How many purchases fell through before you actually managed to buy a home?

[violetpixie]

Today I got some bad news that my second attempt at purchasing may be falling through due to the seller's finding an issue on their survey. After over a grand of fees, I feel like I'm just burning cash... so I wanted to see if lots of other wannabe homeowners have had similar experiences.

Not sure if its a sign I should take a break and pick it back up after summer, but my landlord is selling my rental so I'm having constant viewings being booked in and I'm losing my mind 😭

Our purchase when through - although not without threat of collapsing very close to exchange.
Took 3 goes to sell our house.

The English house buying system sucks.

We lost two buyers before our third one stuck. We lost two houses due to this. Competed on the third one. The second came back on the market but we stuck with house 3.

One. The sellers pulled out late on. We had spent thousands on surveyor and solicitors etc.

@violetpixie it's so dispiriting. My first purchase two fell through, one right before exchange. That was rubbish as we rented at the time and had nowhere to live.

This time around, my flat sale fell through, my first purchase fell through, and then my second purchase held. Some solicitors don't charge fees if it falls through and you use them on the next one.

Re: the viewings, we had this also in a rental. You are allowed to specify certain days only if you want. We had viewings nearly every day, so eventually gave just two days a week that viewings could be booked on (Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning) and then had the place to myself for the rest of the week

We have been lucky recently: earlier this year we sold a house quickly and with no trouble to the first person who put in an offer.

Last year my (first time buyer) daughter bought a flat. It took a while, but it was the only place she made an offer on so she didn't have to waste money on multiple surveys and searches.

There was no chain for either transaction, which I'm sure made life easier.

3 times and then honestly we gave up. We spent the best part of a year viewing, trying to buy and spending like it was monopoly money on surveys, storage, solicitors fees and other expenses. After 12 months and 3 failed purchases including one seller filing for bankruptcy and being gazumped we'd honestly lost the will to go on and we've stayed put. It's not ideal but I just couldn't cope with the stress and the expense all for nothing.

Probably not what you want to hear but I feel nothing but empathy for you it's honestly the most stressful of experiences and I hope it all works out in the end.

Once when buying our house. The vendors couldn't find anything they wanted. To be fair, they are still there 20+ years later.

Once but it was my choosing - flood risk came up really late (searches took forever) and the sellers had lied about a previous flood so I pulled out.

We still sold our house so kept the chain going and had hell in temporary accommodation....

We've bought three houses in the last 15 years and luckily they've all gone very smoothly.

The survey of your house/ the house you're buying is the biggest hurdle and a serious buyer gets this done asap.
A survey can throw up assorts surprises- damp, subsidence, roof on its last legs, missing chimney stacks and supporting walls.
And that's just on a basic survey.
A more involved survey can bring up Dodgy electrics and iffy plumbing.
Between us me and dh and the properties we have bought we have been very lucky
The only one was a house my dh looked at in the in the late eighties

It has been freshly decorated/ wall papered - the survey found all sorts under that wallpaper- so dh pulled out.

The estate agents are booking them "conveniently" for me but it's been on the market a year in June so I'm kinda done with it now. I was 6 months pregnant when they told me it was on the market and now I have a 7 month old 😅

First house offer was accepted early Feb, i pulled out as vendors had removed structural walls without adding sufficient support...

We were 4th time lucky, and honestly it took forever and was a total rollercoaster but so worth sticking out the anguish (and cost). We did finally move to the 4th house and we are very happy

Currently on our 4th attempt to buy. Our previous house sold to the 4th buyers 😬

We've completed two purchases in the last 7 years that many would have walked away from but we were in a position to see through despite huge amounts of stress. Vendors lying about what work has been carried out (no of course no structural work has been carried out despite a downstairs bathroom being moved upstairs and downstairs being practically open plan, no building regs, no sign off for rewiring the list goes on). The winners are solicitors and surveyors. A property should only be able to be marketed once a full survey has been completed so buyers have the full facts when they make an offer. The flip side of that should be that having an offer accepted should be legally binding Barca cooling off period. Everything is done the wrong way around in England with regards to buying and selling - things really need to change.

Previous two purchases- 3 attempts.
This one, our purchase went through fine but took nearly a year, despite both parties being chain free, because the vendor was an utter dick. Selling our old one, four attempts, because Liz Truss 😑

Keep your spirits up it will happen!

Just wanted to mention you can get home buyers insurance and might be worth doing next time. There's several versions out there - I found they were all about £70-£120 quid and cover you for various costs (searches, mortgage broker fee, survey, solicitors) if it collapses due to seller pulling out or other reasons like major structural work cropping up on survey etc. I couldn't find anything 'bespoke' so you can't necessarily cover 100% - it just covers up to £X on solicitors fees, £Y on that etc - and they had different lengths of cover (like 6 months or a year).

The big thing is it doesn't cover you if you just change your mind - I guess the premiums would be through the roof if they did that!

In the end I didn't need to claim but I was glad I took it out as it just took off that extra stress of potential significant loss of money.

Could you wait for your vendors to find somewhere new if they pull out of this one due to survey?

How awful. What you need is a chain free property. I would ask all the estate agents for that. I think this will get more common as the market crashes.

Even then there can be issues but you are not so dependent on others in a chain.

We have bought and sold many times, never had a sale fall through, so far, consider ourselves very fortunate, we have never messed anyone around either.

Previous move, we lost 2 houses, one to gazumping, one to a terrible survey which exposed sellers trying to cover up big issues.
This move, got the first one we wanted, but it took about two years to find one that fitted the bill, and 6 months and a lot of aggro to get it. If this time we'd been selling as well we'd have lost it I think.
It's a rotten process, especially if people are not all acting in good faith; it can be very fraught. I wish you all the best.

The house I'm sitting in was 3rd time lucky for me purchase wise, although it took 15 months to get here!

First house, I was buying from an elderly lady who changed her mind on the day of exchange, a week before completion, after 6 months conveyancing.

The second one accepted my offer, then refused to drop it when the valuation came out tens of thousands less. They took it off the market in the end. As couldn't get the price they wanted (hugely inflated post Covid).

Third one I was buying from a vendor who was converting their onward purchase from two flats into a family home. Their vendor was a nightmare, and we completed after 7 months of conveyancing, on the day my extended mortgage offer was due to expire.

We complete I hope on Friday after making the decision to move in autumn 2019 amd putting our house on the market spring 2020 for several weeks. Took it off as prices where we were looking shot up about 50k but didn’t where we were.

Spring 2021 quickly got a buyer, had offer accepted then our buyer couldn’t get a mortgage and we lost what we were trying to buy.

Back on spring 2022, first buyer couldn’t get mortgage, got another in 24 hours and completed 9 weeks later last September Then couldn’t find anything until March this year and am so excited about hopefully moving in soon. It is a horrible process.

@violetpixie I'm so sorry, a year, that's totally rubbish! Hope they've deducted your rent etc for that much inconvenience. It's not fair to have to be constantly clearing up and getting out of your home to have people traipse through