First time buyers

[Ohwelldone]

We are in the process of buying our first house, how long did your buying process take?

We got our offer accepted and mortgage offer at the start of may, since then the solicitors have been querying a piece of the land with the sellers solicitor that was unregistered 🤷‍♀️
They did finally get an answer from them last week, so that was sent to our lender to confirm they are happy. So we aren't sure if any searches have been started yet, the solicitors dont seem to be very forthcoming with updates. Should we be asking for updates more often to hurry along?

Roughly how long did everything take once searches were started?
The sellers have found another property with no chain and had their offer accepted so we are hoping everything runs smoothly! 🤞

U won’t get the same answer. Every house move is different. It’s the how long is a piece of string by question.
As an example. Here are the houses and the times the process has taken

house one - three months
house two - over a year
house three - eight months
house four - three months.

so many factors make the timing different.

Also. Asking for updates won’t make things hurry along. Things can go wrong down and up the chain. It’s really a it takes as long as it takes.

I think if all things are relatively straightforward you can expect around 3 months, minimum.

All depends on the chain, there are often long ones! X

3 months was a straight forward one. X

Ah okay thank you... I only ask because our mortgage advisor/ ea have suggested asking for updates more often because we had just left them to it... possibly coincidentally our solicitors hadn't heard back from the sellers for weeks and only got an answer from them an hour after I had messaged them about it, almost as though they've not even tried to chase them about it in that time until asked if it was sorted.

Yes we had thought around september but are hoping if everything runs smoothly we might be sorted a bit earlier!

We're FTB too - congratulations!

Our offer was accepted end of Feb and the chain didn't close until 3 weeks ago, it took a while for our sellers to find something but once they did things started progressing after being in a bit of limbo.

Chain including us is 4.

Our searches came back last week, they took 2 weeks from date of request and enquiries sent to sellers solicitor yesterday a week later. Solicitor said they chase after about 7-10 days, I asked they chase at 7.

Asked EA to get an update on where people are in the process further down the chain but not heard back yet.

Our mortgage expires at the end of July so we need to complete by then, I reaffirmed this yesterday with the EA. We can extend by 2 weeks but not going to let them know that to keep the pressure on as we need to be in so I can apply to schools.

Double check when your mortgage offer expires.

Congratulations! I hope it all runs smoothly for you!

I've had a double check and ours doesn't expire until November so we are alright with that.

We are only in a small chain luckily, the sellers have found somewhere pretty quick that has no chain!

I'm hoping they have started the searches this week but we are still waiting to hear back from them.

when I purchased as a FTB, it was 3 months. When I sold it took 12 months but that included sales falling through, the last buyer it took 4 months from their offer to completion. The searches were quick, but the solicitors were slow!

We've picked somewhere we can hopefully stay for a long time because we both dread the selling and buying process together and obviously the extra money that then incurs 😅
This is the issue and I think why people have advised me to be on their case a bit more, you'd think they'd be pushing to complete quicker so they get paid quicker.

I would still ask for updates. But when ur in a chain so many things can happen in the chain. One of mine was so long as the house we were buying pulled out on exchange day. We had packed and everything. Had to re start all over again.
I had one where the bottom of the chains solicitors rarely opened an email and the chain nearly collapsed.
it really is an awful thing to do. We now live in a bungalow and plan on staying here now and never moving again if I can help it.