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

I'm seeing a lot of reductions in the area and price range I'm looking at. Quite a few going from 400k to 385k but one went right down to 350k. And that was only after about 1 month on the market.

@blibblibs we lost a property for that reason. An ugly divorce and he wouldn’t sign what he needed to sign.

View anything else you can. Although I appreciate that where you are is anything like my neck of the woods then that will be very little!

Guttedbuyer it's seemingly very amicable and he has now signed what was required to get the searches done, although we're not expecting the building search back until September 😯
Nothing else on the market apart from a few new builds which just don't have the space we need in the price bracket we have.

I'm in a popular area of a city. Looking for a house after a split with DP. Getting viewings seems normal and there's a reasonable amount coming on. Anything good and sensibly priced sells. There are some overpriced ones sticking.

Example - 2 x 3 bed terraces on the same street. One needs completely renovating. The second just needs a bit of work (I'd estimate about 20k). The one that needs fully renovating is on for 30k more than the one that just needs a bit of work. The EA says the vendor is happy to wait for a cash buyer 😆

The one that needs renovating has been on RM for 2 months now. I suspect it's an inherited house, owned outright. Not sure what their long term plan would be if it doesn't sell for what they want. Maybe rent it out but it's becoming harder to be a landlord.

www.rics.org/globalassets/rics-website/media/knowledge/research/market-surveys/uk-residential-market-surveys/june-2022-rics-uk-residential-market-survey.pdf

This is quite interesting. Supply slightly up, demand slightly down basically. Prices stable.

I am getting so fed up! I've been looking for 10 weeks, since I sold my house. Anything decent is selling before I can get a viewing or even as I am viewing! I keep widening my search area and wondering what I can further compromise on. If I don't find somewhere soon the chain is going to collapse

Hello my tribe! How is everyone doing? I can't recall when I last posted. But I am in a chain of 3, me, vendors and their onward (probate). We are all ready to go, awating grant of probate. Everyone has been saying 8 weeks (I realise that is not always the case). We have agreed a completion date, monies (deposit) transferred. It has been 9.5 weeks since probate was submitted. To add some more pressure, my mortgage offer expires very very soon..... So I will need a new offer, and interest rates have gone up SIGNIFICANTLY since I received my offer. But, it is a waiting game and I don't know what else to do. Vendors won't go into rented, and everyone is saying "any day now", but been hearing that for over two weeks.

That sounds very stressful @areyouhavingagiraffe

I guess I'm in the opposite position to you, I'm the 'awkward' vendor. I haven't been able to find a house since I sold mine a few months ago, I have been outbid on a few and others have sold before I've had my viewing. The chain below are ready to exchange and the FTB at the bottom has a mortgage offer that will expire soonish.

I have looked into renting but it's no easier to find somewhere. Everywhere I look is long term rental only and no pets 😖

@Mooserp so stressful. Took my vendors three months to find something. Took me over a year (I broke my chain last Summer!).
Guess we are both at risk of chain collapsing, which sucks.

I'm in a similar position to you @areyouhavingagiraffe. I was on the threads last summer as well with my previous purchase which collapsed after my elderly vendor pulled out after 7 months.

I'm now in a chain where there's me, my vendor, and their vendor, who is renting out the house my vendor is buying. It's the tenant who isn't ready to move out, which suggests the vendor didn't give them notice until very recently.

I've been ready to exchange since June, and have gently tried to encourage my vendors to break the chain by moving in with family, but they don't want to chance it, so are staying put.

My mortgage offer runs out in 2 weeks, which everyone has been aware of since May!

OMG @Starseeking exactly the same as me. Mine runs out in three weeks. I think they probate was applied for pretty sharpish after the house sold, but I am not sure if I believe anything. The EA has gone from telling me "yes, it is always easily 8 weeks" to now saying "oh we always thought that was a strecth and no one knows". WHAT! But the solicitors have agreed a provisional completion date, so I dunno

@Starseeking if it just a waiting, will you apply for a new mortgage or do you think the tenant is just not going to vacate. I am not sure what I will do if my mortgage offer runs out, I feel like I am sick of this and will just need to bite the bullet, reapply and accept I will be paying more. I could renegotiate my offer, but I don't know how they will take that!

You might need a long term rental though @Mooserp? A year ago I was annoyed all the rentals available (not many anyway) had a 12 month minimum tenancy period as I thought we'd only need 6ish months to cover our house sale and then buying another one.

We're now almost 11 months into the tenancy , have finally completed on house purchase but struggling to get builders in etc so have had to extend it onto a rolling monthly tenancy. We're probably looking at a minimum of 15 months in rental by the time we can move into the house we've bought.

I don't want to be in rental that long, any rental costs would come out of the proceeds from my sale and who knows what will happen with house prices.

Luckily I don't 'have' to move, but there are certain things being put on hold until I do.

I'm guessing there's not going to be much coming on the market until after the bank holiday?

LOL neither did we. We can't afford all of the rent from income so each additional month we stay takes a little more from the renovation budget.

We had to do it because it was a work relocation but it did at least break the chain for sale and then purchase.

I'm not really sure what's going on at that end, as I'm hearing everything happening on the tenants front third hand. I was told they'd be leaving on 6 July, but apparently these are different tenants

I was supposed to be porting my mortgage across from the house I sold with my EXDP back in June 2021, so my current mortgage offer is at a lower interest rate than current BOE. Expires end of August. Somehow I don't think it'll be renewed, and anything they offer me is going to cost £££.

I'm so so cross my first purchase failed due to the vendor stringing me along for so long. I should have been in that house for many months by now, having paid a reasonable purchase price and at a low interest rate fixed for 5 years.

As it is I've been living with family for over a year, and we (me and my DC) just need to move now!

@Starseeking , I am also with my parents, been here a year. I ended up breaking chain last summer (problems with house purchase at the time, carried on with my leasehold sale). I recall you had a similar situ, you were also selling leasehold.
I honestly can't believe I am here a year later. We seem so close to exchange (docs signed, completion date agreed, I have transferred my deposit funds). I am trying not to invest in this property, but am so fed up. We are just waiting this berluddy grant. I applied for my mortgage in Feb (so again like you, pre all the interest rate changes). It will cost me an extra £400 per month under a new product. BUT, I feel like rates are still less than when I bought my first place pre 2008......And walking away will mean starting all over again, and possibly more rises....

It's awful isn't it @areyouhavingagiraffe? I feel like I never want to move house ever again after this experience!

How is it possible to have a completion date when you don't know when probate will be granted? I thought that could only be done once fully granted?

My sale has just fallen through as the vendor is being made redundant so they can't afford their onward purchase.

Back to the drawing board. So sick of viewings.

@Starseeking , well it is only a provisional date. i.e it has been agreed that we are aiming for that. Obvs we cannot exchange or complete until grant of probate, I wonder whether they suggested it to keep me on side, and lure me into some trap thinking we can complete before my mortgage runs out! But my Solicitor asked me to transfer my deposit earlier this week, which I did. She said to me that WE need to focus on being ready, which we are.
If we miss the mortgage expiry date, I dread to think how they will react if I suggest a reduction in my offer.....my lender's valuation was slightly less than my offer (£4.5K), my Surveyor's valuation was significantly less (£20K), although he failed to compare like for like purchases! So I have no idea what I would reduce it to....! And they will probably tell me to bugger off.

So, update from me, probate granted. Due to exchange today, but the vendors onwards is now up a mountain, and no one can contact him to take authority to exchange. You couldn't make it up. WTF. Meanwhile clock is ticking and my mortgage offer is running out soon. I have visions of him not making it down from the mountain. The stress!

Oh no! Is it more a day walk up a mountain or scaling Everest situation?

It is Ben Nevis. Knowing my luck he is probably camping there for a week, in which case game over. Who does that when they know we are about to exchange? Am soo fed up. Tomorrow I am going to announce that I will not being renewing my mortgage offer for the price I offered. I offered six months ago, and things are defo slowing down, so many reductions etc. Hoping that will put a rocket up someone's bottom.