Anyone not being picky - and STILL can't find anything?

[PessimisticOptimist]

We've been on the hunt for 18 months. In that time, we've expanded our search area and budget. We've offered on four houses - three times we were outbid by developers and one time they decided not to sell. But nothing has come on for us to view in the last couple of months.

I guess I'm looking for a support group on here to commiserate with me 😂

Everyone we talk to says:

• The market is crazy right now
• It will settle down
• More will become available eventually
• Just be patient

But I worry about getting priced out of the market if we wait too long. How long do we wait for the "right" house?

Right, we've put our offer in to the "probably not haunted" house now. We went in low, so I'm anticipating a rejection... but we can try!

Good luck momnisicient.

@Constantcrayfish - thank you, I've PM'd you. I'll try catch up on everyone's updates tomorrow

Daisy I guess a property with a tenant in-situ would only appeal to an investor/buy to let with no plans to use it as a primary residence. I immediately reject houses with tenants. It’s a massive hassle if you plan to live in the house as you have no idea how long it will take for tenants to leave and you can’t exchange until the property is vacant..

giraffe one of my local EA’s insists every time I try to view a property that the “vendor wants to ensure all interested parties have finances in place so you have to speak to our mortgage advisor” and then try to hard sell their services. All their staff use the same pitch verbatim every time, as if they are reading from an auto cue. I’ve explained multiple times that I already have a mortgage and they now longer bother!

It’s been another day, another delay for me. Vendor still hasn’t instructed her solicitor. EA has now fed me a new line stating that it’s because her solicitor is waiting for some forms from her and there’s been a delay because she can’t use email. Last week he said the delay was because her solicitor had passed her on to another company. Pretty sure it’s all BS. She’s stalling for some reason or another but I can’t trust the EA to tell me the truth.

DP has said I shouldn’t be so negative because who knows, we might be in by the New Year. I actually just laughed out loud at that!

@Eastie77Returns, keeping my fingers crossed for progress for you. And also @Momniscient, keeping fingers crossed for you also.

I had the call with the EA Broker who said I could afford the property (no shit sherlock). And she asked me to send over statements, payslips etc, and now she wants to book a session in with me to look at mortgage deals. I said I would check my availability and get back to her. I will entertain them for now. However, my offer has not been accepted at this moment in time so why would we take things any further. IF IT IS accepted, then I will do a second viewing and will speak to vendor about whether they made such request. My Broker has all my information, and did my last mortgage application (for the property I withdrew from) so I will argue that it is quicker to use them. Idiots, fuckwits. Hate them!

Eastie I was thinking that's a very limited pool - not just BTL investors, but BTL investors who are happy with a tenant they didn't choose and for whom they didn't do the referencing or vetting.

I find it a very odd choice. I have a feeling he will not sell, he has several BTLs. He might have just been seeing what happens in such a sellers' market.

I’m always fascinated by the commercial side of things. So obviously it is off our list and we won’t make an offer, but just out of interest, outside of big cities, what are the chances of getting a buyer who is happy to buy a flat with a tenant in situ? I genuinely have no idea, just sounds like a hassle to me.

I would definitely not buy a house with a tenant already in it, and I'm a landlord! Certainly not if it was going to be my home, but even if I was buying a property to rent out I would be wary that the landlord was getting rid because of problems with the tenants. I would want to rent to people I had checked out myself.

@GreenLunchBox

I’m always fascinated by the commercial side of things. So obviously it is off our list and we won’t make an offer, but just out of interest, outside of big cities, what are the chances of getting a buyer who is happy to buy a flat with a tenant in situ? I genuinely have no idea, just sounds like a hassle to me.

I would definitely not buy a house with a tenant already in it, and I'm a landlord! Certainly not if it was going to be my home, but even if I was buying a property to rent out I would be wary that the landlord was getting rid because of problems with the tenants. I would want to rent to people I had checked out myself.

Interesting.

If it is still on in February and we haven't found anywhere, it might be a go-er, but obviously only with vacant possession.

I think he's looking at a tiny pool of potential buyers doing it this way.

There may be other things going on that we don't know about of course.

@DaisyNGO how about an "until further notice" house, instead of a forever house? Could even use a nice Mumsnet acronym - UFNH I guess I split house buying into whether it's long term or short term - subjective, but short term is about ticking one box not all of them. Long term to me is anything over five years. It's tricky though, because what you think might work a few years down the line might just not!

Urgh. EA called me last Thursday to tell me about a fab house…perfect for me….great views, in my price range etc etc. Said he’d send over details. He didn’t. Told me he’d call. He didn’t.

Viewings were going to start this week. I gave him my availability, and stupidly waited until yesterday morning to call him.

Viewings started on Saturday. They had 7 viewings and 6 offers. I never got a look in.

I was absolutely livid with the EA. Had to really bite my tongue.

Oh never mind, he said, I’ve got a 6 bed house COMPLETELY out of your desired location and I’ll send you the details.
Errr. Nope.

@ByeByeMissAmericanPie

Urgh. EA called me last Thursday to tell me about a fab house…perfect for me….great views, in my price range etc etc. Said he’d send over details. He didn’t. Told me he’d call. He didn’t.

Viewings were going to start this week. I gave him my availability, and stupidly waited until yesterday morning to call him.

Viewings started on Saturday. They had 7 viewings and 6 offers. I never got a look in.

I was absolutely livid with the EA. Had to really bite my tongue.

Oh never mind, he said, I’ve got a 6 bed house COMPLETELY out of your desired location and I’ll send you the details.
Errr. Nope.

Oh that’s so annoying. I’ve joined a few EA’s mailing lists which include houses before they go live on RM etc. It’s a bit annoying dealing with some of the spam but helpful to get an early heads up on the occasional suitable property. In this crazed market even ‘advance’ notification doesn’t really help though.

I noticed on Zoopla today that the house I pulled out on because the vendor hadn’t found an onward purchase after 4 months (and then went silent and wouldn’t communicate with his EA) is back on again for the second time. He relisted the day after I pulled out and sold within a day. Now looks as if that has fallen through.

This is a vendor who was “committed to moving” but after several months his EA admitted still hadn’t decided if he was going to relocate to Bournemouth or Cornwall. I mean, who wouldn’t want to deal with a seller like that?

I've just seen a new listing go straight online as "under offer". Would have been ideal for us.

It's the same agent who have the mad owner who showed the empty flat that he then put his mate in as a tenant. Increasingly beginning to think that agent is a bit dodge.

[quote Momniscient]@RidingMyBike I have resorted to creating some houses on Sims before... one square on Sims is about 3ft wide so it works reasonably well Do take even the measurements themselves with a pinch of salt too. I had to correct our floorplan as it was a metre off! It's just a guideline really.[/quote]
Some floorplans are very iffy. I hate the ones with no dimensions, and if the details also don't give room dimensions I just pack it in then and there and look elsewhere.

For this very weirdly built house, there were no plans, just dimensions. I spent many not-so-jolly hours working out how it all fitted together using the photos and dimensions, as it was important to us. It was like doing a 3D jigsaw puzzle with no picture. It turned out to be quite interesting. The 'bathroom in the roof with skylight' I had thought, 'fine, we can easily make that a bit bigger' turned out to exactly match the footprint of the downstairs hall. That made me curious, I went back to the photos, and found it had actually been built IN the hall- as in the hall ceiling had been lowered to fit it in- which put it in-between supporting walls. It can't be enlarged, and explains the strange arrangement of multiple landings upstairs. I'm jolly glad I knew that and was able to check it would all work for us before buying. I was also able to work out that a huge piece of 'work' furniture would fit in the open space under the stairs, which sounds like nothing much, but due to knock-on effects, made the entire house possible. I do urge that anything very critical as to dimensions does need measuring when you visit, though!

@Constantcrayfish

We live in Jersey in the Channel Islands - always some supply and demand issues as it’s a small island but we’re now in genuine crisis. House prices to buy have gone up 20-40% in the last year, and rental costs have rocketed too. The average house price is now over £1m and you won’t find a family house to rent for under 2k a month. People are leaving the island in droves as there’s nothing affordable available. It’s very hard to know how this will be resolved.

Are things going for holiday lets? If it's that, when things get back to 'normal' and people go abroad for hols again, there may be a massive price slump when landlords can't let. For the sake of those in your position, we can only hope.

@BlueMongoose no, there’s relatively little holiday accommodation on island, particularly compared to the past. Air B&B doesn’t have a big hold and holiday cottages are fairly limited. We’re leaving the island so that’s our solution, and others are doing the same. The average cost of a three bedroom home here is now over £600,000. Wages are higher here because of the cost of living, but the average salary is 35k (dragged upwards by some high salaries in finance and law) so good luck to anyone who wants to buy a family house on normal wages.

The house we saw on Saturday with the 36 viewers.. could hardly move inside for couples, families with kids and extended family, mooching about, and the 'investors' loudly declaring.. "yeh, well we could extend there, we could do this with that..".. I was totally deflated looking around as I knew our budget simply would not stretch to that of the 'investors'.

And to top it, I'm now feeling that I'll be made redundant so have no motivation to look at the moment. I mean.. how can one even think about a mortgage if there isn't going to be a job to help support it? I've asked my boss if he knows what's going to happen but no feedback yet. To be honest, I'm feeling like absolute shit. We can stay renting but can't afford to rent once we retire (i'm now 55 so whenever that will be)... can't afford to buy unless it's something shit in a shit area and then I've got, being rammed down my ear by my family, 'you should never have moved up north, you should never have left that great job you have for your current one, blah blah, negative, blaming, guilt-forming, blah, blah, which is totally unsupportive, however true it might be.

My husband has his original family home abroad to sell but due to incredible political complications such as a 'militia protected' squatter and his family living in his house, no one wants to touch it with a barge pole but if he could sell it it would be an absolute lifeline for him and the rest of his family. WTF!

All my other family members are sitting in houses worth millions.. and most of them with several properties to their name.. and I'm the poor person of the family who can't even afford a house unless it's less than £130k.. yes, £130k. What the hell went wrong?? Where did I go wrong? Stop.. no good dwelling on the past.

So when I see houses in our price range I think, oh yeh... add an extra £20k on top as the 'over the asking price' because that seems normaly up here these days, and then we can forget it. We have an inflexible budget. Wouldn't be so bad if I knew my job was secure. Best get looking for something else but, ugh.. the last thing I feel like doing now.

Please please can I join! We've FINALLY saved enough for a deposit and are certainly not being fussy but still can't find anything!! Gah! We could in theory purchase a doer upper but with DS being 16 weeks old it's a bit any words of wisdom , hacks for Rightmove warmly welcomed 😭😭

So, no news on my offer on House B. Although EA's solicitors called to speak to me about my purchase, and would I like to instruct them. I said I was still waiting to hear any news about my offer and until then I won't be instructing anyone, ha ha

Call from EA. Offer was rejected, they decided to go with someone else, but if anything goes wrong, "I will get first refusal". I replied with "I am sure I will". I didn't ask for any feedback and kicking myself now. Fuckwits. I would not have offered more though. Anyway sat here crying now...!

giraffe I feel for you. I have a great sense of pathetically competing with overwhelming forces....but surely they have to finish buying everything at some point?!

I honestly think we might not be able to move. If things keep going above asking, we can't afford to. We looked at the market thinking many places had put mad prices on.

lime welcome along.

Oh no, what a shame.

Despite the EA saying the one we viewed on Sat had already received several offers, there's no sign of its status changing on their website, so either the vendor didn't accept the offers or they didn't exist!

@RidingMyBike, some EA don't change status until they have docs from the successful buyer
@DaisyNGO I could have upped my offer but wasn't prepared to (and EA didn't ask). I thought I was in a reasonable position having completed my sale but clearly not. I am fed up guys, totally fed up.

giraffe i don't blame you.

If prices haven't cooled a bit in Feb then we will have to give up I think.

@DaisyNGO, if the situation doesn't improve I will be living with my folks forever....I sometimes think I wish I just proceeded with the purchase of house with the illegal loft conversion and illegal extension, the one I pulled out from.....How silly does that sound. Just feel like a massive failure

[quote areyouhavingagiraffe]@DaisyNGO, if the situation doesn't improve I will be living with my folks forever....I sometimes think I wish I just proceeded with the purchase of house with the illegal loft conversion and illegal extension, the one I pulled out from.....How silly does that sound. Just feel like a massive failure[/quote]
Def good you pulled put of that

You might have to change your requirements though, I bet most of us will have to.