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I don't know what to do!

22 replies

Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 07:01

My partner and I both have buyers for our houses, early days for both but both bought by first time buyers so should be fairly straightforward. We are looking to make an onward purchase together with our 3 children. However there is now hardly anything out there. We first put them on in March and things we loved came and went. We put an offer on a place yesterday, which we loved and first viewed it back in June when we weren't proceedable, anyway after waiting all day the EA came back to us at 6pm and said the vendors were pulling it off the market. We were gutted and that leaves nothing in the town in want. We can't rent as we are porting my partners 5 year fixed rate. So our choices are:

A cheap and massively reduced new build, last one on the site, not in the town we want but available now

A renovation project which isn't a forever home anyway, right location but no parking and ugly looking.

Wait it out as long as our buyers will accept and hope something else comes up.

Or what?!

OP posts:
DrySherry · 18/07/2023 07:23

If they are both FTB you might be able to agree with them to wait. It's risky though - as in a short period of time they may see other houses listed at cheaper prices as the market settles downward. They will then rightly want to renegotiate price, or change their minds because another has a location or facility they prefer.

Caitlin991 · 18/07/2023 07:28

I think your buyers should understand that the market isn’t as it was & will need to wait it out. I wouldn’t buy a house that’s not right for you if you can help it.

We have buyers lined up that haven’t sold and I’m actually scared they will sell as we’re in the same boat - there’s nothing out there, and when a property we love does go up there’s 20+ people fighting for it.
I think we’ll be coming off the market if they don’t sell and waiting until the market gets better to re-list. If they do sell they’ll just have to accept that they need to wait for us to find a property..

Are you able to sell one property and all move into the other temporarily?

Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 07:34

I have a really small 3 bed and my partner a 2 bed flat so we can't fit in either. It would have to be mine anyway as we can't lose his mortgage.

I'm sorry to hear that others are in the same boat, it's dire.

OP posts:
Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 07:35

We already went rock bottom with the offers we accepted as my partners sold once before and fell through and mine took a while to sell

OP posts:
Roselilly36 · 18/07/2023 07:36

This is the problem at the moment, as the market has slowed, more so in some areas. So lots of people are taking properties off the market. You have a buyers, but it’s tricky finding the onward purchase. I know someone that is in a very similar situation. She said her Estate Agent told her that they haven’t conducted a single viewing on any property on their books for 2 weeks! She is seeing out her contract and if she doesn’t find a buyer, she will try again in the spring.

We moved at the beginning of 2021, massive downsize and relocation, I know how stressful it is trying to find the next property, we were lucky and found the right home, that we are very happy in, and will be likely to stay in for many years. But we had already decided that we didn’t want to chain break and if our buyers put pressure on us, we would have pulled out and stayed where we were. Thankfully it did work out in the end. But it was touch and go at a few stages in the process.

I hope it all works out well for you OP, good luck.

Roselilly36 · 18/07/2023 07:43

Other options that you could consider, if the move fails. Could you put a room & en suite in the roof of your house, to make a lovely bedroom and bathroom for you and or partner or extend to give you more living space, or add on a conservatory? And rent out your partners flat, until the market improves? The improvements would add value to your house OP, and perhaps make it more attractive to sell when the market rises, which it will.

Twiglets1 · 18/07/2023 08:03

It's very hard to sell 2 properties and buy a 3rd, especially at the moment. I think I would concentrate on selling your property and potentially all move into his flat, even though you will be overcrowded for a few months. But at least you will have removed one potential problem, the sale of your place. Then you would just have one property left to sell and one property to buy and more places will have come onto the market if you leave the sale of his place for a couple of months.

Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 08:59

5 of us and a cat in a small 2 bed flat...hmmm, I'm not really sure that is feasible but maybe that's the only real option we have Confused

OP posts:
Roselilly36 · 18/07/2023 12:19

Or sell both and rent, while you look?

bravotango · 18/07/2023 12:28

I'd actually probably go for option B of your choices, but in the meantime get flyering roads with properties you like the look of - you never know, someone might want to sell

Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 12:33

We aren't able to rent as we are porting my partners 5 year fixed rate mortgage

OP posts:
Boogiebot · 18/07/2023 12:37

We are 6 in a 2 bed atm. Temporarily while we wait for house sales and things to be done. Boys share a bedroom. Dd has a pull out bed in living room and me. Dp, baby and I in bedroom

KievLoverTwo · 18/07/2023 13:34

Whatever you do, do it quickly. If your buyers both got mortgages in March, they'll have six months, rates rises in the interim (95% LTV on a 25 year term, 2 year fixed rate)

31st March 5.89%
9th June 6.36%
14th July 7.08%*

*this rate will already include an anticipated 0.5% rise on 03/08 for the majority of lenders, sometimes after the announcement they even drop a little bit

Now, the thing is, the lenders seem to be trying to keep rates as low as possible for FTBs as they possibly can (it's those with equity who keep getting slayed) but I still think we're going to have two more 0.5% BoE base rate rises (3rd August and 21st September) and I think for the rest of the year they'll probably be 0.25% rises, because the Govt cannot get inflation under control. The BoE Monetary Committee meet every six weeks.

That won't put rates up by an entire 1%, but maybe 75% of that. In fact it won't take that long, if they put it up 0.5% in August, lenders will start putting rates up three weeks before 21st September (I have been closely watching, it's a definitive pattern).

If we see rates increase to 7.83% come 31st August, that's a massive difference in people's bank accounts. On a 100k mortgage it's the difference of a payment of £722 per month versus the £605 it would have cost them on March's rates.

Maybe they could extend by 1 month until October, but goodness only knows what rates will look like by them, and if your buyers could even still afford them.

Sources of all these mortgage rates btw are from Mortgage Strategy who get their rates from Money Facts (I archive all their emails).

If you have to move and move quickly, I would suggest the following:

Look for three bed garden flats instead of houses

Look in areas further away from schools and shops and good transport links

Look in towns you wouldn't usually look at; heck, look at different counties

Start making other concessions; lose three doubles to two doubles and a single, lose a big garden you could play football in to one that's big enough to sit out in for now; lose a decent sized family kitchen to a smaller one that doesn't even have a dishwasher.

Specifically prioritise viewing properties that are either a) very clearly vacant or b) state they have no onward chain. Be careful with b), make sure that no onward chain is actually real - it's no good if they're waiting for a house to be built that could be finished late, you need someone ideally who has actually bought another home or has already arranged a rental.

Get in touch with EAs and tell them you want to be the first phone call they make when a property comes up with a motivated seller who can move quickly.

Sorry if the above is a bit scary. Is it better to be prepared and informed or to dig your head in the sand? In this market, I don't really know.

DrySherry · 18/07/2023 14:28

That's a really good point about the buyers mortgage offer being massively higher if it expires. I hadn't thought of that. They will likley renegotiate downwards if you don't get completed asap.

Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 15:47

I accepted an offer on my house at the beginning of this month and my partner was yesterday so hopefully that side of it will be ok, it's just finding somewhere for us that's the issue!

OP posts:
Twiglets1 · 18/07/2023 16:03

Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 15:47

I accepted an offer on my house at the beginning of this month and my partner was yesterday so hopefully that side of it will be ok, it's just finding somewhere for us that's the issue!

Respectfully can I remind you that selling the properties is not assured until Contracts are Exchanged. I have 2 friends currently trying to sell their houses - both thought they had sold weeks/ months ago but both deals fell through for different reasons.

That’s why it’s so important in a falling market to get to Exchange of Contracts ASAP on at least one of them.

Fleabaneofmylife · 18/07/2023 17:05

Oh yes I know that! We've already had one fall apart so I'm well aware of not counting my chickens...

OP posts:
CountryCob · 19/07/2023 23:29

@KievLoverTwo base rate increase now predicted at 5.25 due to reduced inflation figures

KievLoverTwo · 19/07/2023 23:33

CountryCob · 19/07/2023 23:29

@KievLoverTwo base rate increase now predicted at 5.25 due to reduced inflation figures

Which is a massive relief!

CountryCob · 20/07/2023 06:11

@KievLoverTwo I completely agree. The advice on diversification of property search was good. Hopefully astronomical mortgage interest won't happen. It isn't in the government or bank's interest to push people to breaking point. Would be really good if rate rises could slow and goes to show inflation really is a global issue now. Maybe the days of governments controlling it effectively through interest rates are gone? Mortgage debt is too high to do it this time IMO, this isn't the 70s.....

vrouge · 20/07/2023 08:26

Also have a think about how attractive you are as buyers when you find the right house for the both of you if you still have to sell both properties. As a vendor I would want the lowest risk buyers as possible and 2 properties to sell might be the difference between getting an offer accepted or not.

My partner and I both had a property to sell so we could buy one together and only once mine had contracts exchanged did we put his on the market and start looking for our onward property. Our first onward property fell through but we completed his sale and moved into rented before we were able to complete on our house 4 months later, which meant we were able to port his mortgage as it was within the 6 month time limit for the lender so got the ERC refunded - but we did this strategy as we wanted to be the buyers that a vendor accepted an offer from.

Twiglets1 · 20/07/2023 08:46

vrouge · 20/07/2023 08:26

Also have a think about how attractive you are as buyers when you find the right house for the both of you if you still have to sell both properties. As a vendor I would want the lowest risk buyers as possible and 2 properties to sell might be the difference between getting an offer accepted or not.

My partner and I both had a property to sell so we could buy one together and only once mine had contracts exchanged did we put his on the market and start looking for our onward property. Our first onward property fell through but we completed his sale and moved into rented before we were able to complete on our house 4 months later, which meant we were able to port his mortgage as it was within the 6 month time limit for the lender so got the ERC refunded - but we did this strategy as we wanted to be the buyers that a vendor accepted an offer from.

I agree. Would be very reluctant to accept an offer from someone with 2 houses to sell! Twice the chance of their Sale failing.

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