Sellers/Buyers roll call part 3. Who is still on this treadmill?

[MovingNextYearHopefully]

A slight name change for me, as I'm clearly not moving this year. Well, I am, but not into the house I'm buying.

Went to the development today, had a chat with the girls in the office & updated them. Hopefully we will be exchanging contracts next week should all go to plan. We found a nice house to rent, but its so bloody expensive I'm petrified! As long as we complete within our 6 month rental contract then all will be well, but if we don't then things will get ridiculously expensive!

@MrsPatmore my FTB has a £270k deposit! I almost fell off the chair when I saw it, wondering why she would buy our place!

£270K! Wow! I suppose with house price increases, parents can afford to gift large amounts of money or are now leaving very substantial inheritances. It must be great to be able to jump straight into a forever home! We are still slugging our way up - will be time to downsize by the time we get there!

Some of the completions in my area that went through in November have come up online and thankfully none of them are at reduced prices compared to what mine is on for! In fact 3 went for a similar asking (and are smaller than mine). Very relieved that the offers I'm getting at over 10% below asking aren't based on any evidence in reality - the people offering that are all investors too - so I think once things settle down (!) with brexit we'll start seeing some families back and get some realistic offers! Obviously its going to mean taking an offer and I recognise that, but I feel a bit more confident that I can negotiate based on recent sold prices rather than panicking that everyone else is dropping - as they're not! I think it's just a question of being patient which is not something I am good at! We've had quite an upsurge of viewings too, with a couple of decent offers - although they're not real as they are in a position where they still need to sell themselves. I think once politics settles down, prices will return to where they were a year ago, so there's no point selling for very low when I'm not also buying at the same time. I'm encouraged by the pound's bounce too, which shows a bit of optimism. movingthisyeardefinitely I'm so happy for you, after all that time. I've been trying to do this for a year in May - so I think like you I just need to dig my heels in and hold on for the long haul -and will get there eventually! Obviously nothing's going to happen for me now until something gives on Brexit.

Well we folded and accepted £670k and put a reduced offer on another property which was accepted! so everything is a go!!! So very exciting! We had placed another offer on another place but the vendor was just annoying to deal with and in the end I told the estate agent to tell them to stuff it (in nicer words of course!). having a reasonable vendor is half the battle sometimes so I just can't be bothered to deal with an annoying vendor in case something goes wrong halfway.

What is the next steps then?? How long before we can move in??

Great news Happy! How long depends on how prompt paperwork is returned to solicitors, how long it takes for searches, and if there is a chain involved.

Ours was really straight from, no chain, and it's taken since mid October to now to exchange 😔

Thanks for the new build info MovingThisYearDefinitely and LookingOptimistic. There seems to be extra costs everywhere with a new build so have to budget for everything.

@happychange - good news! The next thing that will happen is that there will be Memorandums of Sale issued for both properties confirming everything (price, solicitor details etc). Have you got your solicitor yet? Our vendors told us they wanted to us exchange quickly but we lost a couple of days while they appointed a solicitor!

Once appointed your solicitor will get you to pay for searches and complete paperwork about your house (building work done, guarantees etc). You should start pulling this info together now if you can as it is a pain.

You also need to make a mortgage application if you haven't already. Lots of finding payslips, P60 etc

Surveys will be booked once the mortgage applications are in. This seems to happen quite quickly. Our application was received this Monday and the survey was booked today for next week.

That's as far as we've got in the process so far!

I am losing my mind. The EA still haven't sent the sales memorandum to our solicitor, both myself and seller have paid our solicitors initial money so it's ready to go. We even went and chased them in person on the weekend, and called them on Monday again, it's now Wednesday night and still nothing?!

I don't know what else to do!

Just gone on the market! Now to see if I get any viewings...

I’m not currently planning to buy anywhere, just lodging with friends until I decide what to do.

I’ve not sold before - I’m guessing I now need to get solicitors’ quotes, but is there anything else I need to sort? Got gas certs, what else?

@happychange Congrats! hope it's as smooth a transaction as possible.

Well things seem to be moving our end; all people in chain have got the contract packs to their buyers respective solicitors, all surveys/ valuations have been conducted - both me and my buyer have our mortgage offers so just buyers buyer to go as buyers, buyers, buyer is paying solely with cash.

No idea how long searches will take; as this transaction spans three different councils, so anyone have any idea how long searches in Reading and Woking take? I have my local searches from NFDC and my buyers from East Dorset shouldn't take any longer than a 3/4 weeks as I recall.

Kind of want to just hurry to exchange so nobody can back out and it all fall apart again! but it's going to go all quiet for a while now the preliminary stuff is done and all the solicitors wait for local searches and submit their queries.

Great to hear some good news here- we have some too, we exchanged on Tuesday! So there was just time to apply for school before the deadline from the new house and provide the council evidence we were legally committed to the move. We move in a week on Monday. Could have been sooner but i couldn't get removals!
Now to search for threads with moving tips - last time I moved was pre kids from a 2 bed flat. Now have a 3 bed house crammed with toys and a lot of furniture and shed stuff....

@RangerLady Thats great news! I don't know anything about removals either as last time i moved from parents, hired a self drive van and had family help move.

What i don't understand is how long do you book these removal companies for? Tgey quote a price but other than loading/ unloading does it include any wait time?

I only ask because i'm at the end of the chain; and as there are 4 houses involved i reckon i will get the keys till late, but i have to make sure mine is empty.

Also i cant estimate how many boxes it will be, and when companies come to look at it all and quote - do they go in loft too?

Fantastic news Rangerlady you're over the line!

Lookingoptimistic the removals will look at everything and give you a price, you don't need to calculate how many boxes. The price is for the entire move including any waiting but they do often charge more if it runs on after 3pm, so worth asking if you think you're going to be a late move in. You just book a provisional date until exchange, then you can firm it up.

A lot of people recommend getting the packing service and I have had a packing service once (with a newborn) and it was admittedly fantastic! When I moved recently I did the packing myself but I didn't have to empty the house completely (as the chain had just fallen through I just went into rented to relocate).

Recommendations are key and I'd definitely go with a local company than a big chain, and check reviews online - some of them have really bad ones!

Last time I did a spreadsheet of boxes after reading some old threads but I have to say I never used it. I colour coded the labels as well and didn't need to! But definitely worth properly labelling the boxes. If removals pack then this doesn't work though and you'll spend the next two months looking for the cheese grater (but it's still worth it!).

Good luck!

Fab news!! @ rangerlady must be so nice knowing your on the home run.

I'm just waiting for the surveyor to show up, am a bit nervous as my estate agent is saying they are down valuing alot of properties at the moment. We can't afford to be knocked down on the price so keeping everything crossed!

Yes removals, prepare to be horrified by the cost, the packing service is only a small part of it and I have 2 DC at home so we're having that. Moving on a Monday though so they are packing on a Thursday which could be interesting... We have paid a waiver for late running, but now wish I'd not bothered as vendor is probably letting us have the keys early!

I have raging tonsilitis now so hope I get better asap to get ready.

There's a lot of work to do in our new house so this is really only the start of the journey. Good luck to everyone else still in the process!

Thanks for the info @tootyfruitypickle @RangerLady I hope you get better soon, packing service sounds good but i don't think we have enough stuff to warrant the extra expendeture - so we will prob pack ourselves, packed 8 boxes before xmas anyway.

@alifelessordinary Im sure your valuation will be fine; my buyers just had theirs and it was ok, and we were priced right up the top of what the house could be valued at.

Thanks @LookingOptimistic she was only her about 15 mins, but from what I could get out of her I'm quietly hopeful we should be ok.

This whole selling malarkey is so stressful, feel like I never want to go through this again!

Good luck to all going through this process at the moment.

Sounds good @alifelessordinary.

Our survey is being done today (I'm not at home). Our buyers are getting a homebuyers survey so apparently it takes about 2 hours. I have a bad feeling they'll find something awful although I have absolutely no reason to believe that.

I did have to send Ddog to PILs as he would not have been impressed with an intruder to his home. He is fed up with being sent out or being put in the garden when strangers arrive.

I'm hoping this is the last time I have to tidy the house for 'house sale' reasons! Obviously I will clean if/when we go.

@alifelessordinary Same which is why we went for biggest house we could get, as i dint want to do it again.

@sandybayley We have had two homebuyers surveys; i wouldnt worry too much, even if stuff does crop up in there the important thing is that at the too of the RICS report it shows that it is worth the asking price in the condition its in - im sure it will be ok.

Ive just relaxed over cleaning everything everyday; since there is now no more viewings to prepare for, hoping this sale goes through for my sanity because its stressful keeping a home dressed as a show home!

Ours was just a mortgage valuation @sandybayley when we told me a homebuyers would be 2 hours I was shocked!

I hear you @LookingOptimistic about the constant cleaning and tidying, you feel you can't relax too much!

Had my first offer this morning, from someone who hadn’t even viewed the house! It was a cheeky offer so I’ve turned it down and said they need to come and view first. I’d hate to accept and then have them pull out later on because they decided they didn’t like it.

A different set have booked a viewing for this Saturday, so I’m hopeful that it’ll move fairly quickly, plus the floorplan chap came round today and was sincerely complimentary about it, which was nice.

Gosh why do people put offers down without even seeing it? That's so strange! I would definitely not be accepting that offer!

Wow very strange @kernowgal I agree would not trust that offer at all!

Maybe someone who doesn't view is a property investor? We sold a property within a week to one who did that - they didn't want to view as they knew the area and type of property and were satisfied with the pictures

Please could I join? FTB, mortgage accepted pending valuation yesterday and searches instructed.

There’s no chain so I’m hoping it goes through quite quickly, it seems to have taken ages for the mortgage underwriting to have been done.