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!

We've exchanged today :)

That's 11 weeks since we put in our offer (and slightly longer for our buyer who offered on our place the week before). We are a small chain of 3 though: FTB - us - our new place (owners moving in with family) with no complications (e.g. divorce/death etc). Still - that's a rather good timescale given Christmas.

We'll be completing end of Feb which will push us up to 13 weeks. I'm glad to have a bit of breathing space now!

It's been 6 weeks since our offer was accepted on our house. We made an offer on a house but we have decided to pull out as owners of the house still haven't found somewhere to buy and are stalling the chain. (We found out they haven't been actively looking and don't want to go into rented either so we had no choice)

So last week we made an offer on another house which has been accepted (hooray!) we were aiming to move in by Easter though feels unlikely now as we haven't even booked a survey in yet. Interested to read other people's timescales, a lot of you are giving me hope!

Still no movement here, a solicitor who doesn't update us isn't helping. I hate ignorance.

We've seen photo's of inside the house today and it does still look a bit of a building site - though all tiling has been done they've got a full bathroom, an ensuite and a downstairs loo to fit! This house is supposed to be handed over on the 22nd.

Still being promised start of march but I hate not having a date set in stone.

Hello..joining this thread too if that's ok!

After about 5 years of procrastination we finally put our 3 bed maisonette on the market last thursday having spotted a fab, 4 bed Edwardian house near us that needs LOADS of work, but could be amazing and is the sort of thing we have been hanging out for, for so long.

Went to see it, fell in love, thought we had no chance as it's pricey for us (London), but in terms of what you get, not overpriced for the area.

Somebody else put an offer in, we took the bull by the horn and put ours on the market last week, 4 viewings on Saturday just gone, and we have an asking price offer on ours today!

OH has managed to find a lender who will lend us 6x his salary (non-high st obviously), I am currently between jobs but looking, so taking on a big mortgage but we have a lot of equity in our flat (£420k), and the numbers do add up if we are careful, and the majority of the work is done by ourselves (OH is very handy).

So vendor of house has accepted our offer today over the other couple, our buyers are FTB with a big deposit and MiP arranged so no chain, so all good so far although I am not naive enough to think that selling/buying houses is this easy!

The survey on the house will be the crunch I guess as although OH thinks it looks pretty sound and solid, Edwardian houses can harbour all kinds of nasties so preparing ourselves for that.

I have emailed the estate agent my solicitors details, and I guess that's kind of as far as I can go for now?

We really want this house...we have 2 DC's and have been bursting out of our place for the past few years, despite it being lovely and the only home they have ever known..I'll be sad to go, but this house we want is such an opportunity and fully renovated would be nudging £1m in the area.

Can anyone offer any wise words for staying calm and carrying on? I am very organised and efficient in chasing things/making stuff happen, so I feel a bit lost when I have to wait for other people to do their thing!

DavetheCat2001 congrats we seem to be on similar timescales. I have no wise words of staying calm maybe someone can offer some? I think as long as you can keep up to date with chasing things and keeping in contact with your solicitor to provide updates there isn’t really much more you can do..

Thanks @Jem01..where are you in the process?

I'm hoping as we are not in a chain things will move along relatively easily (all being well), but have been reading back a bit on this thread and see around 12 weeks is about the norm?

It's been 14 years since I last sold/bought the place we are in so can't remember for the life of me!

@davethecat no words for staying calm! Buying and selling is TOUGH honestly I've had sleepless nights ha..sorry!

Were only doing minor redecorating/ renovation to our new place. New kitchen. Decorating carpets and knocking down a wall...I couldn't cope with more than that tbh!

My buyer has advised they are still awaiting the response to an enquiry but I'm hopeful we can all exchange this week!!! Keep 🤞🤞🤞

Good luck @Milly90

Whereabouts roughly is everyone selling/buying?

We're in South London.

And so it begins. We saw a house we loved, but the seller accepted another offer on it end of last week. Ours finally went on the market late Friday evening, FTB pops up for an immediate viewing on Saturday, and we got a full asking price offer from her this morning we thought it was going to take months to sell. It was on the market for ages when we bought it.

We went back to the original house we loved as we can’t find anything similar to it, and we offered 5k over the asking and the vendor accepted it! It’s been an odd Monday. Just waiting for our buyers DIP and then the mortgage apps are going in and all will be moving on. No upward chain for us so all things considered this should be a really easy sale

On the tonight. Well. Not quite as 4 month old is currently in to bed sharing/being in my personal space all day/attaching herself to my breasts at any given opportunity but tea all around!

DavetheCat2001 we are in a short chain (our buyers are FTB and are in rented and the sellers are buying a vacant property)
If we are happy with the survey I’m aiming to be in by May. I’ve already started looking into removal companies!

Ha me too! I was thinking May/June would be realistic all being well..be much nicer moving in, in the early summer too weather than now as it's so cold and miserable!

'Our' house is going to need a new boiler as it was divided into 2 flats previously and the boiler downstairs, although working, isn't sufficient to heat a house that size.

Congrats @NewYearNewSocks! Hope it continues smoothly from here on for you!

Thanks @davethecat2001

Here’s to a smooth run for you too! Your new place sound like it’s our style of house. We are buying/selling in the north east, around County Durham so not normally a fast moving market, luckily we’ve found pretty much exactly what we are selling and it’s a type of house we love. All period features in place, and no modernisation in sight!

Sounds amazing! Period houses around here that are neither all done up or completely derelict don't come up very often so we pounced!

It needs lots of work but could still be lived in whilst work is taking place. It will be more challenging with my hyper kids about, but we're up for the challenge!

@DavetheCat2001 we are in sw12 so not too far from you ? We are buying a do-er upper as well, any recommendations for a surveyor?

We are selling to a ftb, and so are in a short chain. Offer accepted about a month ago but hoping to move by May!

We're in SE London so not far!

Probably going to go for the surveyor the agent has suggested as no one has been able to recommend me one!

@DavetheCat2001 and @NewYearNewSocks - welcome to the gang. You'll have read all sorts of stories and timescale - some good and some less good. Feel free to vent!

We're 5 weeks in. Offer accepted on our purchase on 7 January, offer accepted on our house the week before Christmas. Might be in a position to exchange by the end of February with a fair wind.

Our sellers have their mortgage offer and we have ours. Some delay at the start of the chain as a buyer is going with Sainsbury's Bank for their mortgage and they sound pretty rubbish! Also an archaic restrictive covenant on our purchase but all seems OK.

We're in SW London - moving from SW19 to SW20. Not very far!

Thanks for the welcome @sandybayley !

Are you in a long chain? That's one thing we don't have to contend with on ours as we have FTB buying our place and the vendor of the house we are buying is an older chap who just wants rid of it..it's empty currently too so only 3 in the chain.

Are you buying a house? Prices have definitely dropped in our part of town, but they are still crazy compared to elsewhere...I've also noticed that there doesn't seem to be a lot of new stuff coming on at the moment too. Everything that isn't 'under offer' is overpriced IMO. We priced ours to sell based on the local agents advice, and I took his advice. Similar properties on our street are asking for between 25k and 50k more and aren't shifting.

Our next door neighbour who sold in Feb 2017 an identical 3 bed maisonette to ours got £34,000 more for theirs which is galling, but the market was overheated to the point of insanity then.

I remember an open house viewing at a very average 3 bed Victorian semi opposite us with a queue of people snaking down the road to view it! It was on for something silly like £875k and was sold within the first day..just bonkers.

@DavetheCat2001 - we're in a chain of four properties - 2 houses and 2 flats. We're at the end of the chain and our vendors are going into rented (they are retiring to the coast).

I think prices have stagnated for family houses and dropped for bigger houses in SW London. We accepted about 4% off asking price on our sale of a 4 bed terrace and offered about 6% off asking on our purchase 5 bed detached).

The property we're buying had come onto the market at a much higher price (back in Summer 2018) at 16% more than the asking price when we viewed it. I think there is an issue with older vendors downsizing who over value their properties because they need to release the equity for retirement. I also think the bigger houses are more of a discretionary purchase (nice luxury) compared to the family houses that people need. That's why prices have dropped more for bigger houses - which is v good for us of course.

Oops we offered 3% less but that because we knew there were previous offers that fell through. I think the price was fair and it's a lovely house. We accepted lower than we would have liked on ours but we just want to move now!!

@ Davethecat - I’m SE London too - Greenwich. Where are you?
If you happen to know anyone who wants a 3 bed house next to Greenwich Park, please let me know

Tigerbear, we're fairly close to you but not in the posh bit of the Borough! We'll be sad to leave the area but it'll be lovely to have a bigger house (if it all goes through) and I definitely won't miss the traffic!

@tigerbear we're in SE27

Your 3 bed house next to the park sounds lovely!

'Sale Agreed' boards have gone up this morning outside our place and the house we are (hopefully) buying

Thanks for the warm welcome. I have indeed been following this thread for a while, since we discussed the idea of selling. I’ve just this minute had a call, out buyers survey is booked for the 21st, it’s all very exciting at the minute. We shall see how long this lasts