Thread 3: "Anyone not being picky - and STILL can't find anything?"

[RidingMyBike]

Thread 3 ready to go.
Link to thread 2:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/4450168-Thread-2-Anyone-not-being-picky-and-STILL-cant-find-anything?pg=1

Having received a downvaluation of £35k initially for the house I am buying, I paid nearly £200 for another one. This valuation has improved, but has now come in £20k less than the agreed price. I've approached my vendors to propose matching my offer to the valuation, and now waiting a response.

Let's see what they come back with.

Good luck!

We are STILL waiting to hear back on the mortgage valuation

Oh wow Paddington, how long have you been waiting?

Can I join please? We are about to put the house on the market hoping to move about 100 miles westwards but the town we want currently only has 3 houses for sale within our budget. There are lots we like that are sstc so we know the budget is not unreasonable. Panicking though that we could sell this place and not find anywhere so decided today to broaden the search by an extra 15 miles to include a larger town where 4 bed 2 receptions are almost £100K cheaper. I don't want the larger town as it has a bit of a rough reputation but feel we might end up having to compromise to get the space we need. Renting is not an option sadly and neither is staying put.

Only waiting a week. But it feels like a long time. When we tried to buy a previous house last year the valuation came back the next day. Different lender though

Hi everyone, I'm soooooooo close now.

Was meant to exchange on Friday but our buyer hadnt sent his deposit then realised it was over his daily transfer limit so went in branch over the weekend, on monday the funds didnt clear until 4:45 (apparently) so that was too late, then attempted to exchange Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday and it's failed each time because the solicitor at the top of the chain can seem to get authority from their client. please pray today is the day... We're meant to be completing next friday and the stress has made itself comfortable in my brain, after being at this house searching milarcky for over 18 months now im perpetually worried its all going to come crumbling down again.

The thought of actually having to pack everything we own and do all the admin of telling providers etc is a whole fresh stress on top of what im now used to😅

The day my feet step foot in that house i will swear down cry from pure exhaustion.

Does anyone else feel like they're overpaying for their property - and what happens if prices plummet?

We've been looking for nearly a year, and have gone from hoping for a 3 bed house, to now looking at 2 bed flats (hoping for reduced bills and maintainance for 5 years while we have childcare costs etc)

We've lost several properties in offers going way over, so did go over asking by default, but we hadn't taken into considertion that it's a 5 year old flat so value won't be linear, and the market may be slowing.

What happens if prices plummet say 10% - is it that your % of equity becomes hat the new price is?

OR is it a case of sticking it out in the property til prices come back?

I've had good-ish news this week. The second valuation which I had to pay for came in £20k under the agreed price, instead of the £35knit did previously. Instead of sacking me off, my vendors have offered to meet me halfway, which seems quite fair in this current market.

Us!

We have our property under offer to really keen first time buyers. We aren’t looking for perfect but this is meant to be pretty much the move to our forever home. Prices have been crazy - we have missed out on houses even where we have gone £50/60k over asking.

Currently in a 4 bed, 2 bath,2 reception (over 3 floors).

Really need a third reception/playroom and parking - ideally on 2 levels. If we could get parking where we lived we would have simply extended, but it’s not possible.

Now willing to take a 3 bed, so long as we hit the other criteria and still no joy in the areas we want.😩

Saw something yesterday that was stunning, but location wise was on the border of (possibly even in) what’s thought of round here as a dodgy area. I can’t even believe I’m considering it. We are so keen to move but in my head all I hear is ”location, location, location”. It would cost £1m - a heck of a lot to us, so can’t make the choice lightly.

The fact we are even looking at less bedrooms than we have now shows we aren’t being over picky, right? We just need a bit more space downstairs because of he kids taking over the living room and (small) kitchen / diner with toys. And parking. Is that really too much to ask? 😩😩😩

Careful @treaclepumpkin, however desperate you are to move.

You're better off living in the worst house in the best street than the other way round.

Im hopefully buying a house that isn’t very ‘me’ but in an area I bloody love. I know others love the area too. I never want to be saddled with a house I cannot shift.

In my experience they won’t care at all and will just agree with the price you offered when you put down deposit of this size.

Been away for a week so was hoping that there would be loads of new places come on that fit the bill. Almost nothing. There’s a couple I will book viewings for but they all have some major element of compromise. One area has gorgeous houses but the outside space is all courtyard gardens and the allotments have long waiting lists. I really want to grow my own veg but I’d barely be able to do herbs in pots! Another area has next to no parking available - tiny narrow streets mean you’d have to park miles away.

This is good advice and I need to remember this 😁

I'd agree with @ByeByeMissAmericanPie in terms of compromising on location @treaclepumpkin; that's the last thing I'd ideally look to bend on. If you've already got concerns on the area, other people viewing when you come to sell will too.

I think I'll outgrow the house I'm buying in 5-10 years, unless I've extended by then. However it is in an extremely sought after area, and I'd have no trouble selling if I needed to. I only secured it after doing a personal leaflet drop, and my vendors preferred a private sale to going through estate agents. I'd have been prepared to pay £50k extra for another 200-300 sq ft, but nothing of that size in the perfect location has come up, so I'm compromising on size.

@ByeByeMissAmericanPie - very wise words indeed. I’ve heard it before, but a timely reminder…

@Starseeking - yes, really having to think about this. Started another thread to canvas views from others familiar with the area and to be fair, it’s been pretty positive. One thing I did always think about was the private leaflet approach. Do you mind sharing what you said / how you went about it exactly. There are definitely some areas around here I would try. But I’ve always thought it would never really work, people would think it was some sort of scam perhaps (as I would), if I even read the paper at all

My FiL sold his house to people who put a card through the door. Was a lovely quiet street and every house was different, very sought after. He sold to a family, rather than the unpleasant developer who’d been sniffing around for years.

We are supposed to be/maybe/possibly/hopefully exchanging this week. God only know when we’ll complete, considering the vendors are slow and also doubtless tied to what their vendors need. Ugh.

I did a couple of things @treaclepumpkin. There were about 4 areas/roads that I really want to live in covering about 250 houses. I whittled the ones I liked the look of (kerb appeal is important to me!) down to about 50. Then I looked at Rightmove/Zoopla and took out anything that sold in the last 10 years, and anything I could tell was 4 bedrooms (I only need 3 bedrooms) which got me down to about 25. I then looked at the individual listings on both to see if there had been any for sale in the last few years that hadn't made it to completion, and there were 3 of those.

I looked at Land Registry to see if there were any funny charges attached to the houses, then discounted a further 3 which had recently done equity release, and one which had some sort of divorce issue.

I wrote 22 letters, which were along the lines of:

"I hope you don't mind me contacting you, but I've recently had a purchase in this area fall through and I'm looking for a family home in this area and thought your beautiful home may be suitable.

If you are interested in selling privately and saving on estate agents fees, please contact me on:
Email address
Phone number

If you are not interested in selling, I hope I have not disturbed you, and wish you all the best."

I got 2 replies, 1 which said they weren't selling for the moment, and 1 which said they'd seen an estate agent the day before they received my letter, so were interested. This house was one of those that had been on the market a year earlier and they'd pulled it because of the pandemic. I went round a few days later to view, left the house and offered them what they said the estate agent had valued at and was also in my mind about right for the area, and I'm going through conveyancing now, hopefully completing in July.

Interestingly, the first one who contacted me saying they weren't selling got in touch about 2 months later to say circumstances had changed and they were now selling. They wanted £100k more than my budget (and also much more than the standalone house was worth (they have a bit of land by the side with development potential).

I suppose they could have thought I was a scammer, but I'm easily googleable as have a distinctive name, and if they looked at my LinkedIn profile they'd be able to gauge that I have a very well paid job to be able to afford the property.

@treaclepumpkin what's the basis for the area's reputation? And has anything changed recently?

We moved to New City late last year. We found a couple of areas mentioned on online searches (often Mumsnet!) as best avoided. We've ended up renting on one of these roads, which we accepted as a temporary measure, and it's actually been fine. There was anti-social behaviour here but it appears it was linked to a large sports facility, which has since closed.

The other area got a lot of mentions on Mumsnet but now we're here and have joined the local FB groups and Next Door it barely gets a mention. Whereas another estate seems to be rife with problems but didn't really appear like that in our initial searching!

@Starseeking very impressive research! How do you find out which houses sold but didn't make it to completion?

Supposed to be completing today but a doc from the solicitor has the wrong dates plus my name is misspelled! Waiting for a call back. They can refer to the email I sent at 0712 this morning 🤪 We are not in a mad rush as renting but I’d rather get this done. The vendors said yesterday that they’d like to move at the weekend! I replied saying they should go for it 😬

Thanks @Mooserp, it's twofold really.

Looking at Zoopla and drilling into individual properties under the house prices section will show you their archive of when a property was last advertised for sale. You can see the sales particulars, including floor plans! You just have to type in the address, and know the rough area, or you can use specific postcode. It's not entirely foolproof, as homeowners can ask for their property to be removed from the database.

Zoopla house prices
www.zoopla.co.uk/house-prices/

With actual sold prices, I tend to go to Rightmove first so I can see pictures and confirm the house, then I double check with Land Registry sold prices as Rightmove doesn't always pull through Land Registry data correctly.

Rightmove sold prices
www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices.html

Land Registry sold data
landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ppd

Covid delays have meant that Land Registry is lagging somewhat in actual transactions which have taken place, though this seems to vary depending on area.

I also like having a quick look on my local authority planning site to see if houses have definitely had conversions/extra bedrooms. The link will vary depending on where you live.

I love that all this data is so freely available!

Hi guys, Still here. I updated about mid May to say my vendors have an onward purchase. It is vacant, but a probate property. They have been advised it is "well on it's way", albeit don't know timescales. My vendor and I are in touch, so I have flagged that my mortgage is due to expire in 3.5 months. I have no reason to believe they are stalling, and they are taking next steps, mortgage etc. I have e-mailed my Solicitor to see if we can contact vendor's solicitor to understand whether probate has actually been applied for, and to reiterate my mortgage expiry. Anyway, just feeling stressed and trying not to think about it. For those of you who have been around for a while, you may remember I pulled out of a purchase last Summer, so I know all sorts of things can still go wrong.

Also just found out that my mortgage had finally been approved, so it looks like I'm buying this house!

God, just re-read that and it is awful! It should read that the vendors have advised that "probate is well on it's way".
Anyway, so many horror stories on MN about probate properties.....but trying to keep positive!

I depressingly need to join this thread (might already be on it, it’s been that long since I started looking). Was already finding it hard, but now gutted as we missed out on a house we really loved today. We went £60k over, we only need to port our small mortgage over and have just two properties in our ready to exchange chain, but it wasn’t enough. Been looking since we sold in mid-feb and there’s nothing to buy in the area we want, even with lots of compromises already made.

Have told our buyers we’ll go into a rental if needed to secure the sale, but we can’t even secure one of those as there’s so little stock. Feel like giving up on the whole thing and trying again next spring. Anyone else in same boat?

@Starseeking thats some impressive work you did there. We might have to start doing some targeting of properties.