About to put our house up for sale.. anyone else?

[DomusAurea]

We are taking the plunge and it's happening - we are selling our house (and relocating 200 miles away but that's another thread I guess) - anyone else? I could do with a collective handhold!

This is where we are now:

• finishing the last small jobs such as painting a ceiling
• having meets with estate agents for valuation
• nervously searching rightmove for possible houses in our relocation area (there isn't a lot!)

Are you going for sale soon? Tell me how it's going!

(we are in the South East)

More news from me! We haven't lost our future house. Our sellers accepted a revised exchange date of end October. (I think this is because they must have come to some form of agreement with the tenants to leave later).

(we are still looking at the other houses for reference)

July has been a rollercoaster.

Ah thats great news @DomusAurea - they must have realised they won’t find anyone new who can get it all done by end of August at this stage. Their EA probably talked sense into them.

Great news @DomusAurea !!!

The new broker who tried to get a mortgage for first buyer called agent today and she seems to have secured them a mortgage- they have passed all the financial checks allegedly and just need a valuation. I have heard this before but not from this broker who is apparently excellent.

Memorandum of sale just gone today to my solicitor for new sale, will tell her to hold off and see what next few days bring. Feel awful as the other couple have really struggled to get an offer accepted and they are on holiday thinking all is fine. But if couple number 1 can get mortgage all the legal work is done so an brainer from our perspective.

Don’t dare unbuckle my rollercoaster seatbelt just yet...

We had our survey today, surveyor was really lovely and friendly. Still cant find ANYTHING to buy.

Yes there's a real house drought out there @LAS123 isn't there? The one we're buying came on the market on 4th July and there's been nothing else suitable since then. Not that I'm keeping my options open, just being being nosy!

So our video has been uploaded on the EAs YouTube channel and it's had 21 views so far. Due to get the HR and valuation finalised today, though the surveyor did indicate a few issues at the time so there shouldn't be any nasty surprises for us.

Tell me about the drought of houses - yes - totally get it - as I mentioned earlier in the thread we have so so much compromised on outside space - we are buying (maybe, if the stars align) a very, very handsome 1897 house which has no front garden and only a very small back yard. But the space inside is magical. High ceilings, original stained glass, large rooms. In the part of town we really want to be.

Compromise is the name of the game in this market I guess.

@Volterra, ouch - what a palaver, I feel for you, situation is pretty much the same here - a lot of uncertainty - seat belt still firmly tight around the waist.

Yes its awful, nothing suitable in around 3 months where we are hunting, it feels like our bar gets lower and lower each week but all that seems to come up is probate sales or landlords selling up, pretty poor condition and still crazy prices. Its awful.

That’s moved quickly @DomusAurea well done keeping your nerve thing have really moved on in a week and am glad the people you’re buying from saw sense. I’m buckled up firmly too @Volterra six viewings booked for tomorrow 🤞hopefully the new broker comes through speedily. Good luck too @InTheCludgie

Good luck @InTheCludgie and @Spangledstarlight !
Just ordered first lot of moving boxes etc.

Had email from solicitor to say my buyers are proceeding on buying my house and their sale so I guess that means they got their mortgage and the survey was fine.......

10days later and now up to 26 positive viewings and several saying they were going to put an offer in. I'm a bit sick of tidying the house now!
On one side there's now nothing on the market I want to buy compared to a month ago when there were a few places.
Starting to wonder whether the EA overpriced the house... or that it stinks or something else I've become blind to!

Excellent news @Lindisfarne1 , really pleased for you.
@PermanentlyTired03 in my experience you are a little bit high within your price. We struggled when we had a guide price of 25k over what we wanted. We reduced to what we wanted and were offered it and a bit higher. It’s a bit weird how it worked.

Having said that if you haven’t found anything maybe hang in there. I would ask the agent if it smells. I was sure ours does as we have an old dog but according to agent and DD’s fairly blunt partner it doesn’t. Not sure I beleuve them!

Sorry I am not engaging with the thread, but I am very much fed up/miffed/annoyed/bothered/saddened/angered by the whole process...

• I went to see 3 houses that on paper were really nice but they were all a bit shit, worse than our original purchase, for which we are (at leat at the moment) proceeding.
• Our buyers have come back to us saying that they could only get a mortgage for 3k less and atm we are taking it, so we are down £10,000 plus waste legal fees compared to the other purchase.

I am so tired. I am seriously considering stopping the process fora while and starting afresh in September.

I am feeling anxious and depressed about and it's not worth it. Thinking of negotiating fully remote contract, making peace where we are and staying put.

This reminds me of the time when I was doing my doctorate, the period known as 'the valley of shit' thesiswhisperer.com/2012/05/08/the-valley-of-shit/ when you lose sight of where you are going because the pain of the present is clouding everything.

'There are a few signs you are entering into the Valley of Shit. You can start to think your whole project [of moving away] is misconceived or that you do not have the ability to do it justice. Or you might seriously question if what you have done is good enough [the house you have found, your ability to sell your house] and start feeling like everything you have discovered is obvious, boring and unimportant [any house you see is a bit shit]. As you walk deeper into the Valley of Shit it becomes more and more difficult to work and you start seriously entertaining thoughts of quitting.' - it's obviously about a very different thing... but there are parallels to where i am now with house buying.

And these are the words which i am reading again and again to myself:

'So I don’t want to offer you any empty words of comfort. The only advice I have is: just have to keep walking. By which I mean just keep writing, doing experiments, analysis or whatever – even if you don’t believe there is any point to it. Remember that you are probably not the right person to judge the value of your project or your competence right now.

Try not to get angry at people who try to cheer you on; they are only trying to help. Although you are alone in the Valley of Shit there is no need to be lonely – find a fellow traveller or two and have a good whinge if that helps. But beware of indulging in this kind of ‘troubles talk’ too much lest you start to feel like a victim.

Maybe try to laugh at it just a little.'

I am applying this to where I am and continuing, for now.

Not laughing much, though.

I’ve saved that and am going to send it to friend’s DD. I didn’t get far enough off the starting block with mine to get to that point.

Here’s my perspective on it @DomusAurea for what it is worth. There’s a reason you made the decision to move, quite similar to our reasons to go. It is without doubt an incredibly stressful process, no getting away from it. But although whilst deep in the valley of shit it feels like it will go on forever it won’t. In the grand scheme of life it is short term compared to the rest of our lives (hopefully).

The money thing is rubbish, we had an offer 30k more last year. My view is it costs what it costs and some people spend huge amounts on holidays which although they create lovely memories are fleeting moments in time. The wins from a move are potentially much much bigger and longer lasting.

With so many people in my life having died this year It does make me feel life is short. You could do what you said and stayed put - if you did that how do you think you would feel 10 years down the line, would that be the right decision?

I’m prepared for feeling a bit depressed and missing current home when we leave. It’s hard upsetting the status quo when you don’t actually have to but usually it does come with rewards in the long term . I think also after the period of turmoil we have all been through the last couple of years and the general mood of the U.K. currently it makes everything a bit weird and it is natural to not want to submit yourself to more stress when you don’t actually have to.

I’m not laughing much about it at the moment either if that helps to know and I swear I am never doing this again. So many people said they were confident first buyers would get the mortgage that despite my doubts I started to believe it then wham, no mortgage (but now, maybe..)

Goodness knows what will happen this week for us all and that’s probably a key factor - the feeling of loss of control. All we can do is take it one step at a time. My physio said this week that a rehab program is never a straight line but you get there in the end and I guess similar to house moving.

@Volterra - thank you for your wise thoughts and you are absolutely right about everything.

I am not taking any big decisions atm and just going one step at the time.

I think what's throwing me is that with the phd and late on with work challenges there are things you can do to get out of the impasse, you can keep moving to get out of the VoS, with house selling the process is much more passive. Lots of waiting. Asymmetric information galore. Outright lies. We are in the hands of others at all times. In the hands of the gods, ultimately.

Totally get it , it’s the loss of control and being unable to move it forward as you usually can . At a 6th form open day we went to with DS they said one of the first things they do is teach them how to fail as a lot of them haven’t encountered that and they wanted them it is ok to do so and previous failure is what has lead to many great innovations. Maybe house buying is similar?!

One day at a time ...

I like that thought process

keeping on keeping on it's all we can do :)

Having wine, phoned for a pizza (Amalfi, if anyone likes to share favourite toppings) and saying 'fuck it' whist taking one day at the time as suggested by @Volterra - that's where we are at.

(Speaking of Volterra @Volterra, why did you choose this name? Have you been to Volterra? It's one of my favourite places in Tuscany).

@DomusAurea , good plan with the pizza- I like ham, mushrooms and olives on mine. I chose name as was on a screensaver on TV whilst looking for inspiration for a name change. I have never actually made it to Italy. We were going to get married there but the central heating broke down in our new house at the time (the one we are moving to) so that was the end of attempt 1.

Attempt 2 was booked and DH got made redundant . Attempt 3 was going to be for my 50th and thankfully didn’t get booked as covid arrived. One day...