The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (continued) (continued) thread!

[MovingToPlan]

The previous thread is almost full! We've had lots of completions, exchanges, offers accepted, maddening conveyancing teams, strange requests, and worries to last a lifetime. Welcome welcome.

Catch up here: The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (continued) thread

My update is that everything seems to be lining up and we're looking at exchange next week. 🤞 Hoping to complete a few weeks after that.

Good luck to you, whatever stage you're at in the process.

We viewed houses without having ours on the market, but then got it on in days when we saw one we liked. We lost that though, to a cash buyer. Not many houses that fit our brief are on the market in our price range so we were chancing our arm doing it that way around. For the house we’re buying now, we had an offer on ours so were able to fend over the other buyers and get it secured quickly. It took a while to sell ours as even though it used to be a FTB house, it’s now too expensive with current mortgage rates, so our buyers were all people trying to sell theirs (up or downsizing or just moving to a nicer area).

*fend off

@Itsrainingten welcome to the often odd world of house selling.

There is another thread in here called how many viewings today which may be useful for you if you are putting your house on the market.

Those of you who have recently exchanged, how long has your timeline been from the chain closing (if any) to exchange? It’s helpful to have an idea of the range. I don’t think anyone in our chain has any particularly requirements (interestingly none of the three sets of purchasers have kids and the people at the top have kids older than me so long gone), so this makes things easier.

Congratulations to the people who exchanged and completed yesterday! Onwards and upwards!

We didn’t get our exchange yesterday because of some nonsense. Hopefully next week sometime, if all the stars are aligned 🙄🙄🙄
Like lots of others, we wanted to utilise the bank holiday weekend for packing but haven’t dared to book a removal company yet incase it all goes pear-shaped. Lots of trips to the tip and charity shops it is then!

In answer to the questions about how long it took to sell and how long to exchange when chain closes. There’s so many variables. It took 6 weeks to sell initially, but the house we’re buying went up for sale a year ago! The chain finally closed in March, and here we are ready and waiting to exchange.

It all depends on the people in the chain.

Some want a month as they are FTB so want to serve notice then move, some people are on very tight deadlines so it has to all be wound up by x date or they pull out. Theres no real magical formula.

My planned completion date was because it was the only day my removal company could do that week.

@sugarbyebye whatever you hope it takes to move plus 3 months seems to be about right 😝

My vendor hasn’t responded to queries sent weeks ago 😬but responded within a day when negotiating small price reduction for roof work 🤦🏼‍♀️following survey.

My buyers are reasonable on their requests for certificates for things we didn’t do to the house (previous seller) so relief at that. We may just have to purchase more indemnity insurance.

Not sure what the top of our big chain of six are doing but I’m mentioning July at every opportunity and chain closed early April if I remember right.

Ha ha okay fair enough @runningmom - it must be really hard work keeping track in a chain of six!

We completed last week. Our timeline:

Offer accepted 27th Jan
Seller completed chain mid Feb.
Slight delay in the sale until early March because they had bought the freehold the previous year and the Land Registry hadn’t processed it.
Exchanged 8th May, completed 22nd May.

So four months from us putting an offer in to completion.

Our timeline is ridiculous - we sold back in November to FTB who are being SO incredibly patient with the chain, I am grateful for that. (we didn't expect to sell quite so quickly, and we did need to wait until end of spring before we could reasonably expect to move anyway, so they knew from the start)

We had lost out on The Perfect House around the same time, unfortunately we were only proceedable a few days after they sold it to someone else.

We then offered on a probate property that wasn't well maintained, but we figured we would do what we could to make it work, it was still in the area we wanted, etc. But as time went on, and the survey came back, and the electrician's report came back, we got more and more worried at costs, stress, and as it turned out, my youngest is ND and now needs a special school, so our ability to absorb the stress of a full renovation is at nil levels.

After the New Year we noticed the original house was back on the market, so we decided that we wanted to go for that one again and stepped away from the other property. I was then promptly made redundant. We had about a month for me to scramble to find a new job to keep the purchase going, which luckily I'd managed, and we were finally back on track.

Our vendors were originally wanting to move in March, if their first sale hadn't fallen through, so they seemed very keen to progress, and pushed us to exchange asap. So we chivvied along the paperwork on both sides of the chain as best we could, answering queries and signing contracts immediately, etc.

And now here we are, last week of May, not exchanged yet, and a resounding silence from our vendors. I'm absolutely exhausted by the ups and downs of it all - very poor timing on our end with job and changing our minds on which house to purchase, etc, which has meant our buyers have held on for months and months to potentially see their family home purchase go poof as well. I'm so, so worried, for the numerous people this will impact, and how upsetting it all could end up being.

We're trying to make peace with the possibility of not moving, how we could change the house to better suit our needs, things we've put up with because we were due to be leaving, but now we can't really cope with for much longer. Nothing structurally serious, just inconvenient and aesthetically unappealing, etc. So at least we have a back-up idea of how all this might play out.

But to lose this house move will be utterly galling.

That sounds horrific @MovingToPlan - do your vendors estate agents not know what’s going on? It’s so frustrating not being able to talk to people directly.

I initiated a chain wide ‘yep we’re ok’ communication through our estate agents yesterday as I wanted reassurance all was still ok post surveys and conveyance questions, and I’m feeling much happier as the whole chain has responded saying they’re all good. I know everyone moans about estate agents but mine and my vendors have been brilliant at keeping everyone informed and reassured by picking up the phone and checking in regularly. I would also be panicking if there was silence from one part of the chain.

Yes, they can. It needs to have a very good reason to appeal like the judge made an error or something. Don't think it's very easy to do and costs money which most folk wouldn't want to spend. It's worse case scenario but in house buying so much can go wrong it's best to not think of all the horrible things and just hope for the best. Or you'll go crazy with stress.

We have also offered on a probate property and are having survey issues. We offered five under asking price originally as there was obviously a lot of work needed doing to the property and now the survey has come up with roof issues. We have offered to split the cost of a new roof and are asking from an additional 4k off the price, they have refused. (For context with the total 9k off they would still get over 95% of the price). We were pushing our budget originally and while I can understand wanting the best price for your property, surely anyone else buying would raise the same issues if we pull out? Not sure what to do. Am thinking of going to see another property on the same street which is 30k less and ready to move into, although the plot is smaller and we would be back to the beginning of the process which I don't want either. WWYD?

Well, we backed out of the probate purchase for several reasons, but the house had clearly not been maintained in a long time by the elderly lady who owned it, and the more we peeked under the hood as it were, the more our concerns grew. There were 4 people inheriting the proceeds of the sale and all wanted as big a piece of the pie as possible. That's all to be expected of course, but a house that isn't connected to the gas mains, has cloth wiring throughout, rising damp, and a leaking roof, is not going to sell for the same as the house across the street with a brand new roof, solar panels, a much bigger plot, and is basically turnkey. (We're hopefully buying that one!) The probate house hasn't been reduced in price and is still on the market. 🤷🏼‍♀️

We have four people selling ours too! Not the gas issue thankfully! G
Fingers crossed for your next sale!

We moved out yesterday. We put everything into storage and are now living with my parents.

We'd boxed up loads of stuff beforehand over the previous two weeks and had already taken it to the storage place. 56 boxes in total. Hired a van which cost £150 for the day. We started at 8.30am & were done by 2pm. My DP, DS (who's 21) my DF moved everything. Me and my mum and DS girlfriend stayed behind and kept moving stuff down (it's a 3 storey townhouse) emptying rooms and cleaned as we went.

It went really well. Hopefully the reverse won't be as hard going as we're buying a two storey house (no Juliet balcony to remove& then replace) and less rooms.

Very disruptive night, we have a super king bed and are sleeping in a double 🥴

Congrats @BG2015 ! That sounds efficient. We are moving from a three story terrace but have already decluttered so much stuff to my father in laws. I’m still finding it hard to envisage how big a van we’d need if we did it ourselves. We have four sofas. I’m leaving behind a lot of stuff.

We had a Sprinter van but decided it wasn't quite tall enough for our sofa and bed. When we move again we're going to hire a Luton van. Bit more money but will be easier.

I've actually found it cathartic to go through everything and have a really good sort out.

Ha yeah I love a good clear out but I am a very unemotional packer (moved house all the time as a child, my belongings have been reduced to a suitcase many times in my life). DH takes a trip down memory lane every time he tries to put anything in a box, so 90% of our crap is his. We’re moving so he gets to fill outbuildings with this stuff while I have an uncluttered house. I can’t wait!

So exciting to hear peoples moving! Ive got four removal companies coming quote rhis week which makes it feel real. We wont complete til Juky/August but i want to be prepared.

I did get a bit emotional when my 6'1" DS hugged me as we were closing the door and said "I've loved living in this house mum".

Bless him 🥰

Aw that’s lovely 🥰

That's so lovely. I'm sure I will be crying buckets as we leave our lovely little house, if we ever get to the moving stage

We're getting near the end of the process, due to sign contracts next week. Just wondering how long it then took to exchange and complete as we don't have any dates yet.

Also do most completions happen on a Friday, have heard this but not sure why.

Congrats on your completion!