Buyers Sellers Roll Call 14

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New thread for anyone buying or selling houses at the moment - come join us!

The previous thread ran for about 10 weeks and in ordinary (non-stamp duty holiday) times, that's long enough to get a transaction through, so let's hope this thread sees lots of people finish!

Thanks @Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear Good luck with your searching and sale! We're also in South Wales and the market definitely is bonkers at the moment.

I'm currently trying to parent the 3 year old, get our house decluttered, organise hospital stuff for impending c sec and sort out my last week of work. I'm never taking on so many things at once again 🤣🤣

@CryHavoc

Exactly five months and two days after our offer was accepted we exchanged today and are completing tomorrow. Feels unreal.

Congratulations @CryHavoc!! 🍾

@Caroline147 That's really frustrating. I don't think it would be unreasonable to set a boundary to either make enquiries or progress. Do you think it would be easy to sell your house again and is your seller happy to go back to the beginning? (Although I suppose you probably don't know the answer to this!)

Just had an email, other solicitors weren't ready to exchange today so going to try again tomorrow. 😬🤞🏻

@mummabubs Thanks! Wasn’t sure if I was expecting too much from the buyer or their solicitors- but I had a terrible one when I bought originally and still managed to nag them into action within a couple of weeks for each task! The property took a while to sell- but once we reduced the price, we ended up with 3 offers and our buyer’s wasn’t even the highest one. We went with her because she was meant to be super-committed to moving quickly, which makes this extra frustrating. Seller probably wouldn’t be happy- although they’re waiting for grant of probate, which could take another couple of months anyway. We’d really like to hold onto this buyer, just wondering best way to get them kicked into gear. An ultimatum is probably our only choice, isn’t it?

@Caroline147 absolutely not bu at this point. I'd let the estate agent manage it though in terms of how strong to go in. I'm in a similar position in that it's FTB and they still haven't got their mortgage sorted as they keep switching broker! Just have to cross fingers and get on with it. Little chance of getting through the deadline with another buyer now anyway, so might as well just get on with it.

@mummabubs here's hoping for good news tomorrow!

Huge congratulations @CryHavoc !!

@Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear we listed with several in the end. If you want to go this route you can try haggling down to the lowest multi agency fee by asking them to match. It worked for us.

Thanks searches. The agency we have gone with have a really good reputation locally and have sold several properties on our development in a couple of weeks so we will see how things go. Just waiting for the carpet cleaner to arrive and sitting on the floor have realised the skirting boards need some love!

@Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear little tip for you - don’t use quick dry gloss, it’s ducking atrocious. Ended up having to do it all again with the proper stuff

Ha thanks smoke. Am going to give them a clean initially and see what they look like then. Only want to paint them if really need to!

I'm keeping calm, my husband is losing his mind slightly.

We aren't exchanging today either. Got a call from our solicitor at 8am saying yesterday the exchange didn't go ahead as our buyer's solicitor didn't respond, so would we be able to encourage our agent to give them a nudge. We did and he got in touch with them straight away. Then got a call from our solicitor at 11am to say they'd spoken to our buyer's solicitor... Turns out they were still waiting on the buyers to return some paperwork, which our buyers were well-aware of as they only posted it yesterday(!) Funnily enough our buyers then messaged me to let me know that they've just sent some paperwork back that needed to be sent before exchange can take place, but we don't need to worry as they've booked their removals for next Friday and told their landlord + utilities that's when they're moving... 😳🤔 So I've sent a (slightly curt) message back reiterating for a third time that our removals company have one slot left for Friday but will not even provisionally book us until we've exchanged, so this needs to happen before we can commit to their preferred moving date of the 30th. No reply so far but not a lot I can do when we've been ready to exchange for weeks and it turns out the ones pushing to move sooner are the ones that have held us up(!)

Aargh @mummabubs hope it all works out for you 🤞🤞. It must be incredibly stressful. We looked at a house today. It was like a time warp back to the 1980s. Has been a family home for 25 years and it showed 😳. Estate agent is giving it the big sell telling us the people viewing before us have travelled 300 miles to see it and are very keen. Of course they are 😊

Haha @FelicityElectricity the house we've bought is also a tribute to the 80s throughout, artex ceilings galore and magenta everything else 😂 We're reframing it as at least we get to put our own stamp on it over time and do it all as we want it! I think I would feel really stressed, I'm annoyed that we were misled and that I've put effort into pushing things through for them when they weren't being proactive or transparent with us. I think being so close to having another newborn and still juggling a demanding job for another week my brain has decided there's only so much stress I can take on at one time, so with the house what will be will be. It's them that will lose out financially on having to pay more rent and rebook removals if this doesn't go ahead as they want. My husband on the other hand has been desperate to get into our doer-upper for ages now so is finding the uncertainty and lack of ability to control the process less easy to manage 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Themostwonderful...most viewers won't sit on your floor , so unlikely to wonder about the paint there!

Sorry to hear about your stresses today @mummabubs I hope it gets sorted out next week! Well done for standing firm though.

Can I ask for some advice? We will be hearing from HSBC soon to arrange our valuation. Apparently a basic one is free, but we would need to pay extra for a homebuyers, not sure how much at this stage. Should we pay to upgrade or not? The house we are buying is 15 years old and appears to be in good condition. It was a no brainier with the house we moved into because it was over 100 years old!

@Cantbebotheredtothinkofaname our mortgage is HSBC as well, we’ve only gone with the basic valuation as the house is only 8 years old - and needs nothing done to it apart from a boiler service

Good point midge!

DH and I have been extremely busy today getting ready for photos tomorrow. Place is looking good though I think :) Magic erasers worked wonders on the walls.

@Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear I love that eraser thing! Haven't worked out how to get the evidence off when I have been over zealous and have scrubbed half the wall

@mummabubs well done for keeping your cool. The mind boggles that people can be so careless with other people's time and money. Hopefully this is the last hurdle for you!

May I join? Had our SE London flat on the market a year ago just before covid shut everything down, so nothing happened for a few months. Then no offers so we decided to take it off and put it on at a lower price (20k less than we paid for it in 2016!) with another agent. Had two offers at just under asking price, both fell through really quickly - one because they changed their mind and one because they couldn't get their mortgage. Took it off again over winter and just put it back up again - had an offer from our original buyers who couldn't get a mortgage who now can because they can get a 5% deal. It was lower than we would have liked (now 30k lower than we paid which really stings tbh) but accepted anyway as just want it sold - it's 500sq ft with no garden and we are desperate for more space.

I'm absolutely terrified it will all go tits up again and genuinely don't know how I will cope if it does. The market for flats in London, particularly with no outdoor space, is absolutely dead. I can't sleep for worrying about it.

We are moving into rented just so everything can move ASAP - they are FTB so in theory things should happen fast but so many things can go wrong.

Buyers surveyor is coming next week, how much should I be tidying for this? I really can’t be arsed with doing the kind of full purge cleaning we did for viewings.

@Panda368 I asked whether I needed to tidy / clean for our buyer's valuation surveyor and was told no. She literally spent half the time outside and then inside she just wanted to see things like the loft, get a sense of size etc. I'm pretty sure it'd be the same with a honebuyers survey, as long as they can walk around the house freely I wouldn't be doing any cleaning prep!

@Savemefromsearches Thanks, I honestly think they're just a bit naïve. They're FTBs (so the naivety is understandable!) When their valuation survey came back £10k under what we'd agreed they assumed we'd just instantly take £10k off the accepted price (we didn't!) and the messages they've sent kind of make it seem like they don't really get what has to happen before completion and since they've told their landlord that they're moving out next Friday and paid a deposit for their own removals then it ia definitely going ahead. (Our removals company have come back and said if we want we can book without exchanging but we'd be liable for £600 worth of fees if we then have to change the date given how short notice it is so there's no way we're doing that when it's not even us that's desperate to move on Friday anyway!!)

Morning everyone. New to this thread.

We put our house on the market on Monday and it sold on the first day. We even had an offer from someone who saw the video online and hadn't been to see it!?!? Went with the local buyer in a chain of three.

We only put ours on the market to buy a specific house. We offered on it on Thursday 5% under the asking price. The seller took 24 hours to reject the offer and came back saying that they wouldn't be able to move before the end of June anyway (everyone in our chain working towards this date )EA spoke to our buyer who are ok with the delay and accept they will pay SD on ours. We increased our offer and the seller said she would think about it. This was on Friday the EA phoned us yesterday and said they couldn't get hold of her.

I think she's delaying for some reason - maybe she's got other buyers in the pipeline. Her property isn't a normal domestic property - it's used for something else. We don't need a mortgage to buy it so are in a strong position. We looked at getting a mortgage and there was only one lender offering 7.9% so other buyers would be in the same position.

How long do people take to get back to you after an offer? IME it's within hours - not a day each time.

Both houses are on with the same EA who are excellent so we're phoning them on Monday to get this sorted out. Though I have a little niggle that if the seller is being this flakey at this stage then what will they be like for the duration of the sale?

If we don't get this house then we'll withdraw the house from the market abs our poor buyer will be disappointed. I can't seem to separate the emotion from the whole thing and feel chewed up and preoccupied with it.

Should we give them a deadline or should we just chill out?

@aprilfoolsbaby I don't think it's necessarily 'flakey' of a vendor to take a day or two to consider an offer, especially if you are offering under. They might need to do some sums re their own finances to see if they can make it work or whatever.

Hopefully you'll get an answer when EAs reopen tomorrow.

I'm not sure I'd consider not completing by the end of June a delay, I think any offers being accepted now would be very lucky to be wrapped up by then (especially if there's a chain involved) as things are taking longer. Should think solicitors will be extra manic in June with so many wanting to meet the deadline so things might even get slower!

Best of luck with your offer! It's horrible waiting!