Sellers/Buyers Roll Call No 5...,

[sandybayley]

Starting new thread. Calling all the regulars...
@TiddleTaddleTat
@WBWIFE
@Allhallowseve
@BeauticianNotMagician81
@crispysausagerolls
@dimmu
@Fleabag123
@Farontothemaddingcrowd
@Frogqueen13
@Glitteryfrog
@MrsPatmore
@Smart123

My son's was a valuation only, he has a homebuyers survey booked for next week, now the mortgage offer has come through. He's quite pro-active though, and very keen to get into his own property quickly, especially as the vendors are packed and ready to go!

Hopefully your buyers are learning quickly and won't hold you back!

@sandybaley sounds like it's all progressing ok for you.

We had our mortgage offer through and the surveyor has rung ahead of sending the report to say he hasn't found any issues. Our buyers have had their valuation and survey done and are waiting for their offer. However our vendor has apparently switched to a different property and hasn't booked a survey yet. They definitely don't seem to be in a hurry!

@balalalala - it would be good if everyone just got in with it wouldn't it. I just hate all the procrastination - either you want to sell or you don't. If you don't don't put in offers and don't put your house on the market. Simples! Don't get me started...

Having done the inevitable google search it looks like HSBC a) take their time to process applications b) seem to instruct valuations late in the process after underwriting is done. They don't charge for valuations so maybe they don't want to incur the costs until they're happy with everything else.

They sound like a pain to deal with. Typical that they're part of our chain. In the previous chain there was a Sainsbury's Bank mortgage application which was also slow.

Amen to that!

Good luck afrikat! Always a nervous time waiting for those first viewing requests to come in...

We had a couple of viewings on Tuesday, neither one is interested. One more booked for Sat and then not much else. Sigh. I don't enjoy being on this treadmill at all.

Do people think more pics are better? Our EA has only put a limited amount online and said that they have been working with RM and believe that if you show fewer pics, more people will view. I'm not sure I agree and tempted to ask them to put more on but interested in others thoughts?

afrikat I think the key is to get people through the door, so the main thing is they have to be good. If there are just 3/4 and it looks nice I would still view for sure though, I'm not sure it would make a difference to me if there were more. However what would make a difference would be if they were dark and dingy and the seller had random stuff lying around, there seem to be a lot of right move pics like this around at the mo!

There's just no pleasing me. I've had an entirely sleepless night as I suddenly realised I am now unlikely to move before my rental is renewed. Can anyone advise me whether I am likely to get tied in again for another 6 months? I was scrolling endlessly on right move, but I need to stay in the school catchment for another year to be safe, which means a couple of miles radius. And that combined with the fact my budget is now so squeezed with the loss on my sale and a year of renting, all of which has come out of my equity - means I'm worried i won't be able to buy anything I like. What seems to be happening around here is that places are still going on at inflated prices (above 2016), but then get reduced fairly quickly. However that requires nerves of steel if I see something I like as nearly everything around here at the mo seems to be people selling after probate, so anything more modern is likely to be snapped up at asking.

Everytime I almost dropped off I woke up in a cold sweat wondering what on earth I am going to do. The longer I spend in rental the less affordable it is for me to buy anything. I was thinking about trying to stretch myself financially with a bigger mortgage, but as it's just me and dd, that really worries me, because I have no fall back should I lose my job or something, and I really cannot stand to be this stretched for another 10/20 years, it's been awful having no money and just tons of credit card debt for the past few years.

@tootyfruitypickle I'm in a similar situation as we are renting whilst trying to sell - costing 2k a month in mortgage and council tax alone running both houses - my landlord is very reasonable and when our AST was due to expire, he let us go on a periodic tenancy - rolling month by month. Could you suggest that to LL?
Like you we are losing sleep and waking up early hours in the morning stressing about our situation, I do have dh so must be that much more pressure for you.

@afrikat I always like to see as much as I can regarding pics, I am not really put off by a bit of clutter or outdated kitchen / bathroom, always more dubious if there are only 2-3 pics, that's me though.

I seriously do not get on with my letting agents, I have the landlord's address, do you think I should write a personal letter asking that, ahead of time? I don't really want to tell her I;m looking to buy, do you think she'd want a reason though? I'm wondering whether I could just call their bluff and say I'll be off without a rolling tenancy - it took her 4 months to get a tenant for this place and I think I've been no trouble, get a bit stroppy about agents coming in as I cannot stand it - but they've told her I'm keeping it nice etc and obvs rent all on time. I also have a suspicion she'll try and raise the rent, which will also make me cross! Ive got till mid august.

@tootyfruitypickle Hmm that's a tough one, having been a landlord myself I'd prefer to know where I stood, having said that I self managed my property so dealt with tenants direct. I'd be inclined to tell the agents as well as dropping LL a note explaining why you want a periodic. As a landlord I'd be prefer to know why a periodic tenancy was wanted as the notice period is one month from you (tenant) and 2 from LL.

We've put more pics on, I'm now very impatiently waiting on the first viewing request! Found a few houses we want to view so 🤞

@tootyfruitypickle - oh god it's all so frustrating isn't it? I feel like I haven't slept well in months. I'm afraid I'm pretty fatalistic about it all. It's a coping strategy as I just can't allow myself to believe it will work out. But I'm not depressed, just taking it day to day.

@afrikat - good to get some more photos on but don't stress too much about it. I think there's a balance to be struck between providing enough info to tempt a potential buyer to view without going overboard. I hate the listing with 30+ photos.

Still resisting going back to the 'begging' email from the EA of the house we lost. I'm keen to know what has gone wrong with the greedy vendors sale but DH and I have agreed to leave them to stew. We'd only consider the house now with a sizeable discount and TBH I don't want to really transact with them as they were the ones who dumped us.

Trust is easily lost and hard to regain.

Tooty my understanding from when I last rented was that you automatically go onto periodic unless you sign up to a fixed term, and I didn't think they could force you to do that. This was about 6 years ago.

Me again, still waiting to exchange

Currently on holiday in Bali trying not to stress. All waiting on the first time buyer at the bottom of the chain now, they have come back with more enquries to our buyer regarding their house today.. apparently FTB solicitor has sent out contract to sign and also asked for funds to be in their bank for Monday. Hoping to exchange next week to then move 5 days after were back.from holiday.

We land in UK 18 may and they want to move 23rd may

We were supposed to complete end of April which didn't happen.
Exchange before 3rd may when I went on holiday and it didnt happen.
And now by 23rd may otherwise our vendors vendor is going away for 2 weeks and we wont be able to move then either. Ahhhhhh stress.

Good luck ladies x

Gah @WBWIFE you're in Bali!! I hope you can enjoy it and not let house stress get to you too much !!

We are having to explore plan B after it looks like we are being strung along by he chain above who have said for weeks that we will be ok for completion mid/end of May. There are still outstanding enquiries and the estate agents are just weak at getting anything moving.

We're in a tricky position because we have to leave our rented in the middle of June. Needed completion to take place a month prior so we could do some renovation work. Plan B is that we move in as is (it's liveable) and plan the renovation after that. Not our first choice.

The worrying bit is if we have still not exchanged / completed by mid June as we will have to move our stuff into storage and get an Airbnb, which we sorely can not afford. If it gets to that point we would be forced to ask to drop the price, which may not work (desirable area) and risks us losing the place, although we've got a good relationship with the vendors...

@DH30 what a beautiful story in the end.

So sorry for your loss but I'm almost sure your dad must have had something to do with that. So, so happy for you. Would love to see the cottage!

I should have said - our purchase is ready to go, solicitor holds deposit etc.
It's the chain above that we are waiting for.
Can't believe our landlord gave us notice and won't negotiate. Fuming about that still.

@TiddleTaddleTat why cant it be straight forward? I have felt so played in all of this as I expect you do now too.

Bloody enquries!! I resorted to emailing me vendors estate agent who they are buying from up the chain for an update and kicked off at my solicitors as they were slow at getting things done. So we all have an email thread with me, my buyer, my vendor, my vendors estate agent, the first time buyers solicitor and also the manager of my solicitors.. each day I want an update and to make sure its moving in hole theh get fed up.

Tbh my solicitors sorted it, its down to FTB solicitor now. We have made it clear how we need 23rd may.lets hope we exchange next week!!

All our chain is ready to go just waiting on FTB who has had the longest amount of time to sort things. Ridiculous x

@WBWIFE - isn't that just the truth? FTBs should be able to get on with it! No house sale to worry about and (I'm generalising here!) less likely to have DC and complicated lives. I'm frustrated with ours because they just don't seem to understand -1) urgency 2) there is an agreed order to doing stuff.

And then they get stroppy and send strident emails to our EA

Enjoy Bali and don't let the FTBs get you down!

We got an offer today 35k less than asking - the bloody cheek! It's already 10k lower than the others which are identical. I feel so deflated and hopeless.

I know we are a bit desperate but seriously some people take this piss.

@WBWIFE Bali so wish I were there!!!
Good luck it sounds like your almost there now.

@TiddleTaddleTat your LL sounds very inflexible, fingers crossed things will speed up and you can avoid Air B&B

@Ellieboolou27 the LL's son and his family are moving in. We've been here 3.5 years and always been great tenants. So I'm annoyed they didn't trust us enough to give us more notice. When I said this directly to the LL she said it was the agent who had deliberately not told us because they thought we might stop paying the rent...
At least I had the satisfaction of telling her to her face that we may well end up in a hotel with our 5 year old. She did say sorry.

@TiddleTaddleTat that's awful, especially as you have a young child too. Fingers crossed for you, my LL has put us on a periodic tenancy as knows we are selling / buying and I'm so thankful as I've a 3 and 6 yo, I still worry he could serve notice at any time but you must be really feeling the pressure!