Buyers grief - lost out on a house & so gutted

[HelloRose]

I wasn't sure where to post this but we lost out on a house I had completely fallen in love with. I'd mentally moved in (realise now this was a big mistake) and planned what we'd do to renovate and decorate. I was looking forward to seeing our children running around in the beautiful garden & imagining where we'd put the Christmas tree next year. I feel so stupid.

This is my first time buying (husband's 2nd). How to get over it? I feel like I don't even want to get back on Rightmove and start the process all over again. It's so demoralising. It was a lovely house in a perfect location.

We were out bid. We are chain free & so are the other buyers. The agent let slip what the final agreed price was. We could probably cobble together some more funds to match it but literally not a penny more so assuming they would counter offer we are screwed anyway. The couple selling have accepted so feels like a done deal and pointless now. I wish I didn't know what it went for as atleast I could think we were hugely outbid and perhaps be less annoyed.

I don't know where to go from here. Hope it'll fall through? My husband is more relaxed about it and says we'll find something else. I hope he's right.

Anyone been in this situation and went on to find their dream house?

Around a third fall through so would let agent know to get back in touch if it falls through.

We fell totally in love with a house - even DS went and said I love it, I love it in every room when we looked round and later the cat purred non-stop when we let her in. We thought we had lost it to someone else as where told deal agreed but then phoned to say tell us if it falls through and EA said no deal agreed. So we offered full asking price and got it and now live there and all still love it.

Is it a unique house - ours is, if there are other similar ones likely to come on would just wait it out. There will be another house you will love though depends how unique it is and on the market as to how long will take but normally even with a unique one within a few months there will be something else.

We had this, although it was us that withdrew after 4 months of being messed about by the sellers who were selling due to their messy divorce and couldn’t agree on anything. I was devastated, genuinely couldn’t imagine living anywhere else at the time and when we finally forced ourselves to start looking at other houses I had that sickening feeling which I can only describe was like my younger years when I’d try to get over whatever relationship had fallen apart by going on lots of dates as a distraction, all while pining for the original guy or house in this case!

But, then we found the house we’re now buying and everything changed. It ticks every box, is in an area we’d always wanted to live in and is significantly under budget compared to the first house. We’re due to exchange next week and I honestly couldn’t be happier.

I’d recommend just keep looking, as you never know when you might find a house even better than the first.

This has happened to me three times, it's devastating so you have my sympathies. I've ended up buying a new build because I couldn't take the stress a fourth time! This time I've paid my reservation fee and I know that come hell or high water I will be moving next year. It wasn't what I wanted, I'm not head over heels with the house, but I'm trying to focus on the positives such as how everything will be brand new and chosen by me. Good luck, keep searching

Thank you all so much for your responses. They've really helped and I feel much better (and not so emotional!) this morning. By Monday I'll feel ready to get back to our search.

We'll definitely let the EA know we are waiting in the wings should it fall through.

@PointyMcguire ha yes I remember that feeling well from my dating days. Hopefully "the one" is out there somewhere!

My mother lost "dream house" and ended up buying something FAR better that was already fully renovated too. Hope you get the one you missed or find something even better 😊

It's so hard, but the one thing I would say is that unlike any other type of grief, this is the kind that is easily buried and forgotten about once you do buy your house, it's hard in the meantime but you do easily replace it when you fall in love with the home that was meant for you.

@moronseverywhere1 yes that is a very good way of looking at it, thank you

Me too. I was surprised at how deep down upset I was. It was almost like mourning a death or a major relationship break up for a month or so - the loss and the feeling nothing could be as good again.

I had sold my house and was due to move on Dec 29th. I packed up all the loose items, books etc, and went to my parents for Christmas, and my buyers put a note through my solicitor 's office door at 5.30 on Christmas Eve to say they had changed their minds about moving. Luckily he had gone back in to pick up some family presents hidden there, or we wouldn't have known. Luckily also, he knew some friends of mine so was able to track me down to my parents (pre-internet and mobile phones) to tell me.

The people I was buying from hung on for a month but in the end had to sell to someone else because I didn't have a buyer for mine and couldn't risk/ afford à bridging loan. I cried and cried.

When I got a buyer only about a fortnight later, I decide to sell so that it couldn't happen to me again. I lived in a rented house for a year and only unpacked the bare minimum. I can't remember how many houses I viewed. It was my life almost every weekend, but none I saw came close to the one that got away.

Until this house!😍 I have lived here now about 30 years and I love it. I've done massive works to it over the years to make it work better but it still retains the feel it had when I first walked through the door.

I still look fondly at the other house when I drive past it, but I no longer mourn it.

You will love again, OP!

Happened to us too. The house was perfect in every sense - price, space, orientation, location...
We had actually outbid the other party but they were chain free whilst we were not, so the vendor went for chain free.
We did go on to buy another decent house but I often still think of the one we didn't get.

However! I believe the house never did sell in the end! It never appeared on land registry, and I know that the vendor's vendor was very tricky to deal with, so I am wondering if it had all fallen through.

It's so disappointing when this happens, as you just cannot help picturing yourselves living there, even if you haven't secured it yet.

There will be other nice houses OP! Good that you are chain free, hopefully this helps next time around.

Its happened to me too, several times. Most recently I loved the house so much I wrote a really lovely letter that went in with my offer. There was another buyer and I couldn't afford to get into a bidding war so pulled out, moved on, and carried on looking.

I had a call a couple of months later saying that the sale had fallen through but I was first choice, because of my letter. 2 years later we're happily here and I truly think it's my forever home. My advice is to dust yourselves down and keep hunting - there will be other properties which you will fall in love with.

You haven’t lost it because you never had it - you made an offer and you were outbid. I’ve tried to buy three flats this year (one after the other, not all at the same time) and had offers accepted each time and they all fell through much further down the buying process when I had a mortgage and solicitors in place the first one the seller put back on the market due to lockdown (odd decision but anyway) the second subsidence was discovered and the third, Japanese knotweed. You never know what problems may come up down the line even once your offer is accepted and you’ve paid for searches and conveyancing etc. I never assumed any property was a done deal - I went in with the attitude that it’s not mine until I’m sat inside it holding the keys and my name is on the deeds. Any other approach is foolish tbh. As such I’ve been frustrated, irritated and disappointed by losing money, bored of the tedium of house hunting and having to keep starting over, but never grieving or devastated. It isn’t yours until the process is complete and I’ve never understood why people get so emotionally attached to houses before it’s guaranteed they’ll own them

The agent let slip...yes im sure he/she did,,,sharks the lot of them.

@HelloRose just to give you some hope. This time last year we had fallen in love with a house, like you I had mentally moved in and pictured our life there. We lost out to another family that were just able to proceed faster than we were.

Like you I was absolutely gutted, and was so upset.

However, a year later we are in the process of buying a far better house! Something else will absolutely come along. A wise saying is, ‘what’s for you won’t pass you’.

Good luck

@HelloRose it will be, I’m certain of it!

I'm sorry - it's gutting. We lost out on not quite dream house, but one that didn't need too much work and had off street parking and was in a good spot and ended up in our 2nd choice which needed a lot of work, but honestly I don't think about the first place now.

Also, I realised recently that our DD would not have got into her lovely secondary school, which suits her so well, if we'd live at the other address, as it was in a post code they don't accept applications from - so good may come out of things that you didn't expect!

this happened to us!
we fell in love with the house, already loved the area, it was perfect! i had decided what colors i wanted to paint the rooms and everything! for around 6 months i compared every house to the house we missed out on. it was really devastating. especially because i felt like the estate agent was very shady, even though we said we could offer full price he wouldn't let us view or put our offer down. when we checked the house sale records it went 10k under asking price!
my best advice is try to get over it as best and as quickly as you can. i now feel like because i was mourning the loss of that house i let other great houses slip through the net!
we are still looking but are ideally waiting till after Christmas to take things more serious (mainly because the pandemic and we are looking at relocating)

@checkedcloth thank you. I'm hoping this will be us by this time next year!

@mklanch how annoying the estate agent lied to you. Hopefully you'll find a lovely home next year too.

@namechangeforfriday very sensible. If there's one thing I've taken away from this it is not to get emotionally attached to something you don't own!

Another one coming on to say if it's meant for you it won't pass you by. The house that we moved into in September was under offer twice before we were proceedable but for various reasons didn't end up completing. We'd seen it the day after it had gone on the market the first time and loved it and I feel really happy to be sitting here now (despite having no kitchen and three plasterers shouting at each other downstairs.)

This happened with my first house, I did get something else and loved it but not quite as much. I have moved on since then and often walk down the street where that first house was, I can't even remember which one it was, lol.

I had this 2 years ago. Found a house we wanted to buy, put mine on market, made lots of plans! Mentally decorated, had a wish list on IKEA... then someone else made an offer before we got a buyer.
Then mine sold and there was nothing we wanted, it was all very frustrating.
But then a house came up at the last minute, more expensive but better. Detached (other was semi), south facing garden, round corner from my sister and closer to school.... so glad we got this now, sometimes things happen for a reason

Happened to us last year, an offer was accepted before we managed to sell our flat. I was gutted and very flat for a few weeks, but if fell through, and we moved in 6 months ago! So anything can happen.

I always say there’s a touch of destiny in house buying OP, so even if you don’t get this house, the one you get will be perfect for you.

I'm in the same boat
We've sold ours and lost outon on one we love to a FtB.
There is absolutely nothing on the market now either so we've not viewed a single property since.
We're probably going to end up missing out on the stamp duty holiday now.