash and didnt rely on everything falling into place as is currently, problem is we have two cats and i dont want to cause them unessesary stress plus most rented places dont allow pets.

The whole buying/ selling processes in UK are absolutely terrible, and just seem to cause people to lose a lot of money and not know whether they are coming or going for months or years even.

We didn't get a buyer for our house until we put "chain free" in our advert Ramsey. It really does seem to be a selling point. I'm really dreading actually having to do it as we have a cat too plus 2 kids with ASD to consider.

@MovingThisYearHopefully

Oh that is tricky; it is a shame that people have to resort to living in rented these days to then be considered by a seller to purchase a house, as its so costly and as tenancy is 6 months minimum can be a whole waste of time.

My friend at work took just over a year selling/ buying a place; couple of purchases fell through, and their buyer forced them last minute into rented which they were only in for 3 weeks - so had to pay for just over 5 months rented and a mortgage on top of that.

We can't afford to do that Ramsey. Not with Surrey prices lol. There are a few places that do (very expensive ) short-term lets or Air B&B. You're talking 2.5k a month+ The price we had to accept was literally at our limit so unless we can find something ultra cheap there is no way we'll be doing a 6-month tenancy.

Yea that is rediculous prices guess you cant help the area, i've used airbnb for little weekend stays in places but never thought about it for short term let.

I'm dreading it. Its going to be such a gamble as to how long the house takes to complete. The developers are reluctant to give further information until we exchange contracts. We don't want to exchange with them until our sale is ready. Without a completion date from the developer we can't match dates up with our sale chain! Most frustrating!

oh crikey moving I hope you get some good news soon!

im hoping we get news on the mortgage today or tomorrow. need to buy a new car! we've got a hire one at the min and would rather not have it for another week if I can get away with it!

got the inventory etc from the sellers, that's all fine. No news on our buyers for a while so I am going to chase that up today.

also got the mortgage deeds but obviously cant sign them as we will hopefully get some new ones soon.

I cant see us completing at the end of the month!

So we had viewings over the weekend and the feedback was interesting..
1st viewing said house was too near busy road (it’s london for goodness sake I’m not sure what they are expecting)
2nd viewing said the house was too small downstairs
3rd viewing No show
Can I ask if people are open to anyone viewing their property or only those in a position to offer? We don’t mind as we want as much chance as possible at selling our property but I can’t help but think surely it’s a waste of time if we are just showing people around who can’t offer?

Jem we showed people around our house the weekend before last who weren't in a position to proceed. However, I thought it was still an opportunity for some feedback so we took the children out and got the house viewing ready. They didn't bother to leave any feedback at all and have ignored the agents calls. So it has put me off a little.

On the flip side we want to view a house that we love from the photos but want to make sure we love it in real life as it's the only one we like at the minute and we haven't sold.

I don't know whether to reduce ours again. Started at £280,000 now on at offers over £264,000. I just don't know how to get people in to view. I think it's a nice house maybe I'm delusional.

BeauticianNotMagician81 can you afford to reduce your property? What has feedback been from viewings?

Jem - viewers can be odd and the buyers that are out there can be very picky indeed. Our house backs on to a cemetery (which I love as lots of trees, wildlife and not overlooked) - we had a number of prospective buyers who were spooked by this (even though its clear that this is the case from the particulars and map of where the house is)...

Hope the japanese knotweed mention was erroneous Moving! Or its not to bad and can be managed.

Good luck Flamingo.

After much discussion we have accepted cheeky offer from alleged chain free buyer and managed to get a discount on buying price of the place we're buying but not heard anything from buyer now. I do not want to be moving just before xmas (and our mortgage offer expires mid December) so I've asked both our solicitor and the estate agent to let the buyer know we need to complete by the end of November or the transaction is off. If we dont move, I've agreed with DH that we will take the place off the market for a while and just have fun living in our lovely house.

Jem we can afford to do one last offers over but it will be tight. It depends on what we can get the property we like for as well. We have only had four viewings Two said they loved it but found something else, one said the garden too overlooked and the final one gave no feedback at all.

Thanks everyone. Prospective buyers want to proceed, which is exciting - but we weren't quite ready. I've made 4 local estate agents appointments for Friday, we need up to date valuations to determine a fair asking price. Hopefully it's acceptable for us and our buyers - and so I've also enquired with 2 local solicitors. Suddenly the race is on - it feels like a long time to wait until we get valuations back.

Had some good news today. There is no knotweed. Apparently it is yet another cock-up on our buyers side. Probably due to the change of solicitors. Such a relief. We did get a silly message passed on today from them saying that they want to exchange this week & get builders in to quote in 2 weeks time & complete mid-November. I responded saying that unless they know something we don't then we are not in the position yet to discuss exchange/completion dates. We seem to be dealing with complete imbeciles!

Hope you get some news soon Flamingo.

You really can't afford to be fussy with who you allow to view I'm afraid Jem. It is perfectly possible that the people viewing today who are not yet on the market could fall in love with a house & get their own place on the market within days & get a buyer quicker than you do. Same happened to us. They fell in love with our house & put theirs on priced low to sell, then got a buyer within days. Unfortunately they got cold feet & ended up buying something needing less doing to it.

I don't know what to suggest on your place Beautician. It seems to me to be so cheap already & lovely. I guess its just a sign of the market we are in. The only other thing you could do to entice buyers would be to go chain free. We tried everything else & this was what swung it in the end.

Congratulations Dinky. End of November is possibly a tad optimistic to get a sale pushed through though. Not impossible, but incredibly unlikely. If things go to plan you could probably do mid December before your mortgage expires, or if necessary get the lender to extend the mortgage offer & say to the buyer you don't want to complete until mid January if you want to avoid Christmas.

Congratulations Archbishop. Now thats what we all want to happen lol. I hope you can get an agreeable offer between you & the buyers. Are you aware of how much they were going to pay for the other place?

Moving I'm tempted to try chain free but with four children and no rentals in the area currently it would be a risk. We have seen a house we want so how does that work?

Hello, I’m back here again.

Our sale fell through today. Almost 4 months it’s been. I’m absolutely devestated. There was a delay due to the original solicitors for the buyer being rubbish, so they changed on 24th September. No issue with mortgage company valuation. Homebuyer valuation took place on 3rd October, buyer got the report on 5th and told our estate agents today that they weren’t going ahead.

The homebuyers surveyor valued the house at £100,000 rather than the £110,000 that was agreed on. It was written very harshly but there wasn’t anything major. For example we had the kitchen completely redone 7 years ago and the report said it’d need replacing in the short to medium term as the units were tired and showed signs of wear. Similarly he said the front and back gardens were neglected. The property has been vacant for nearly three months so there has been growth, as we’re not just round the corner to keep checking on it. We were planning on having it all re-done and the house having a professional clean before exchange. I am stressed and annoyed. They’ve dragged this out and now we’re back to square one

@MovingThisYearHopefully good news on the knotweed! That must be a relief.

Everyone seems to be going through the mill here with time wasting viewers and worries about chains collapsing...

We are at a stalemate in negotiations with the house we are trying to buy. It's a shame as it's a lovely place in a great location but the vendor is just stuck at the overvalued asking price and not willing to come down an inch. They are not buying anything and I think the sale is motivated by the fact that it was previously a rental and now needs a lot of work doing to it. We are waiting for a counteroffer from them but they seem unwilling to enter negotiations at all.

Our sale seems to be going OK. We are selling that chain free so once it's completed we'll be in an excellent position to offer as will be cash buyers.

Its all a bit of a gamble really Beautician. If you sell & the house you want is still available then ideally you want to tie in the sale & purchase. If potential buyers don't offer your asking price then you can just say that you can no longer afford to go into rented seeing as you didn't get enough on your house to allow it. Your only issue is if there is simply nothing to buy in your area, in which case your only option is to hold off on selling until more is around! Its a shite time to sell!

So sorry to hear this GetOrfMyBin. So is it your place that was undervalued by 10k & you can't afford to reduce by that to move on? Straight back on the market then I guess, but unfortunately this downvaluing is becoming quite common now with reducing prices.

Not sure what you can do really Tiddle, other than perhaps give a full & final maximum offer with a deadline attached. Continue to look elsewhere too.

Thanks MovingThisYearHopefully

The buyers mortgage company did a survey in July and were happy with the price of £110,000. They had to homebuyers survey done separately at the start of October and that’s what’s come back £10,000 under. The homebuyers surveyor has his own estate agency too.

The buyer hasn’t even given us the choice to negotiate the price, just rung our EA and said they’re pulling out. Our EA asked for the report and it’s been sent over, but the honestly can’t see anything that really should have caused the buyer to just walk away. One thing they said that may have is that the outbuilding roof is made of asbestos slate but it isn’t damaged. The thing that the buyer kept going on about apparently is the construction material. It’s an ex council house post war so it’s concrete, with external insulation. The EA tried to get back in touch with the buyer but haven’t been able to - I’m assuming he’s now ignoring their calls.

House is going back on the market in the meantime and we’re going to go again. Only positive is that the searches have been done and the homebuyers report can be used for the next buyer apparently. Still gutted though as this all puts a massive dent in the finances.

Oh I'm so sorry. So its nothing to do with the mortgage company, its just your ex-buyers are lying tight bastards trying to stitch you up & embellishing what was in the homebuyers report in an attempt to do so! These homebuyers reports are notorious for picking up absolutely everything as "needs further checking & investigation" which freaks the buyers out. Doesn't mean there is anything wrong, just they're covering their arses by refusing to confirm if its ok or not. Pointless waste of money in my view. Looks like these people were always looking for a reason to knock you down! So sorry.

I feel like buyers just make up excuses when they change their mind.

Our homebuyers survey from nearly 3 years ago shows everything green (house was only 4/5 years old), yet buyers we lost can come up with excuse that subsidence risk is 'low' and not 'zero' chance - they didnt even have survey done plus were cash buyers so there was no valuation either, so its like they plucked an idea out of thin air and decided to run with it.

I am afraid its just the crazy market we are in, i hope you get a new buyer soon @GetOrfMyBin

Yep pretty much seems like they’ve used this report to just pull out.

Like I say the report is worded harshly and it feels like the (ex)buyer is taking everything out of proportion. Another example is the boiler - report said it’s over ten years old (which it is) and will need replacing in the short term. We get it serviced regularly and our boiler man has said it’s good for a long while yet. Advised us if it was his boiler he wouldn’t be replacing it. Sorry I keep going on it’s just so frustrating!! The ex-buyer has seen the house himself twice. The sale was agreed mid-June and the mortgage survey was done in July. I’m annoyed they’ve waited til now to do a homebuyers report, which could have saved us weeks of time. It is all just a waste.

Going to ring EA tomorrow afternoon just to see where we’re up to with relisting etc. Happy to stay with them as they’ve been good otherwise.

I think you're right Ramsey. These buyers are making it up as they go along. They know they hold the cards & can basically call the shots, particularly the chain free & cash buyers.

Our buyers are really pissing me off. They are now saying that they want us to accept builders & architects into the house prior to exchange. Not a bloody chance. They're acting as if we're the ones holding up the chain & should bend over backwards to accommodate, when its actually them & their buyers holding things up & apparently their buyers will not be ready to exchange for about a month. They should be apologising to us & bending over backwards to pacify us because of the hold up. Its only because we are not in a hurry that we're not throwing our toys out of the pram because of the lack of progress FFS!