Spring house selling/buying support thread

[PyjamasForever]

After quite a lengthy time on the market I finally have an offer on my house and have had an offer accepted on a house I want to buy. I’m feeling a bit uncertain it will happen with the current financial situation and wondered if anyone else in a similar position wanted a thread for a bit of moral support?!

We’ve instructed solicitors, filled out our TA6 and TA10 forms, applied for a mortgage and have some documents to send them… I then find the next bit the hardest bit about buying and selling when you have all those uncertain weeks with searches/surveys etc and it could all fall apart at any minute!

We are 5 weeks into the process, our searches are back apparently and we have our surveyor booked in for next week.
4 properties, 5 people in the chain.

We were on the market for 8months… so tentatively holding our breath and hoping everything goes ok…

really impressed with our solicitors!! Not so much our buyers ones…

Can I join? We have sold and completed but decided to break the chain to make sure that the sale went through in current climate. But what we thought would be a relatively easy purchase seems to be held up now with our vendors solicitors. It doesn't help that the vendors are not doing all of the paperwork by email, so given how cr*p royal mail is, could be adding even more delay 😓

Hi! Welcome.👋

Our vendors are apparently sending their paperwork today (seven weeks after the rest of the chain) so hopefully we can start the searches next week and get an idea of how onerous this purchase is going to be. It's never sold before, been in the same family since 1930.

Our solicitor seems pretty shit but at least he's local so I can go down and bang on the door. Our vendors are painful but apparently their solicitor is really good (they went with the estate agents suggestion).

We may end up breaking the chain and airbnbing it for a bit if need be. although it would be hell as we have four pets, including a very old, senile cat who will be very confused. My preference would be having him put to sleep but there's no way my DP would go for that (even though he is my cat). He's a drag things out till the end kind of guy but I think quality of life is the most important and it's going to be mega stressful for him.

We’d also find renting tricky because of animals, but really really don’t want to lose our buyers.

Mortgage broker has submitted all our documents today. Hoping we’ll hear soon if our buyers want to do a survey. Solicitors seem to have zero idea what’s going on with the chain. I guess as we’re only 3 weeks in we’re fairly low priority.

Our estate agent is the one I go to to find out what's going on. Doesn't cost me £25 an email or whatever the solicitor bills me for his very slow responses. My estate agent is very good so that helps. My purchase is with a different brach of the same estate agent which I hope will also help keep things moving.

Our survey is happening on friday but we're already expecting it to be bad because the house is a full renovation and we got 60k off asking so it's just in case we missed anything wild. But considering it needs a new roof, new electrics, new plumbing, has damp, new kitchen, new bathroom, I don't think there's much left to uncover. there was no evidence of subsidence at least!

Any progress for anyone this week?

I’ve taken to detouring past “my house” most days. Tentatively waiting for the searches to all come back so I can try to speed things along.

Any advice please? We've been given an offer £35K under asking about 6 weeks after going to market. Would happily accept if the house we want to buy was amenable to an offer. They've been on for 3 months and already dropped once and are staying resolute at their current price. Our potential buyers say their mortgage lender has given a desktop evaluation of the price they have offered - but we think a physical evaluation would come up higher as it's high spec. We've countered at 20K below asking but now wondering whether that was right. EA pressuring us to take the offer - feels like they have stopped working for us really and just want a quick sale. What to do??!

This is tricky. Was this their first offer? If offering under asking I think they’d probably expect you to say no and come back with a counter, and your counter seems very reasonable.

Seems a bit strange that the mortgage lender has done a desktop valuation before they’ve even had an offer accepted.

Thanks for your response. Yes I thought it was odd too re: the desktop valuation. It's actually their second offer The first was 50K under and we refused outright! Feel like if we can get it to 25K under asking we'll feel better about it. It was competitively priced in the first place so taking so much less is painful! They are chain free which is a bonus.

Just had notification that our mortgage has been approved. Now it feels like we have a date to work towards (and a lot of anxiety about over analysis of my spending habits gone).

That's great!

We've had our survey back and it was actually better than we expected (we already knew the house has lots of issues but most of these were not as deep as we thought).

Bit worried about the rest of the chain as there seems to be a shared driveway issue holding things up. Something about having to get answers from a management company who are not responding. The house is 15 years old, and at the bottom of the chain. Anyone come across something like that before?

I spoke to the solicitor yesterday… 4 weeks in and they hadn’t yet ordered the searches. I wonder how long it would have been if I hadn’t chased?!?

We're 8 weeks in and still no paperwork so can't order the searches. This is getting ridiculous! And no one is answering my emails.

That is bonkers!! I’ve also found it a real challenge to get any replies (but then the solicitor, her PA and my estate agent all answered on the same day…)

My estate agent has done a load of chasing for me today. Seems their solicitor is waiting for a death certificate and the vendors just aren’t responding. They are so shit!

Hello, I will join this thread in anticipation! We are going on the market on Friday. We have priced it realistically ( according to the estate agent as well as me!) The house opposite sold for 390. We have a garage and extra bedroom and bathroom to them and are going on for 400. The house down the road the same size as ours is languishing at 415 after reducing gradually from 450.

Reading your comments it is clear nothing has improved since we last moved 5 years ago!

Good luck! We went slightly lower than everyone else and had an asking price offer the day we listed. Just waiting for it all to fall apart at some point…

I’ve spent this evening answering lots of queries about things our solicitors definitely didn’t bring up when we bought the house.

Buyers are doing a survey this week. I’m quite aware our house isn’t perfect (what Victorian house is?!) but I’m hoping the buyers don’t use it to try and reduce the price when we’ve priced lower than similar properties to allow for this.

I’m literally losing sleep over this as our budget is quite tight.

@PyjamasForever that is my fear too. Our roof is very old and we keep having the slipped tiles sorted but a survey will clearly say new roof needed as they all do. Even though it keeps out the rain which is kind of the point!

I want to be able to write a footnote to it saying “whatever the survey says we’ve been watertight for the last few years and this is actually a bargain house…”

My house is an old victorian terrace but my buyers didn't bother with a survey. I tried to buy two years ago and my buyers then had a few surveys done but were happy with it all so I wasn't that worried this time. I think most people buying old houses know there will be maintenance (unless they are first time buyers and worriers). I didn't even bother with a survey when I bought this place and I was a FTBer, but repairs were cheaper then!

We had a survey done on our onward and it's flagged loads of stuff but you could see it all on viewing so we haven't renegotiated.

Tentatively joining the thread (if allowed!)

My bf and I are FTB and after having 4 viewings (in a week 🫪) we think We've found the one and today put in an offer.

And got told they want to have their other viewing on Friday and get back to us 😬 and now I'm really bricking it and thinking we have massively screwed up cos everyone (including mortgage advisor) said to make an initial offer under asking (10k) and now I'm regretting it and wishing we had just offered the damn asking price and feel completely out of our depth and have no clue what we are doing!!!! 😩

Someone tell me there is still a chance we might get it? 😭 The sellers we think (based on the fact they had already moved out) may be looking for a quick sale...and we are praying being no chain may be at our advantage?

Thanks! This is all very reassuring (although I’m still spiralling a little). We only bought it 5yrs ago and have addressed a number of the issues from when we did a survey so hopefully it won’t have any surprises.

I just hate uncertainty. I can’t even bring myself to start calling removal firms for quotes or have a big sort out for packing.

Can I join please? Our house is going on tomorrow the sign goes up today. We had 4 agents round and 3 were all around the same price apart from one who rocked up late, had worked out his valuation on half the square footage of the house. He then got flustered and tried to use the average share footage price which didn’t work so came up with another figure which was 75k under the other 3, then said he was embarrassed when I said what the other had said and he said they were all sensible agents who don’t generally over inflate.

We’ve gone with the one who sold 2 houses down the road a couple of years ago and are listing for 40k less than the most similar one achieved to reflect changes in the market, My plumber really wanted to buy it but can’t raise the extra he would need so not really relevant other than he said he would have paid if he could the price we are listing it for.

We don’t have to move but are finding a semi a bit challenging after detached having lived through months of renovation next door which was so loud at times it was impossible to have a conversation. Renovation has finished now and the flats are about to be let so should be fine and our house looks really good as we finally finished it last Sunday. We only moved 3 years ago which is still fresh in my mind and have been renovating it most of that time and I think we may have lost the plot but am going to see what happens.

Our searchers on our onward purchase have come back and enquiries have been raised.
Our survey has come back, nothing worrying on there just general wear and tear.

But the solicitors on behalf of the people buying our flat are soooo slow!! There was an issue with the case handler - which we think has been resolved. And we think searches have been requested on our flat. But I’m getting impatient!

One estate agent (who we are buying from not who we listed with) is excellent at chasing the chain, which is good!

@PyjamasForeveri’m obsessed with costs. So I had removals out quoting within a few weeks of offers being accepted so I could make sure I funnelled the right money places mentally 😂