The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (x 6!) thread

[Champere]

Welcome across everyone!

We’ve got six nights until we move and the insomnia has set in!

It’s taken us three threads to move and I hope this thread is the one I graduate on….

Best of luck to everyone! May your agents be truthful, your conveyancers responsive, your lenders generous and your chain reasonable!!

@JawsCushion that's really shit. What happened?

Thankyou. So we received an updated home report and the house has been valued 50k below what it had been when we offered. Going to have to back to EA tomorrow and ask for a reduction I think. It’s so stressful.

From our experience, the longest bit is the gathering information on the assets to give to HMRC, that’s took almost a year, then HMRC have taken 3 months so far, but am told they will issue something soon and then it goes to court, which I’m told can be done in a short time frame. Hope you hear soon.

Buyer has had a survey, an asbestos survey yesterday, and now wants an electrical survey come Weds... getting nervous.
Solicitors have not heard back any enquiries and the searches haven't even begun as far as I know. At least I know it'll be our last Christmas here God willing and we'll be in rented soon.

Anyone else going into rented? I imagine we'll be moved by Jan, so viewing properties now seems so early.
Will have a read of everyone's posts now...

My buyers' lender's valuer is coming today. I rather thought we'd got away lightly without a full home buyers survey when the agency contacted about the valuation. However they called again yesterday asking to make an appointment for a surveyor for next week too.

I'm hoping there is nothing substantial flagged on the report. My HBR from 6 years ago showed a small risk of subsidence (probably the same on all properties in this area). We've had no issues with cracking or movement and have put fresh plaster on several rooms so should have seen anything problematic. My report also suggested potential damp on the adjoining wall in our semi with potential that material had collected in the cavity and breached the damp membrane. Id completely forgotten about this since we moved as again we've had no issues, and I reckon the previous owners had some condensation damp as they didn't have a dryer so we're drying clothes inside, and also had very large collections of 'stuff' with lots of cabinetry right back against the walls so not much space to air.

If the survey throws up any issues we've decided we won't negotiate further on price, as we've already accepted an offer 5% under asking, and had already priced competitively for our area.

Both me and DP are massively regretting agreeing to move into rented. We didn't edict the housing market to be so dead. We've viewed a total of 2 hours since August both of which we offered on - with the first purchase falling through because of a terrible survey.

DP told me he basically couldn't get over the first property falling through and thinks that we shouldn't have taken so much money off our offer post survey. Had we known how dead the market was then I think perhaps we may have reduced our offer by a bit less but overnight I've been reminding myself of just how many things were wrong with it and I'm still pretty sure we made the right decision.

So the vendor won't budge on the boiler, fair enough she doesn't have to. However she has told her estate agent and solicitor if we don't exchange on Friday she's withdrawing her property from the market.

After chasing the chain below us we are waiting on the report of an asbestos survey done on our property last week and two queries from the bottom of the chain. Exchange is not likely on Friday due to this.

But we are also only eight weeks into the sale to be talking exchange already I think is very quick!

Apologies for my terrible typos!

Not ready to discuss completion dates and nowhere near ready to exchange. They have dragged things out and been on a go slow to help their vendors, not answering questions and it has been a fortnight now. So I've pulled the plug. Getting bullied by my estate agent now so today will be fun.

My original vendors vendor said they would rent then said they wouldn't so I'd not hold yourself to that. They have said they will rent again now but it is all too late. Do what is right for you.

@JawsCushion it might not be possible to exchange this side of Christmas and if not then we have a bit more time and hopefully the market improves after Christmas. At least if we've found something to buy, renting knowing it is definitely short term, would be more bearable.

@kirinm, the house was a shed, with a potential neighbour issue on top. I don't see how there was any other sensible action other than pulling out.

You'll be in a great position to buy when the market picks up though, as you're chain free.

@cathyburke that's super quick! Your vendor must have some very serious reasons to move quickly.

@kirinm I'm sure things will pick up post Christmas and you will be in a great position. We are looking to buy now and sell ours in January when hopefully there will be a bit more interest. Our Mortgage advisor said that boxing day gets the most Rightmove hits, so lots of people try to get theirs on for then, looking gorgeous with all the decorations up but nobody coming round to look while you are trying to enjoy the run up to Christmas.

Hope the estate agent isn't too much of a pain @JawsCushion

And good luck to everyone waiting survey reports.

Our side is going great, mortgage approved, surveys booked, all docs sent to solicitors.....but our vendor has not yet formally appointed a solicitor so we cant get the searches going and they are taking at least three weeks. That's a pain.

@Hoolahoophop that's my worry, what is the hurry!

@cathyburke could just be that they want to be done before they put their Christmas decorations up? Could be they are a stress head and feel that they want it don't before Christmas, or they want Christmas stress free and start again in Jan.

Hopefully a cry wolf and you will be ok.

Because if they did pull out now, they will just have to wait longer, have another set of eyes inspecting the property which is pointless if there were any real (house based) reason for wanting to get out quickly they would be shooting themselves in the foot.

When I first put my property on the market I didn't rule out renting to get the sale through first, but when I found myself in a position when it was a serious suggestion, I was shocked by how expensive renting would be and everything seemed to be on a 1-year minimum rental. I was getting massively stressed by a feeling that I absolutely HAD to sell because I'd be letting people down but I was going to end up losing so much money I wouldn't even be able to buy a house as good as the one I sold. I had to give myself a major talking to and put my needs ahead of the buyers and stand my ground and say I wouldn't be renting because it was far too high risk for me.

The house is empty, it was rented but they moved out in April. I think she just wants shot of it now and the money in the bank, unless there's something else going on!

Maybe she has planned for a VERY extravagant Christmas and they money she gets from the house is paying for it!

Those of you who might have to consider renting - yep the days of loads of 6 month keys seem to have gone. My friend sold , stuff into storeage and then did 3 different AirBNBs for 4 months - in her case the bank interest on her sale was paying for the AirBNBs and nor did she have to go through letting agents shenanigans or large deposits- she just paid a month at a time. Was a pain but as she said better than being tied into year long contracts or rushing to buy somewhere for the sake of it

We are (I am) contacting a number of air bnbs to see if they'll do 3 months.

I cannot believe the cost of rentals now. It's absolutely insane. £2800 for a 2 bed flat near us!

@kirinm the advantage of this is that Jan/feb/March is a bit of a dead time in all but 'all year round places ' ( like London) so will be cheaper. Even if it is London it's still cheaper than say needing it in June/july /august -Dont rule out too that your equity will be in the bank earning interest. My friend did end up splitting it across several but made way more sense than a 12 month tie in , a bit of a logistical fag , but short term it worked for them

Yes sadly we are in London but I'm trying to be optimistic.

I am not sure what sort of account we should be putting our equity into either. In our standard current accounts it'll get no interest and the bank will only guarantee up to about £80k so I feel like we need to put it into a 'safer' account.

I believe NSI protect more than £85k.

You get taxed on the interest so there's actually far less benefit to come from having the equity stashed than you'd think.

Sorry, don't mean to come across negative, just all came as a bit of a shock to me when I looked into it!

Don't apologise. I have no idea how any of this works having never had a large sum of money in my account!