Suspicious or a sad sign of the times?

[JustJasmine]

Hi,

Be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Dp and I have just come back from a house viewing. I had already seen it a week a go and really liked it, hence the second viewing today.

Anyway, the estate agent told us that the vendors have only been there for 8 months and are simply moving due to unforeseen financial pressures. Straight away, my spidey senses tingled, but then I thought that with interest rates rising and the cost of living crisis generally, I guess this could just be a sad, but true reason and I shouldn't automatically assume something fishy is going on.

My reason for being suspicious is we've had terrible neighbours in the past and have moved very quickly because of this. Took longer than we hoped and it was honestly a nightmare, so I suppose this is why we are extra cautious about the next move.

Would this make you at all suspicious or would you just assume it's a genuine unfortunate situation that has forced them to sell up.

Tia

Word of warning using that ATD crime map...just looked up my lane and apparently it has had 2 crimes in the last three months! Which is extremely doubtful.

I checked the police website and no crimes have been committed...
https://www.police.uk/

Could just be buyers remorse?

It’s when they’re trying too hard.

It’s difficult to put your finger on it but it’s over the line. On one side of the line it’s been cleared up, neat and tidy to view, on the other it’s freshly baked bread, amd choirs of angels telling you how brilliant the house is.

You feel it as opposed to seeing it really, and it indicates a concealment. Of what exactly you might not find out until you’ve bought it - at which point it will be too late.

@Lovethatforyouhun just popped our postcode in - it only takes part of the postcode so shows a much larger area than just our road. The map shows a bigger area. I thought it was odd, as our road has 286 shoplifting offences last month, yet we don’t have any shops, but the postcode (1st part) encompasses an area with several large supermarkets. Could be that your search includes a larger area than you would think. It’s not that specific iyswim
Does the same if I put in our exact address!

I’d be suspicious as well. Eight months is no time at all. That means they moved around February.

Yes, we have the cost of living and high interest rates, but they would have known that then.

As well as being suspicious of the neighbours, I’d also be suspicious that something was wrong with the house. Subsidence? Etc

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/property/4953080-whats-the-shortest-amount-of-time-youve-lived-in-an-ownedmortgaged-house-before-moving

maybe it’s one of these.

A poltergeist, obviously! 😄

But think bad neighbours is a fair assumption!

Maybe have a look at the area at different times if day, door knock as others suggest, etc. I wouldn’t find it suspicious. When I was younger I moved from my first owned (small) house into a much grander house with my partner at the time, thinking it would fix our already dead relationship. We managed 7 months at the house before we split, eventually sold (though at a profit) 10 months after moving in. But we were upfront and said we were splitting up. I would not be surprised if financial pressures were the genuine reason in this economy.

I just put our postcode in and it came back with this which is inaccurate as there should be data.

Just put PIL postcode in and it came up with 22 instances of shoplifting - there are no shops in their postcode at all

I can well understand your concern, and you are right to be cautious, however, have a read of my situation from many years ago, and try to bear it in mind.

I was forced to sell a house due to grotty neighbours. I had been there for over six years at that point.I will say that the neighbours in question did not discriminate or single me out and therefore other neighbours were affected too, however, due to all this being not personal to us (we just couldn't stand it) and was never reported to the police, there was nothing to declare upon sale.

We sold immediately, but what I didn't realise at that point was how much my mind had been affected by the neighbours, and by having to sell a house I loved, and by the usual stress of moving. Add to this I had given up a successful self-employed business to work for a company and it wasn't going well (not my fault).

I couldn't find anything in terms of a house I liked, I also was torn between staying in the area or moving far away. We eventually bought a house far away. Within a day or two of moving, I was told I was going to be made redundant. I hated where we had to moved to (even though it was an adorable area), and couldn't get over how far away we'd moved from my family.

At this point I had something of a breakdown, I didn't know it at the time, but it made me really, really ill mentally.

Within weeks my husband was saying to me we must move if I'm not happy, so that became our plan. I managed to turn a corner mentally, and restarted my business successfully. Then came the blow that my husband may lose his job (big back story to that which I have no desire to disclose). He didn't but it took several months to find out how it would all pan-out.

We worked frantically to modernise the house we'd bought, so as to get a quick sale and make some money to move. In all, we were in the house 1 year and 4 days, but it went on sale a good three months before we sold.

I know this is a very long winded post, but I wanted to highlight sincerely how s**t really can happen. Having had bad neighbours, I also think it would take a lot longer than eight months for someone to consider moving again, unless they were horrendous, but I'm inclined to think if they were that bad there'd be some obvious evidence to say as much.

Do your research, talk to neighbours, but keep an open mind too. Good luck.

'nightmare neighbor' is surely subjective.

I'm sure my first neighbor would be some peoples nightmare. It was a rougher area and she was one of these people whose house had an open door policy and was a social hub of activity constantly packed with waifs and strays and they often held parties and sat around on the street outside etc... very how channel 4 likes to paint 'benefits Britain'. She was however very sweet and completely harmless. If ever I needed anything I knew I could go to her and never felt threatened or uncomfortable.

My next neighbor was awful, a sexist controlling violent man who seemed to think he owned me because women should do as men tell them. He was AWFUL and we ended up having to get a restraining order after her kicked my door in. However the neighbor on the other side of him (another 'blokey' man who would chat to him about football over the garden fence) saw no issue with it at all and thought he was a perfectly acceptable neighbor (because obviously it wasn't him that was the victim of the abuse).

We bought our current house in similar circumstances. In fact the sellers had been in so short a time the Land Registry entry hadn't been updated to show their purchase.

No problem. He was self-employed and his business had failed. Needed cash desperately.

We viewed a house that had only been built a year and were definitely wondering why. It turned out to be a perfectly reasonable situation, but you do need to investigate.

I would definitely investigate further. It could be neighbors or finances.

Talk to as many neighbours as you can, and if you have friends in the area, send out feelers through them too.

My, I am in wonder of your approach to this. So professional and efficient. (and I am not being sarcastic).

There is a wealth of info on the web these days.

You can appraise your negighbours pretty accurately by :

i) Looking at crime maps.

ii) Googling the street name in conjunction with the occupants name if it is found to see reports of crimes.

iii) Looking at other aspects such as state of the house/garden on streetview and google maps.

iv) Checking rightmove for sales profiles as above.

In addition you can also do things like visit on weekends to see problems with parking and whether any wild parties have been held.

There is a resource thread here that details where you can find all this information on line which can save you a lot of time and money.

I'd be suspicious too.
We first tried to sell our house after a year as we realised we have weird neighbours and agree with much that has already been said.
I'd recommend visiting the local pub a few times. They are a great source of local gossip and where we picked up (too late) that many people have moved to escape these particular neighbours.
In my experience current neighbours often have a lot to lose and don't want to upset already difficult situations by being totally honest when asked!

@JustJasmine Send your mum to knock and sound out the neighbours!
You could re-visit the street in the early evening, find the local pub and earwig on the gossip, then re-visit the street - who is playing music loudly/has kids shrieking at that time of night?

if they only purchased 8 months ago wouldn't they also be liable to for capital gains? Are they selling for less than they purchased? I def agree with others, knock on the neighbours' doors and see if you can get a feel for the situation.

Did you buy the house? Or find out why they were selling so quickly?