4 weeks to find a new buyer before we potentially lose our purchase

[BunnyWilliams]

We lost our buyers on Tuesday last week. Our house went back on the market on Thursday. It's Saturday today and we haven't had any enquiries so far. The market is still very slow here with hardly any new houses coming to the market (I'm taking one every 3 weeks) and most houses taking at least 3-6 months be SSTC. I'm desperately hoping things start to get busier now that it's March.

We didn't reduce our price when we went back on. We'd already previously reduced by 25k and our EA and our vendor's EA both advised us not to drop the price any further. It's very reasonably priced already and is the cheapest house per sqft in our village already. This means that we're sitting at about 16th on the list on RM if you search by 'Newest' which is so frustrating. Agent said they'd put it on as a featured property but all they did was put one of those green banner highlights on it, so it doesn't appear in searches any differently. We're changing agents to our vendor's agent which we hope will also serve to prove to them how serious we are, but we've got to wait 2 weeks for our notice period to finish with our current agent.

Our vendors have been really understanding and have said we can have a 4 week grace period before they'll re-market. The pressure is huge though! It took us 3.5 months to get an offer (2k under asking) last time and we only had 4 viewers in that whole time.

Our buyers pulled out after they were given a survey that read like a horror story (I've previously posted on this) with a huge amount of untruths on it. We got three independent contractors and a structural engineer out to prove that the survey wasn't worth the paper it was written on but our buyers weren't willing to listen at that point. The only thing it raised that was valid was the roof (it basically said it was falling down but in reality it was a few cracked/slipped tiles and a small bit of repointing). That's being fixed next week.

I don't know what else we can do?! I'm in a constant state of stress and panic that we're going to lose our purchase. Unless we drop the price of our house now against all advice and then take a huge hit to potentially still not get what we want at the end, and that feels like too much of a risk.

Feel so sorry for you. Bet you’re absolute gutted when they pulled out. Is the house your buying the dream home you been wanting? I understand the stress though as we been on the market for 5 months ourselves and haven’t sold yet. We have seen lovely homes we like come and go. Very frustrating as we can’t really offer anything until we’re under off ourselves

@BunnyWilliams did you get your own (level 3?) survey done?
Featured property won’t help. Once I’ve discounted an advert it doesn’t matter how many times it flashes up.
If you haven’t had any interest by Tuesday, drop the price. You know the local market better than the rest of us, and anyone in the market today has seen your property and discounted it as one or more of too expensive, not interested, too old.

I think if you really really want the house you have offered on them you should drop the price of yours.

You've had 3 paid for surveys to prove they were wrong?

My DS had a poor survey and pulled out. After 3 more months they sold again and, 4 weeks later, that's fallen through. It suspiciously seems like a similar problem.

So, if you've paid for these 3 independent surveys, OK give it another go. If you haven't then I think I'd seriously consider having at least one done as the liklihood is you'll only find yourself in the same position with another buyer. You'd be best knowing and pricing accordingly or repairing to put it right first.

Without wanting to sound unduly negative I think you're setting yourself up for huge stress and likely disappointment. Your vendors are obviously near the end of their patience already but even if you find a potential new buyer within the 4 weeks (ambitious) there are umpteen things that could go wrong and I imagine the vendors will pull the plug at the first sign of fresh delays.

I'd let the house go and concentrate on selling your own first.

They don't seem phased at all actually. They told us to try not to stress about it and that these things happen. They aren't living in the house they are selling so they don't need to move themselves.

I'm trying to detach myself emotionally from the house and have been browsing Rightmove again to get myself in the mindset of probably having to find something else.

There's no guarantee they'd resell straight away if they went back to market, of course. Theirs had been on since the beginning of last year when we offered on it at the beginning of Feb this year.

No, just one surveyor. Well, he's a structural engineer actually but doing a level 3 survey.

The others were contractors we'd had out to assess the problems raised on the survey (that then turned out not to be problems at all).

We aren't worried about it happening again, unless they were happening to use that same dodgy surveyor (and I'd refuse him entry if that was the case). The things that he'd highlighted were complete fiction or extreme exaggerations (like saying the roof was in need of extensive repair when it was only a few broken tiles, or that the heating system needed a complete overhaul because he 'presumed' it hadn't been recently serviced (when it was actually done in October), or saying we didn't have building regs approval for a loft conversion that we actually don't have - the house just has three floors and has always been this way).

I am going to speak to the new agent when he comes around on Monday and get his take on it again. The issue is that we would drop the price if we could guarantee getting this particular house as it's at the bottom end of our budget, but we don't want to lose that house and then have to continue on the market with a cheap house so that we have less money for our move.

Yes, you're right. It probably won't help will it. Unless there are any buyers that would have been interested in the 4 weeks that we've been SSTC and now aren't scrolling through everything because they think they've seen it all.

We're waiting to get the report from the survey but it all seems OK - from speaking to the surveyor (bonus of us paying I suppose!). I'm hopeful that new buyers might be happy to have that survey given to them so they don't have to buy their own and then we'll at least save the potential stress of the unknown, even if we do know the house is structurally sound.

It's the one one we really loved out of the ones we looked at. There was another contender but this one blew it out the water and we've discounted it for now, although it is still on the market.

I wouldn't strongly say it's 'the dream', partly because I don't want to emotionally attach myself to it any more than I already have done, and partly because it's a (big) semi-detached farmhouse with a shared entrance (lots of room in front though), and in an ideal world I'd choose something that didn't have those two caveats. DH would probably say it's the dream for him though!

Why would someone pull out of a house they love, just in case the sellers pull out later? Any other house could pull out too!

OP - stay strong and optimistic. This happened to me too and miraculously we sold again within a week.

Word of warning though - surveyors rarely just make things up. Buyers misinterpret all the time but the surveyor surely won’t have just made up issues that don’t exist. Be wary as you don’t want to find another buyer who gets a similar report and backs out. They’ll always believe the surveyor over the vendor (too right). I can see you have plans to rectify the roof, personally I would go through the report and rectify everything whilst you wait for a buyer.

Very few buyers would use your survey. It could be biased and, given someone else has pulled out, most diligent buyers would want to have a survey to see why.

Reduce the price for Rightmove algorithms

Thank you. It's good to know you had a positive outcome.

We have the surveyor's report from the previous buyers so we can see what is correct and what isn't. After speaking to multiple other professionals, I am confident that he was just bad at his job. It's frustrating that people believe all surveyors like they're the one source of truth and don't consider that there are actually some that aren't very good - just as there are in any profession!

We are fixing anything that's clear and easy to rectify. The roof is really the only thing we can take action against. There are some things raised, like the heating or electrics, that we know are fine because they've been worked on and tested in recent years, but I'll have to leave future buyers to get their own reports if they want to, as people clearly don't believe vendors, even with proof! The other 'red' things are either things that don't exist (like the 'loft conversion') or things we can't do anything about, like the fact that we have exposed beams in a cottage, which according to him 'don't meet building regulations and could affect sound proofing'. 🙄

Interesting that you think other buyers wouldn't use our survey. It's completely independent and unbiased because it's the person that our previous buyers instructed (the surveyor that gave the bad report was a free one that came with their mortgage deal). They cancelled the survey when they pulled out and we just went ahead with it instead.

Oh and just to add, we had a level 3 survey when we moved in, as did the previous owners, and nothing out of the ordinary was raised. So it's not a given that any new buyers will get a horrible survey just because the previous ones did.

This terrible survey was a level 2, so was making a lot of sweeping statements without even looking further for evidence. For example, he made the claims about the roof but didn't have a drone, just a ladder which didn't reach to the top of our 3 storey house.

I honestly don't know what more we can do, other than fix the few things raised that we can actually do something about.

So I believe heating, water and electrics are always red flags on surveys as the surveyor doesn't test them. You may want to have them tested and get certificates in place so you can give them to anyone interested. To back up the survey you have.

In the case of the "bad"survey my DS had the electrics were fully red as he saw three types of evidence of electrical issues. Rodent wire chewing. Hanging wires with no end point. Condensation dripping from electrical light fittings.

In the case of the "good" survey it was red but with a HS icon, and said no issues noticed but no testing was done and he couldn't find evidence of testing in past 10 years. The owner has since given evidence of a full house electrical test 8 years ago and a certificate for the new spur completed and registered appropriately 2 years ago.

Two very different scenarios to two red survey flags. If you've got the evidence to hand you can explain this to a buyer.

I wonder, if a surveyor had seen these tests done already would they not red flag them? Might be worth asking.

If I was buying a house I would always get my own survey done. Firstly, the surveyor is only liable to the person who commissioned it. But also, while you say the survey is independent, as a buyer I wouldn't want to rely on that. It's just not worth the risk - I would want to do my own due dilligence. However, making it available to potential buyers, along with any other evidence (electrical reports etc) would be really helpful. I'd love to make an offer on a house where I'd already seen a survey!

Getting the roof repaired would be a good call. Roof repairs are just a pain to organise.

I hope you find a new buyer quickly and don't lose your onward purchase.

I also think it's likely that a new buyer would want their own survey. However, as long as your one is reassuring you could share it with them.

Are you saying that the house you want to buy was on the market for over a year before you offered? Did they reduce it much? If I haven't misunderstood you, it seems unlikely that it would sell very quickly unless it is now at a great price or they reduce it further on re-marketing. If you are feeling very anxious about this and really not wanting to lose the house, I think your only option would be to reduce if you don't have any interest after a couple of weeks. If you are willing to take the risk, give it a bit longer and see if Spring brings further interest. If nothing is moving in your area, it does suggest that properties are generally priced too high for the market and the great majority of potential buyers.

Thank you all for your helpful comments.

We had the new agent (agent for our vendors) round today to chat about a plan. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that relaunching to market with new photos and a video and a new price point on the 14th March will be a positive for us. On his advice, we will be dropping the price to OIRO 440k for the first 4 weeks and then reducing to OO 425k if we need to after that. That will be a full 50k drop from our first listing back in September.

He was also reassuring that our vendors are happy to wait for us for now and reiterated that when the 4 week grace period is over, they won't immediately go back to market but will just re-assess. If ours is getting some traction at that point, they'll wait for us - or that's what they've said for now, anyway.
@rainingsnoring It was on with a different agent for about 5 months at 650k, came off some time around the start of Oct and then relisted with a new agent in Nov for offers over 610k. Then we put in our offer at the beginning of Feb.

Good luck @BunnyWilliams

I don't like OO but at least there is a clear pricing strategy.

I don't either but we don't want to drop below that, so it's either that way or nothing!

At least it will get us into that next bracket on RM if we get to that stage. It's another 5 weeks away, so we'll see what happens between now and then and hopefully we won't need to drop down to that anyway.

Exactly. 5 weeks of spring!

That sounds like a reasonable strategy. Good to have a strategy, I think!
It doesn't sound as if the home you hope to purchase flew off the market either so hopefully you will have enough time.