Hi everyone!
I thought I would give some insight on what my house purchase journey has been like, the good, the bad and the ugly! This is a long post however, I wanted to go into detail over my experience in the hopes that it’ll help or humour someone out there!
January 2022- First official Property and first offer accepted.
We started looking at properties with my partner, AIP at the ready, very naive and inexperienced at what to look out for as neither of us have ever lived away from home, not even to rent or for University. From having a brief discussion with a broker we had a maximum budget as we are quite fortunate to have a decent LTV, we were thrilled at our options on Rightmove as most of the houses on there within our budget along with proximity to public transport looked great! My partners mother was quite involved at the start, sending over properties she thought liked etc, very helpful at first as we didn’t know what we were exactly looking for. I quickly got on the phone to agents for properties we both liked, thankfully, to agents first time buyers living at home with decent deposits were ideal applicants! From what I recall I made the calls Monday- Thursday and got several viewings booked for that Saturday. I will only list the property that we got the offer accepted on. If you want more details, please let me know on the comments, happy to share my experience with making offers/why I didn’t make offers.
The 3rd property out of 4 we viewed was on a development built in 1998/2000. My partners mother suggested this property as she liked the development. Please note, the development is nice however, outside if the development isn’t, it’s known to be rough. So, the house is a mid Terrance, 2 bedroom, 2 allocated parking spaces and the property had recently been modernised. We, including his mum went to the viewing. Once we walked in, we did like the house, it was very sleek and modern compared to the others that we viewed. It had a very small kitchen which meant we’d have to have our dining table in the living room, thankfully there was space for a small dining table in the lounge. The living room was decorated lovely, we wouldn’t have changed anything. The garden was a good size and also modern. The bathroom was nice and the master bedroom also. The second bedroom was listed as a double room however, this is unlikely as you’d struggle to get a double in there and if you did somehow manage you wouldn’t have enough space for anything else. I wanted the spare bedroom for a home office as I work from home 4 days a week. My partners mum was expressing how much she liked the place and that we should definitely make an offer, we did agree and decided to make an offer! We went back and forth with the agent with a final offer as other interested buyers offered the same as us, so we went slightly higher, and the offer was accepted! Woohoo right? WRONG, and here’s why.
The agent recommended their solicitors and mortgage advisors, almost guilt tripping us, however, I had a mortgage advisor directly with the bank and he was wonderful and offered an interest rate lower than what the agents broker said he could get us, also no fee required! We went with the solicitors, only later to be informed that the sellers are using the same solicitor, I was against this as the risks were high as outlined by the solicitors themselves. I decided to go with the banks recommendation, side note, last year when I looked at properties these solicitors offered there assistance on looking at legal packs (auction property) all for free so I decided to go with them as they seemed great albeit more expensive than the agents recommended one. Before officially instructing our solicitors I said hold fire till the mortgage offer as I’ve heard about down valuations and didn’t want to pay for searches etc till then. Valuation came back 10k lower than the offer and 5k lower than asking! We appealed the valuation and the surveyor went out and gave the reasons why it was lower. I showed this to the agent and asked if the seller could agree to go with the valuation amount or even negotiate as 10k isn’t cash we have to use on bridging the difference. The agent came back saying no, they need the offer price and won’t negotiate. We sadly then had to withdraw our offer, a day later the agent called saying the seller has now decided to agree to the valuation price! We were over the moon and asked for a second viewing, the agent the following day informed us that the seller is no longer in a position to sell their house and is taking the house off the market. This was soul crushing as we went through so many emotions in just a few days. We were the sellers 2nd buyers the last one fell through also and they in general seemed difficult, but it was upsetting nevertheless. I later was grateful that it didn’t work out, I really didn’t like the small kitchen with no dining area and a small 2nd bedroom. We would have outgrown it within a few years.
Feb 2022/ March 2022 Property number 2 offer accepted!
We decided to look at another area, an area I always liked as it’s nicer, you get more for your money, closer to some of our loved ones and better commute into London. This was challenging as my partners mother wanted us to move to the previous area, even though the development had only 2 beds that we could afford and we just overall fell out of love with the area however, to keep her off our backs we went to viewings on that development and surrounding areas even though it was very rough! As a result we made no offers in the area his mother liked. She kicked up a royal fuss calling him everyday saying it’s a mistake to look at the houses in the area we’re looking now as she’s heard bad things, she’s never been there! Please note, we have been there plenty of times and we have friends there, it’s 10000 times better than the area she likes. I think she assumed the new area is too far from her which is it’s not it’s 5 minutes difference from her desired area. My partner stuck by me and liked the area and we looked at houses, just us 2.
3rd property of the day out of 4, different agent to the 1st house above ofc they insisted on us using their broker etc, however we stuck by our advisor as we already went through the checks and we were at valuation stage from the last property, it just needed amending slightly. This house was a 3 double bedroom (actual double bedrooms) with a separate dining room, big kitchen and living room with a big garden. The bathroom didn’t have a bath which we wanted but we would be fine with just a shower for now, It was also recently renovated downstairs with new flooring etc, and we liked it! No off street parking and limited on street nevertheless, we liked it and met the seller with the agent and liked her. We made an offer and it was accepted. You’d think, this is where we get our home right? WRONG AGAIN, here’s why.
We had to get the property valued as the mortgage needed updating as we increased our budget slightly and needed this property details reflected our LTV was better as we added more deposit to lower our monthly repayments. We under offered so we assumed all would be fine! The surveyor decided to do an in-house valuation and came back saying that the house has spray foam insulation and due to this they are valuing the house at £0 and the lender won’t lend against a house with spray foam insulation, he advised for the seller to have a professional coke out to remove it and see the damage. I did look into spray foam insulation and why banks don’t lend, if you’re curious please google, it’s an interesting read! But nearly all high street banks don’t lend on properties or let you remortgage if you have spray foam, since 2022 Feb surveyors are looking out for it more. I reached out to the agents, hoping the sellers could pay for it to be removed, however the agents weren’t helpful and were quite rude saying that maybe if we used their broker we wouldn’t have this issue! We spoke with a broker friend of ours and they said they can’t influence the banks surveyor, so I’m not sure what the agent meant? Maybe they’d be able to find a bank that would accept? However, we didn’t want the hassle as what happens when we want to remortgage or sell? We’d have the same problems! I felt bad for the seller as they’d only been there a year, moved in during lockdown so probably didn’t have an in-house valuation and now they’re splitting up and have to sell and weren’t aware of the spray foam. The agent said the sellers won’t pay for removal of the spray foam so we sadly had to withdraw.
Mid March 2022 3rd and final property!
The weekend after withdrawing from property number 2, 2 roads away we found another property! It’s the same measurement on the rooms however, the conservatory is much bigger and in better condition.
Property 1 out of 4 viewings. This property is mid Terrance, 3 double bedroom, kitchen is large as is the living room and dining and so is the garden. The bathroom had a lovely bath with a shower fitted so RESULT! There wasn’t off street parking but it has a lot of on street parking and had parking bays right outside the house row. This house had so much natural light, it made the house feel even bigger! My partner immediately fell in love, so did I but I didn’t want to get my hopes up! The house is ready to move into but we knew we’d want to paint it and do the flooring to our style which we were fine with if we got the house. The agent was lovely, answered all of our questions and we explained all of the issues we’ve had, down valuations and spray foam on a house 2 roads away. The agent explained that she had already informed the sellers on down valuations and that it’s advised to go with the amount or negotiate and she kindly went up into the loft and showed us that there’s no spray foam insulation, just the normal kind! Which was a relief to say the least. The agent did disclose that the sellers need to remain within the house till end of July as they’re teachers and need to finish the term then they will move up north. We said that’s fine as we live at home we’re happy with that but would like to exchange as soon as possible to secure our position, she said the sellers in preparation has already agreed to exchange asap to encourage buyers, which was music to our ears.
We both knew that we had to make an offer, I decided to under offer just to see if it would work (it wasn’t that low) and I emailed clicked send and thought ok we’ll have to wait to hear back, we had 4 viewings that day and that was our first viewing so we kept an open mind and went to the next viewing. As I looked at my emails to get the details for the next property I see an email from the agent to say our offer was accepted! We were in shock but we had to keep level headed to avoid getting our hopes up! We viewed the other properties but they weren’t what we were looking for. We decided to go ahead with this property but also keep looking just in case something went wrong! We rang our advisor straight away to get a valuation booked, which thankfully we did and do our delight the valuation came back fine and we promptly received our offer, which is valid till end of August on a great interest rate secured for 5 years. We have exchanged and we complete and get our keys on the 1st August 2022!!
The 3rd property also had some hiccups along the way, including drama with solicitors! If you want to hear about the actual process we went through with this property please let me know! I’m happy to give you a breakdown.
I wanted to post this to give people an insight and also hope, when something goes wrong we tend to feel like it’s the end of the world (might just be me) but it isn’t, sometimes these things happen for a reason and for me and my partner, all the heartache was worth it! This house is the definitely the one and we’re so excited to make it a home.