Would you go ahead with purchase?

[Shinytimes]

Offer was accepted in January, been issues with the whole chain, currently in rented and wanting in asap, hoping to complete August sometime.

A property round the corner which looks pretty much the same as the one I’ve gone for, other than it has a smaller driveway and back garden has come onto the market £25,000 cheaper (250k house I agreed upon, new one £225k) my mortgage will be £40k so 25k would drop me to only 15k borrowing.

Now I obviously don’t know their situation or chain, and also have to take into account how much more rent I will spend in the meantime depending on how long their move will take. My rent is £1000pm, so another 6 months minimum here is 6k, but WWYD? Stick with what I’ve got, or at least enquire about the other house just to see their situation? After more searches, surveys, rent is there any point?

If that’s the downturn in the market in just over 6 months, I’m wondering whether to actually buy at all?

Sorry for the rambling! Any advice appreciated 😊

£25k is a huge difference. It’s certain worth enquiring about the other house.

There may be other problems with the smaller house you can't see yet and will only come up through a survey. But definitely worth having a look and finding out more.

Thank you both, I’m going to give agents a call 😊

How much smaller is the garden? It depends if it's a forever home and you enjoy your garden (we do) I would pay 25k extra on such a small mortgage if the garden size was noticeably bigger

They could be underpricing it in order to start a bidding war. It's a known strategy. You could go for it and end up paying what you're paying for the house you're buying now just so you can still have a home, only your mortgage rate is then likely to be higher.

Look at other properties currently for sale and their asking prices; if there are several and they're all priced higher, ask yourself why it's priced lower.

@sleepyscientist yes, it is quite a bit bigger, I had already made plans for what’s going where so I would have to change on the smaller one.

@KievLoverTwo this had crossed my mind fleetingly, I’m definitely going to check properties around, thank you!

If you start again with the other house you'd potentially need to get another mortgage which could have a higher rate. I'd stick with what you're buying

The market today is nothing like the market as it was 7 months ago...

Then, markets - and the vast majority of potential house buyers - believed that recent higher interest rates were a temporary aberration, on course to soon return to more "normal" levels.

Today, inflation has become embedded via pass through to higher wages, and central banks including our BoE are now resolutely set on killing it via higher rates for longer, in a "whatever it takes" policy stance. Only very slowly is this (much) higher cost of money being felt in the housing market, but it's still early days and will eventually be felt.

It sounds to me like if you bide your time a little, at the very least both of these houses could be in reach of you with no mortgage at all bearing in mind the numbers you've disclosed.

Very soon, proceedable buyers like you with cash in the bank will be like gold dust. In your shoes, I'd be biding my time and be straightforward but ruthless in negotiations with potential vendors. Ideally, you'd find two or more houses that you'd be happy to purchase and then play them off against each other in order to find which is the most motivated to close a deal with you.

All sounds a bit harsh but really it's just good business. If the shoe was on the other foot, and the market was booming, vendors would be doing all they could to maximise their sale price egged on by agents, so it's perfectly fair to be playing equally hard now that the market's dynamics are reversing.

Nothing lost by investigating it, and potentially a lot to gain. Otherwise you'll always wonder. Go and have a look.

I think 25k is well worth the extra land. You also might struggle to get a 15k mortgage.

I'm not sure you could even get a mortgage for 15k it's such a small amount. But still, I would have to view the other property. If you liked it better you might be able to find a specialist lender that would allow it or be able to raise the money some other way.

@ToykeyShoot thank you for your advice 😊

Thank you for all of your replies, I hadn’t even considered getting 15k mortgage wise! I’ve arranged for a viewing so at least I can make an informed decision afterwards 😊

Ooh, tell us how it goes 😊

You may not get a mortgage but could probably get a personal loan for that amount.

I don’t understand why you couldn’t get a mortgage for 15k. If it’s a problem then just take out the bigger mortgage and use the extra cash to immediately repay a chunk. As long as you have a flexible mortgage you should be able to repay early.

I would stick with it. Driveway size and garden sizes are things you can't change.

Good idea to go and see it.
There has been a significant change in the market since January, particularly in the last couple of months. You are likely to be over paying for current house.

25k is not much extra for a bigger garden and driveway though. I guess it depends what is more important to you.

Hi OP,

A few years back we offered and got almost
to exchange on a house until the sellers messed us around and we had to pull our offer.

The day after, a house on the same road came up for considerably cheaper. We viewed immediately and had our offer accepted. From offer to completion was 6 weeks because our lawyer had already carried out searches and enquiries for the area!

So just thought it worthwhile mentioning as dependent on the sellers situation, things could move much quicker than you expect.

And you just don't care about the seller of the first house, to whom you made an offer?

What you do to others will be done to you....