Help! Deep in to the buying/selling process and we’ve just found out about a huge housing development in the quaint village we were buying in!

[Pebble65]

I’ll start this off by explaining that we don’t necessarily WANT to move but due to schools, costs of remortgaging and aging parents we’ve felt we should sell up and move. Hence why we already had slight reluctance about moving house.

We accepted an offer on ours mid September and had an offer accepted on a house mid October. Since then the process has gone pretty fast and we’re being chased to name a completion date by our buyers. We wanted the searches and valuation done before we had a survey done as we had an inkling that the price had on the house we’re buying was a bit high. We also had some concerns about the local area.

Saying that, it’s a quaint village, lovely community with lots of events going on and access to excellent schools so we were pretty happy.

Anyway, we’ve just heard that there is a plan to build almost 600 homes in and around the village - many of them 1 bedroom houses, so not necessarily family homes.

This worries us a lot! It’s not what we were looking for and we have concerns that the schools/doctors etc won’t cope and it will affect the feel of the village. They are also planning to build close to the house at the end of the lane so the slice of countryside we loved will be gone. We wouldn’t have made an offer if we’d known this.

I guess we pull out and try to keep our buyers happy and reassured??! They’ve sold and have moved in with family and there is a specific reason that they want our house so I think it will take a lot for them to back out of the purchase, but I can’t guarantee that, obviously!

Any advice/ reassurance gratefully received!!

People keep piling into the country and people keep having children. Both increase the population and need for housing. I'm very against all the huge new build developments going up and dread the day that no remote homes exist. I wish people would think about that before breeding.

@Pebble65 one bed houses would be starter homes, or for people downsizing after divorce / when the children have left home. They're not going to impact on school places.

Thanks everyone. We’ve actually just received more news which may have put the nail in the coffin. The lender has approved our request to port the mortgage but has actually undervalued the property even further so it’s now almost £18k under what was accepted.

Good luck going forwards. But my advice is definitely don’t be afraid of considering short term rental in between. My husband had to semi talk me into it at the time because I had all the same worries as you, however in hindsight, it was the best thing we ever did to get the right house at a great price and much easier than I imagined. x

It's the same everywhere

I don't know how you'll avoid it

Rent in the school catchment area and then move out once the child starts school?

Be aware though that anywhere you buy might be near a new build development that doesn't have planning permission just yet.

Also in terms of the valuation - this isn't unusual with mortgage companies - the house is worth what someone is willing to pay.

Well at least now you are not buying an overpriced house.

I still find inheritance tax a total piss take, those people have paid tax on the money already and 40% is so high!

Sorry wrong thread

It’s been an eventful morning! Our EA just called asking whether we can exchange contracts with the buyers next week!! We explained 4 times already that it won’t be before Christmas and we are actually thinking feb/march.
We explained about our issues with the onwards purchase and the EA started to push us to commit to moving out to the first week in January.

We agreed an offer under asking price with the condition we were in a chain, albeit a short one (their previous offer had been asking price and no chain). Is it unreasonable of me to think they should have to wait for a reasonable period of time for us to find another house? We only started the process just over a month ago!!

You might be better selling and moving into your parents' house while you decide what you want.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for your buyers to be pushing. They are currently living with family, who knows if that is stressful? Maybe there has been a falling out, or family putting them up are now expecting another guest, etc.

Of the two of you, if there is a nearby empty house you can use without signing a long term rental, you are in a better position to make a temporary move.

In your shoes, I would start to look for rentals where you want to be and sell you current house, living in the empty house for a bit if needed. Once you are in the area, viewings are easier and you can do research on local development plans etc.

The drawback is losing the mortgage to port.

Can you keep going with your house sale and move to your parents empty house?

You’re really quite ambivalent about moving, from the tone of your first post. The potential new one isn’t a house you’ve fallen in love with and bearing in mind the issues recently raised with the valuation, I think you have two options.

One is to stay put and halt the process altogether.

The other is to rent nearer to where you think you want to be, look carefully round the area near the school you’re hoping for and choose the best you can afford in the place you prefer.

No one can future proof against further development, unless you’re in an area so built up that there simply isn’t room. Most local authorities are charged with building a certain number of properties, according to the local plan, so it’s inevitable that land will be lost.

My parents house is full of their things, only has two useable bedrooms (2 double beds and we have two children) and when they visit every month they expect us to vacate one of the rooms so they can stay in it. There’s also no office space and as we both work from home it’ll be a struggle. We could also lose our mortgage and have to pay a penalty fee. It’s a depressing prospect.
Part of the negotiation was that the buyers wouldn’t put us under pressure and we could take our time so I’m pissed off at the EA that they’re not pushing back and are joining in with piling on the pressure.

The only other option then OP is to find a rental in the school catchment which is available now or asap, and continue with your sale with a view to completing early in New Year. Or stay put and apply to the local schools?

Part of the negotiation was that the buyers wouldn’t put us under pressure and we could take our time so I’m pissed off at the EA that they’re not pushing back and are joining in with piling on the pressure.

Ah, that’s not great. But again, their circumstances where they are staying might have changed. There’s also a difference between “had an accepted offer, waiting for searches, all progressing” and “back to the drawing board trying to find a property”

I expect the pressure, though badly applied, would have been held off if the answer was “searches all good, mortgage all good, just waiting to agree fixtures and fittings” ie definite progress

I’ve got a funny feeling I know when you’re looking, does the village have a nice little thatch roof pub called the Royal Oak,

if it is, avoid like the plague. The schools are bad ( unless you’re thinking of the private one a couple of villages over. The village politics aren’t as friendly as they seem. We lived there just over 12 years and are glad we left, I have since heard about the new buildings and feel we dodged a bullet

‘Reading the plan the aim seems to be to lower the average house price there by building cheap 1 and 2 bed new builds and heavily discounting them for lower income families who currently privately rent, and by offering further discounts for people who are in social housing. The 1 bed thing is odd to me too… ‘

Social engineering at its finest. You could rewrite this as ‘ the aim is to change the village from a classic British village to a replica of a Vibrant British inner City’. if that floats your boat, go ahead.

🤔

@Floranan no, thankfully I don’t think that’s it! It has two pubs but neither are the Royal Oak. The school is the best performing in the east side of the county.

Yep. There’s a lack of one beds outside of flats (which people don’t want due to the annual fees and feeling boxed in). More single homes are needed to enable bigger ones to be freed up. It only works if they’re nice though.

Your focus is on doing what is best/most convenient for you.

Your sellers/buyers focus will be on doing what is most convenient for them.

Estate agents are nominally working for the seller of the house they are marketing. But of course they are most interested in making sure they get their commission, which will not happen if a sale collapses. Generally the longer the sales process takes, the more likelyhood it will collapse.

Just as an update, the valuation came back from the lender’s survey and they’ve valued it even lower. We told the EA and made a new offer and after a couple of days of waiting for a response got a fairly aggressive call from the EA arguing that they didn’t agree with either survey.

The EA referred to another, almost identical property which he claimed was now worth £40k above our offer as evidence that that survey was wrong. I know it’s not to be completely reliable but Zoopla says it’s actually predicted to be worth £20k less!

Rather than come back with a counter offer the EA asked if we’d split the difference and then he could suggest that to his client. I’m not keen on bringing our offer up without some indication they are willing to negotiate.

We’re now frantically looking for other houses- a very stressful weekend!

We’ll view some next weekend but they all seem to have an issue (busy main road, no office (we work from home)) etc.

With young children it feels risky to walk away from this house with nothing else in the pipeline but during some reflection I think we both agree that although the current house is nice, if there had been more choice we probably wouldn’t have gone for it. There were a couple of things tipping things in its favour and it seemed the sensible choice but now with the development and the valuation the disadvantages and compromises seem to be outweighing the advantages for us.

I wouldn’t get too hung up on the valuation unless it’s was out by a big % of the house price and you are getting high loan to value mortgage although I get it’s easy for me too say that. You did in an earlier post say its on at a good price and the best you have seen! Also the housing development is just a proposal at the moment. It’s sounds like this is not the house for you.