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?

yes moving we bought one yesterday, I am now an official member of the automatic yaris club! ended up getting a newer one which is a hybrid.

that's not great is it, the developers seem to being a bit arsey considering the market! its not like they'll sell it any quicker if they pull your deal is it?!

I am still hoping for completion next Friday but god knows if that will happen now!

We have our in a final offer on the house with a very slow to respond vendor - 5% under asking. Deadline to get back to us is end of the day. Crossing everything!

Ooh, nice Flamingo. Welcome to the club lol. I bet you get a few MPG out of that than I do on mine. I generally get about 250 miles before I have to fill up, but have got more.

Everything crossed Tiddle.

Ugh! Its all going a bit tits up. Got a text message today from our online system saying that draft contracts have been prepared on our sale & will be with us shortly. This happened on 24th August, so the lady in the developer's office is right, it does seem like they're starting from square one. FFS! Now for us, if the developer accepts this isn't our fault & agrees to wait for us then its good, because its less time in rented. They could also decide to pull the plug, but I fail to see the sense in that unless there is another buyer lined up, which I very much doubt as we are very pally with the sales girls. Plus on top of all this we are still unclear on what is going on with our buyers sale as getting anything out of the housing association is like pulling teeth!

Our buyer is still is convinced we can exchange by next Tuesday & wants to meet an architect at our house next Friday so he can get the ball rolling on their extension plans while they're on holiday until mid-November. We can't see how & our EA doesn't think so either, given the number of people involved who need to check things over in a HA shared equity sale. We are awaiting a phone call from the sales girl to give us the verdict on her conversation with the boss & if we don't hear, provided DH's meeting finishes on time, we will pop down & have a catch up with her to hopefully put our minds at rest! We really don't want to lose this now!

Agent called me and said someone else had just put in an offer a few grand over ours... did we want to increase our offer?
Smells fishy to me - I know there had been little interest and even on Tuesday the agent emailed saying that there had been no interest so the property was going to be removed from the market if we didn't increase our offer.
Feel really p*ssed off with this agent's games. Told him I would not be raising our offer. I will not touch this agency again.

Ha. Another property a few doors from the one we liked is back on the market. Called the agent and they said the buyers had just pulled out after the survey. They have outbid us, but the property they just pulled out of looks better for us - and is priced to sell - so at least we have a plan going forward.

What came up in the survey to make them pull out though Tiddle? I'd assume its something quite drastic to be a dealbreaker for the previous buyers. What does the EA say?

@MovingThisYearHopefully actually both houses we are interested in have had buyers pull out following homebuyers surveys.

House 1 - lack of building control on a bathroom, 'signs of movement' - on at 220k
House 2 - damp cellar and likely other issues due to being vacant for 3 years - on at 190k

Both on the same street, house 2 is about 200sqft bigger.

We were outbid on house 1 by ~£2k and I am fairly sure the buyers are those who have just pulled out of house 2!

I can't believe you're being outbid on houses that most people would walk away from or want a substantial discount on. Is it the fact that there is simply nothing better to look at? Personally I wouldn't consider a house someone pulled out of based on survey results. Just think of all the other stuff the survey missed? You'd guaranteed be buying a money pit. Be very wary of buying something like this unless your DH is the local DIY neighbour from hell like my ex-husband king!

But people pull out for all sorts of reasons to do with surveys. Sometimes because they are nervy first time buyers who cannot separate surveyors covering their backs from genuine issues, sometimes because they've had a previous bad experience with, say a roof, and panic when the survey (inevitably) mentions future roof work needed. Plenty of buyers don't understand damp properly and get frightened by twats with cattle prods making ridiculous proclamations about rising damp. Yes, sometimes/often maybe it's a sign you ought to be wary but I wouldn't write off any house where the sale had collapsed after survey without knowing more.

@moving I see your point, I suppose it's a sign of the area really - property prices have been rising here steeply due to good school catchment

@tentative3 it's mainly young families buying up these properties so I think mainly people just don't want to do 'work'. Not many people get full structural surveys and I think they just get spooked by the mention of damp, as you say

Prices here are dropping like a stone despite being within catchment of excellent schools lol. Funny how things vary across the country.

Signs of structural movement & damp picked up by a surveyor are serious issues that are sensible to walk away from unless you are experienced in doing up houses or have plenty of money & really love the house. They can by no means be described as arse covering. I don't think a fully trained surveyor, who would certainly understand the difference between damp & something minor like condensation, could be described as a twat making ridiculous proclamations.

Structural movement is one thing, I agree. Damp can be caused by a multitude of issues varying from very minor to very serious. I'm genuinely glad that you've had better luck with surveyors than we have because it means that there are people adhering to the standards and not diagnosing damp via protimeters but sadly that's not been the case for us as buyers or sellers. Every single one has used a protimeter when making statements about damp.

I apologise if I sounded sharp, certainly nothing aimed at you Moving, but I do think surveys are often an exercise in arse covering. We once had a mortgage offer changed to 100% retention after their survey found damp (using a protimeter) in a wall. Which had had a dripping tap running down it for some time... Thankfully we were able to apply for a mortgage elsewhere and all was fine.

In terms of fully trained surveyors, we had one round to do a survey on a house we were selling. He asked us what had come up on the survey when we bought and what we'd done about it. I kind of felt for the buyer, it was an absolute waste of however much she paid him.

Once again I apologise if I sounded aggressive towards you, certainly not my intention. My aggression is towards the farce that is the house buying process in this country.

Its like our house. Our buyers are having £950 worth of entirely pointless work. Yes, the exterior wall probably does read as damp. Its the exterior wall of a 120 year old house. There is some moisture in it. Has that moisure caused any problems? Any wet walls or visible damp? Nope.

Do i bet my arse they get damp in that wall after they have the work done? Yes i do.

@flamingo I think this happens a lot! Each to their own I suppose.
The houses we are looking at have indisputable damp (walls are wet) but contrary to what many believe, damp is usually treatable.

Yes exactly. My friend bought a house recently that was VERY damp. Water running down the walls. They got it sorted and its absolutely fine now.

No worries Tentative. The middle of the road Home buyers surveys are particularly guilty of what you describe in my experience. If I were a FTB I probably would of run a mile from our current place because they refused to commit to anything. Of course, there are good & bad in all professions. I have seen really good Home Buyers reports too. I was petrified when our buyers wanted a full structural survey on this place tbh after our own homebuyers, but it seemed to come up with less than our one & highlighted important stuff rather than bullshit stuff. I only hope my current purchase goes through & I don't have to go through this again lol.

Hopefully DH & I will get to the development today to have a peek at whats going on. Yesterday was spent doing tip runs. Still one more to do today before we go there. I have to say I'm really cacking myself at the thought of having to find somewhere to house 2 adults, 2 autistic teens & a cat with 4 weeks notice just before Christmas at exorbitant cost with no firm end date!

I'm thinking of selling up, what % are your EA charging? I hear it's between 1-3%. My house is in west London and possibly worth £500-520k

Thanks

@lboogy mine is east London and charges a fixed fee of £3600 inc vat, this works out about 1.3%

@lboogy Our estate agent is charging 1% - easy money for them if we ever sell!!

Have to join in on the damp protimeters thread further up. I was selling and the surveyor covered "get an inspection on everything" approach so that basically his survey became meaningless. 1930s house, excellent condition etc. Buyer sent in one of those "free" damp specialists who claimed damp everywhere due to those dreadful meters. My partner bought one off the internet as well to try and judge. In the end I paid a specialist independent damp specialist who stated chimney caps needed, plants removed off the outside walls, gutters cleared and shingle lowered outside around the house. Solved the problem. Those free damp people are sharks of the highest order. Buyer understood as the damp survey specialist was independent, professional and logical.

I’ve just read through this whole thread as I’m a somewhat frustrated FTB and trying to understand the mindset of sellers near me!! Living in leafy north London, healthy deposit, healthy mortgage approval in place. Not a lot on the market locally at the moment but asking prices are all over the place.

Offered £675k on a lovely garden flat earlier this year- asking was £715k but a flat the same size, similar condition in same block had sold for £665k a few months earlier, we figured garden was worth more. It was rejected, agent drove us mad calling weekly asking us to up our offer despite us constantly reiterating that we felt we had made a very fair offer and were not willing to go higher. Fast forward 7 months, it’s been resisted with another agent asking for offers in excess of £650k! We just feel we can’t deal with the vendors again after all that despite loving the flat.

Likewise viewed a lovely property sold in 2017 for £600k, relisted this summer at £750k but nothing changed at all other than furniture! Agent showing us around even confirmed that nothing had been done but that vendors were unwilling to accept a penny under asking.

Baby due in a few weeks so at this point we are fairly resigned to staying renting and looking again after Brexit etc but am pretty fed up at this point! Any advice on how to approach agents/vendors given that we are in a very good position to proceed quickly?

@Rinceoir it's a tough time wherever you are but London is feeling it particularly badly. A lot of vendors are withdrawing properties from the market when they don't achieve the price they want, so a smaller pool of available properties pushes the prices up.
You're doing everything you can and will be an attractive buyer. There's not much you can do apart from keep looking...perhaps expand your search area if you can?

The thing is that almost nothing is actually selling. There are practically no recent sales to compare prices! School catchments are an issue for us hence a fairly small search area.

Hi all,

We've been away for a week which was lovely to get some distance from work and the nightmare that is house selling/buying. We're now back and into our fourth week on the market and no progress, which is frustrating. We've had 8 viewings now: two said they didn't like the village churchyard being so close (our garden backs onto it) but some loved it as of course, it means it'll never be built on. Everyone seems to have positive things to say about the house but no offers as yet. Feels like we're in the weird quiet period after the initial flurry of activity - not sure what happens now, other than wait...

lboogy, we negotiated ours down from 1% to 0.75% which will give us a decent saving. We were torn between two agents, and managed to get the more expensive ones to reduce their commission.

rinceoir that's really frustrating about the flat! If you love it, is it worth offering a cheeky £655k and see what happens? While they may be a pain to deal with, once you'd got the flat, you'd have what you wanted and could have saved £20k in the process?