Is there a new thread for “Anyone putting their home on the market in early 2025”?

[IWasBornIn1989]

The other thread is full 😏

Popping in to say hi as I think I might soon need to share in all your pain!

Went on the market in the middle of June and accepted an offer from FTB on 21st July. Chain was complete by the following week (FTB, us, our vendors, empty house) and we have instructed solicitors, had the mortgage offer etc. Draft contract pack was sent to buyer’s solicitors at the beginning of last week and has been radio silence since. Today we spoke to the estate agent and found out that our buyers don’t have a mortgage offer yet! It is with the underwriters apparently but no clue what is taking so long (my husband spoke to the EA and didn’t ask any questions).

Not sure if this is normal for over a month into the process but now I’m feeling jittery that our buyers might now be serious. Was already a bit concerned because they only viewed once. Hopefully I am just catastrophising but holy shit this is stressful already.

Welcome to the hell of house selling and buying!

After a month they really should have a mortgage offer. I’d be saying to the agent to start remarketing and getting more viewings as you need someone proceedable.

In my news….still nothing completely concrete - but we are hoping to exchange Tuesday and have all agreed a completion date of Thursday!

@ScoobyDoesnt awwww brilliant news. The pain for you is almost over!! 😂Hope it all goes to plan next week. Keeping everything crossed for you.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, I had been pondering calling the estate agent tomorrow and finding out what exactly the delay has been and then potentially asking them to start remarketing. Wasn’t sure if this was reasonable so thanks for confirming it is the right thing to do!

I will keep my fingers crossed for you for Tuesday and hope the move then goes well!

Thank you! I’m feeling quietly optimistic we’re there, I’m in touch directly with both my buyer and seller and they’ve had the same from their respective solicitors as I had from mine, that Tuesday then Thursday are the days!

I still don’t quite dare insure, sort utilities, broadband (vital as I work from home a lot), council tax, post redirect etc. But I’m off all of next week so have time to sort. And finish packing - am 80% packed anyway after thinking I was moving 2 weeks ago!

@WellJuhnelle that’;s just my view - but in my experience, even going to underwriters should not take 4 weeks. Unless possibly they are self employed or something. Did they have an Agreement in Principle already?

I’d definitely be challenging the agent on this. My buyers had their mortgage in place within a week of me accepting their offer, and mine took 2 days (although in fairness I am downsizing my mortgage so was probably a bit easier).

Good luck!

I went on the market / websites at 3.30pm yesterday (Friday). By 6pm I have 3 viewings this today (Saturday), 1 on Sunday 1 on Wednesday and 1 on Saturday next. And the estate agent rang at 6pm last night to ask how many viewings I could cope with this weekend....! I'm quite flabbergasted - I'm in a popular place, the house is OK, I think well/possibly slightly under priced. It's Scotland so offers over, and the only three houses on my road for sale over the last 3 years have all gone 10-25% above asking...
Fingers crossed!

@WellJuhnelle I agree with others - a month, even for a complex mortgage, is too long.
In my experience there's a few things with buyers, particularly first time buyers. Firstly many are pushing the limit or beyond of what they can borrow. They get agreement in principle, or even just bid on a house going off what they have learned from an online calculator, and when the mortgage company does a proper check and finds the debt, the lease cars, the payments for all sorts (etc), they cannot borrow what they first thought. Secondly I found some people are just really crap at adminstration. They wait for the weekend to reply to emails or letters. They don't have the things like a mortgage broker or solicitor lined up, as they have never used one. They basically sit on their hands....

Sorry to hear this. Viewing a house just the once before putting in an offer is very common so I wouldn't question that too much. In my opinion, one month to secure a mortgage is an unusually long time. Either they were offered a lower amount than what they expected, or perhaps they've been declined a mortgage altogether which isn't good news as they won't be able to apply for another one for some months. I think your estate agents should be chasing up the buyers every day for progress, and being honest with you. If they can't get a mortgage together, you might need to consider your next steps.

First three viewings = three notes of interest before the estate agent closed at lunchtime.
I'm still refusing to believe it's going to be this easy... 🫣

@WellJuhnelle just to provide an alternative perspective, we had our offer accepted mid June and are still waiting for our mortgage offer. We’re porting so staying with the same lender, there are no issues in terms of affordability, they barely checked our finances, but they have just been painfully slow. The actual application took nearly 3 weeks to receive by email before we could sign it, then another week to process, it took them a week after I paid for the valuation for them to instruct the surveyor, then we had to wait 3 weeks for the surveyor to be available, then a warranty was missing so was valued at nil. We finally got word yesterday that they’re happy and they will now post our official mortgage offer to us in the next few days. Post! Why they can’t email it like they’ve done with everything else I don’t know. But, all that to say, it could just genuinely be taking a long time and it doesn’t necessarily mean your buyers aren’t committed.

Wow that seems to have taken a long time seeing as though you are just porting. We are porting ours and we had a zoom call with the mortgage advisor to fill in all the paperwork, had to provide a few documents/accounts (we are self employed) and then it went to the underwriters who approved it the same day! Had our official mortgage offer emailed to us the following day. It was so quick and easy. The longest part about it was the zoom call to do the paperwork/form filling which took 90 minutes.

Completed last wk. Been quite a frustrating faff but at last all done.

I’ve been lurking on the thread for ages, not daring to post before in case I tempted fate but would like to offer a tale of hope to those of you who’ve really struggled to sell or get to completion. Sorry, it’s a long one! We put our ancient cottage on the market almost 2 years ago and after a series of hopelessly unsuitable viewers, sold at £35k below asking price in January 2024. Found what we thought was the right house to buy, lots of legal queries that dragged out but most sorted by May. Our buyers pulled out on the morning of exchange due to redundancy. Chain fell apart (as did we a bit) and our seller went straight back on the market without a conversation. We had to unpack, make it viewing ready again, kids distraught. Then the market went flat. While still trying to sell we viewed a house for sport and fell in love. But then it sold and every other house seemed crap in comparison after that. We’ve viewed 30 houses over the 2 years and it was the only one all of us loved. The original house we were buying still hadn’t sold but we found out that all its neighbours had flooded over the winter and it was now considered hugely high risk so we had dodged a bullet there! Months later and with still no buyer our end we got a call to say the sale on the one we loved had fallen through, exact same circumstances, their buyer pulled out day of exchange. Were we still interested? Yes we bloody were though in no position to offer. Except… in the few minutes I was on the phone to that agent, our agent received an offer. Massively below the (now reduced again) asking price but in the same day we managed to barter that up, also barter down on our dream home. stars had aligned but then came months of our buyers fiddling about with finances and lots of half truths up and down the chain which made us think it’ll never happen. But we finally exchanged last week and we move in this Thursday . Still can’t quite believe it. Wish me luck cleaning out the freezer today, there’s stuff in there older than my kids

@Harveywoo congratulations!!!!!!

Thank you for sharing your experience, and yes it does help. Actually this whole thread has helped me massively and made me feel like we are not the only ones in a massive struggle to not only sell our homes, but actually get the sale to a point of completion.

My own sale has been dragging on for months and I am slowly losing the will to live. We also own an ancient cottage which has come with tons of issues due to equally as ancient title deeds and access issues. We are STILL batting enquiries back and forwards between Solicitors but think we may almost have got to a point where our sale can proceed. Unfortunately due to the time our buyers were taking our sellers pulled out of the sale so we lost our onward purchase.

Its been one heck of a stressful year and at the moment it feels like we will NEVER get there with this house sale.

You give me hope. 😂

I am glad that everything has eventually worked out for you. Its great news and I hope you will be happy in your new home ❤

@andweallloveclover aww, thank you. Sounds like you’ve had a rollercoaster ride too! Wishing you all the luck, I’m sure you’ll get there too. Serves us both right for living ancient cottages right? And guess what we’re buying next….😂

@Harveywoo I have moved one from old house to another and love them. My current ancient cottage has given me years of wonderful family time and no grief at all. 😍

Funnily enough, any 'slight issues' picked up with the title deeds and access were glossed over when we purchased the house 15 years ago as 'not being a big deal'. And to be honest, in reality, they really have never been. Nothing has been an issue in the slightest but I think things are a bit different now and Solicitors don't seem to want to let anything go at all. They are not willing to gloss over things the way they were 10+ years ago as the 'blame & complain culture' came into affect and now everyone is ridiculously (and sometimes needlessly) thorough. Solicitors and surveyors wanting to cover their backs and being so pernickety its ridiculous! It has been very frustrating but of course, we have no choice but to go with it all.

Hopefully we eventually get to a point where we can start looking for a new onward purchase. But its difficult to believe, at this stage, that it will ever happen.

@ScoobyDoesnt everything crossed for you!

Our buyers had their survey now just waiting for the report and what that brings. Surveyor did tell us there are no major issues so we’re hoping they will have the report end of this week so next week we can start talking exchange and completion dates again but who knows what will happen.

We feel exactly the same, lots of “issues” that never have been. RICS needs an overhaul. So many times we came back from viewing newer houses with far bigger problems and wondered why we were bothering moving at all. But we’ve outgrown and it’s time, and so glad we’ve gone ancient again. Really hoping it happens for you soon and the perfect house appears at the same time as you sell!

Thank you. Wouldn't that be perfect 😂Who knows, maybe it will be that we find another house that is even better than the first one.

Still not exchanged…everyone was ready yesterday, but the solicitor at the bottom ‘didn’t get to the file’ until late afternoon, so we ran out of time to actually exchange.

It’s honestly killing me. Supposed to be moving tomorrow!

@ScoobyDoesnt FFS! I feel your pain. The waiting must be like torture. Fingers crossed you exchange today. Keep us posted. x

Thank you @andweallloveclover. I haven’t slept a wink again, and am feeling panicky and totally out of sorts.

I’ve almost finished packing, but still need to do all the related admin like insurance, utilities, broadband, council tax etc. because I just haven’t dared do them up to now.

My buyers' solicitor picked up from their surveyor's report that the foul and rainwater pipes at the property don't comply with current building regulations and stated they should be separated before exchange - completely ignoring or not bothering to check those regulations only apply to properties built after 1970, and my property is Victorian. My solicitor didn't pick up on it either and it was left to me to do the research.

Completion is due next Monday, but I'm not holding my breath.

@ScoobyDoesnt I am not surprised. I don't think I would have slept either. We all want to hear the news that contracts have been exchanged. Its the thing we wait all those months to hear (other than you have completed!)

Good Luck, and I hope you don't have to wait too long today before you can breathe a sigh of relief. x

@DancingFerret honestly, I sometimes wonder what the hell we pay the solicitors for. Our buyers solicitor asked us to do something that they know, from the information we provided, that we cannot do. It was ridiculous!!!