How can I get this house?!

[PessimisticOptimist]

Hey beauties!

I've fallen in love with a 1930s, £500k timber constructed house in Kent. Not just timber frame. Full timber including the walls. It's unmortgageable. But I need a mortgage.

I've talked to L&C who have a couple of lenders who will consider it. But the vendor won't take the property off the market until I have a mortgage offer. But L&C won't process a mortgage application until my offer has been officially accepted and the property taken off the market. The vendor doesn't believe I can get a mortgage on it, so they won't stop actively marketing it until I can prove I can get a mortgage.

So my question is - how else can I make this happen? I don't want to dump thousands into surveys, searches etc until I know if it's possible. I only have £100k at the moment so I need an 80 LTV loan. No wealthy relatives, trust funds, or offshore bank accounts at my disposal.

Am I stuck? Or is there a chance here? What else haven't I considered?

The vendor is sensible, tbh. Holding out for a cash offer is the lower hassle option here. He could take it off the market for you and waste weeks while you try and get a mortgage and not succeed.

The only option may be to play the long game. If no cash buyer is forthcoming, he may become more flexible in letting you have a run at it. I can imagine it would put off many people so you may find it hangs around.

Thanks @EverydayCook. I think that's my best option at this point.

I know it's probably a pretty hopeless cause, but I always keep my fingers crossed that something will work out eventually x

Surely the vendors could agree to mark the property as under offer, but still continue to market and take viewings? Not all properties are taken off market once they have an offer under consideration. It would be a risk for you if a cash buyer swooped in, and you’d probably incur a fee for processing a mortgage application you did not then use, but at least you’d know one way or the other. Maybe worth approaching a mortgage broker?

Surely the vendors could agree to mark the property as under offer,

I'm not sure how that would help OP?

Mmm, ok @SofiaMichellemore careful reading required on my part. But still I think there might be some wriggle room for you OP between your offer being officially accepted and the vendor ceasing to actively market and taking the property off the market? They could accept your offer and then ditch you for a cash buyer at any point, whether or not they take it off the market, no? It’s a risky strategy, but it might pay off.

I think if I remember right L&C don’t charge fees, so I imagine they’re more unwilling to progress offers unlikely to go anywhere? There might be other brokers willing to do the legwork for a fee even if not highly likely to lead to purchase?

Have you talked to the EA about this, you should be able to reach some compromise where they keep doing viewings and stay on market, but you can start entering negotiations and preparing mortgage? Like a fastest buyer gets it kind of scenario.

Thanks for your suggestions. The EA is completely against me. He said I would be wasting my money and his time if I pursued this. He won't even schedule a viewing for me because I'm not a cash buyer. I asked if that was the vendor's position as well. He said the vendor would be happy to sell to me, but can't take the chance.

I see it from both sides. And in a perfect world, I would have all the £££ sitting in the bank! The property sits on half an acre, so I'm very concerned a property developer with deep pockets will come and swoop it up while I'm trying to get my ducks in a row. I don't know whether to just leave it. But I love it so much! Arghghghhgh!

I don’t think the EA has any right to stop you viewing the property and I would put a note through the door and ask the vendor.

If you haven’t seen it inside how are you so sure...just by the photos? You need to have a proper look and I always do at least two viewings as you don’t take in enough the first time. I have taught my sons this too. Check for damp etc. It is strange because in America, Australia and NZ you can get a mortgage on a timber house fairly easily but not here.

Good luck.

Wait, what? The EA won’t allow you to view? Sounds a bit shady to me. Maybe he’s hoping for a brown envelope from his property developer friend. I’d definitely stick a note through the door - what have you got to lose?

Unless it’s advertised as cash buyers only?

It's not at all shady to refuse a viewing to someone who is unable to to buy the property. Who wants chancers nosing around just because you're trying to sell it, when they can't buy it?

No matter how it looks on Rightmove, OP can't get a mortgage on a fully wooden house because they are considered so high risk to the lender.

If OP manages to find a specialist lender and get an AIP, she has the opportunity to view.

Sounds like a money pit. Do you have the funds to make it habitable should you manage to get a mortgage?

@PessimisticOptimist

Thanks for your suggestions. The EA is completely against me. He said I would be wasting my money and his time if I pursued this. He won't even schedule a viewing for me because I'm not a cash buyer. I asked if that was the vendor's position as well. He said the vendor would be happy to sell to me, but can't take the chance.

I see it from both sides. And in a perfect world, I would have all the £££ sitting in the bank! The property sits on half an acre, so I'm very concerned a property developer with deep pockets will come and swoop it up while I'm trying to get my ducks in a row. I don't know whether to just leave it. But I love it so much! Arghghghhgh!

That's really odd, a viewing would only take 15 mins of the agents' time (unless the house is remote and hard to access) so I can't see why they are so against it. But on the other hand an experienced EA would have a pretty good idea if something was unmortgagable so maybe they are right not to let you get your hopes up.

In my experience L&C will process a mortgage application before a house is off the market but an offer needs to be accepted.

If it was me and I loved the house, I would bend the truth and say that my offer had been accepted and move forward with the application on that basis. You shouldn't lose any money if your application is rejected, just the mark on your credit score. But even if you do lose money, if you love it, it's worth the risk.

OP, my guess is this house seems amazing because it is priced lower than other similar houses that are more standard construction, so you could get more for your money. The flipside of this is that it's not easy to get a mortgage on it. Sounds to me like the estate agent is speaking from experience. Estate agents are in the business of selling houses, it's unusual for them not to want to sell to you and speaks volumes.

This sounds dodgy to me. If it was the vendor's instruction to only show it to cash buyers, fair enough, but it sounds like the EA is making decisions on the vendor's behalf? Or did I misread it that the vendor 'would love to sell to you but can't take the chance?'

I suspect the EA is either speaking from painful experience of trying to sell these kinds of property before, or knows that really what is being sold is not the house, but the plot for future development, and therefore is only interested in cash investors who are experienced in this kind of purchase.

Why would you want to buy a house that
A) You haven’t seen?
B) You’ll find it virtually impossible to sell in future?

I get the panic, OP, but you have to think rationally.

I saw a house online a while back that I loved, and when I contacted the EA, she refused to allow me to have a viewing as there was a covenant on the development that only those with a tie to the area could buy it. Unfortunately, I didn’t grow up there, or live or work within the specified area so there was no way I could purchase it, so I was wasting my time, theirs, the owners’, and even other viewers’, if the EA had humoured me.

Unfortunately, this is not the house for you.