To buy or to give up?

[Tesdor28]

Just looking for someone else's perspective. Apologies for the long post and please if you can be kind, I am quite emotional right now.
We have had an offer accepted on a house mid-April. We had a mortgage in principle and I was naively expecting it would not take too long for the offer to come in. The first lender took 5 weeks to carry out a survey (which came back ok) and come back to us with a much lower loan amount (90k less). So we applied to another lender, after an agreement in principle saying we could borrow 20k less than original expected amount, they have now said it is actually 30k less than that (so 50k less than what we had initially anticipated). We could potentially stretch our deposit, between our savings and help from family. Rates are not great (5.55%). Now they are going to do the survey, broker said this lender usually don't chnge the term if survey is ok but there is nothing stopping them changing the loan mount again. It will take at least 2 weeks to get the offer. The big problem is that we need to leave our current rental in 2 months (flat is being sold). We were too naive hoping that the timelines would tally, but now what do we do? Do we rent something (keeping in mind that we won't be able to find anything for less than 6 months) and potentilly pay rent and mortgage for months? (Can we even do that?) Or do we just drop the purchase and rent? The house we are buying is vacant, needs some initial works (remove carpets, move washing machine, paint) before moving in ideally, but nothing major (although I realy wanted to do these before moving in, not happening now). To complicate everything, I am pregnant (early stage) of my second. The idea of having to deal with a messy situation like this sickens me. But would it be a mistake to quit the purchase now? Another aspect to consider is that my husband and I are both from abroad and we are not sure we want to stay here long term. Is it worth it then going through all this now to buy when we are not sure we want to stay? Thank you to who has managed to read this far.

Can you clarify did the valuation of the property come in 90k low ? or have they reduced your expected borrowing by 90k - which seems like a lot ?

If I was in your situation I would just rent. There's a lot going on and if you're not planning on staying in the UK for long, then it's good to have an easy exit strategy.

I'm finding it hard to fully understand your post, so bear with me, and apologies if I'm getting the wrong end of the stick.

First lender said the house wasn't worth what you had offered on it. ?

Second lender also said they'd give you less money than you had hoped and stretch the term but they'd lend you more, but not the full amount. ?

Is this all on the same house?

One of two things seems to be happening:

One. The Estate Agent is vastly over-valuing the house to get people to sign up with their business. This happens all the time.

Two. You are pushing your finances to the limit and it's on a knife edge whether bank two will lend to you.

The other possibility is:

Three. A combination of both of those things.

Now, I have Property Log so I can see which agents are vastly over-valuing properties by the amount they're forced to reduce them by; how have you priced up the value of this house, and do you think it's worth what the sellers have accepted from you? I did a little pricing exercise this morning via an agent I already knew to be overrpricing in an area I'm looking in. Original asking price of a house I'm interested in started off at 36% more than the asking price per sq ft of other locally advertised properties in January.

In fairness to the agent, it's because the owner bought at the top of the market and everyone else selling their houses did not (properties last bought in 21/22 are particularly problematic in this respect).

Banks hate overpricing, but if you're on a knife-edge with your affordability, they will take it even more seriously. Is that maybe the case?

As to your current versus future housing situation, it's a far from desirable thing that I'm about to suggest, but a lot of people do it: you tell your landlord far closer to the time that you can't move out from your rental and he has to tell his buyer that they're going to have to wait. There's virtually nothing he can do to get you legally removed from the premises within a timescale of about 6-9 months anyway, because the courts are so backlogged.

Like I said. It's not desirable, but home buyers do it, because our house buying process is so utterly messed up in the UK.

Yeah your post is a bit confusing. But if I’ve read it right you put an offer on a property, had your offer accepted but the bank can’t loan what you were hoping for (so you’re 50k short) which will now be coming from savings.

But the house also needs work so you’re a bit stressed.

You are also worried on how long the buying process will take cause your rent is running out in 2 months

You are now unsure altogether about buying because you’re thinking of going back to your home country?

If I got it right I will pull out. You shouldn’t be stretching your finances to a point you have no savings for a house in particular that needs work. Plus you have a baby on the way.
Buy a house you can comfortably afford.

If you buy and decide to relocate you can always sell or rent it out. I am finding that house prices all over the country are creeping up. Except your savings over the next few years can match inflation I’ll just get on the ladder now than in a few years from now when for sure that same house will be unaffordable.
The relocation sounds like a decision for the far future not right now in the next 1-2 years so let tomorrow worry about that decision and don’t overthink it.

when your rent expires move into another rental. I recommend renting in a prime location so when it comes to leaving you can find a replacement easily. Or sign an 6 months contract or a contract with a break clause that allows you move with a month notice.
And you’ll be surprised how long searching for the ideal property can take. For all you know you could be in that rental for a year before the ideal property comes on the market.

But pull out from this one. It doesn’t sound like the one.
Goodluck.

Also rather confused. You cannot do work on a property before you move in.... unless you have had the completion date, and it's paid for.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. The bank initially said they would lend us a certain amount and later changed it. Has this happened to anyone? We would need to put more deposit and that will mostly come from family gifts but we would pay slightly less than anticipated every month as mortgage repayment. I am not too worried about the financial side of this, but more about the timeline (provided of course the bank doesn't change the terms again in the final offer). We would need to rent something to cover a few months while we complete the purchase and do the works, however moving twice in the space of just a few months with a 2 year old and pregnant is not ideal and worries me, plus of course we would have a significant overlap of rent and mortgage, and that worries me too.