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!

In the process of selling / buying. Only 3 of us in the chain The bungalow I'm buying is empty.
My buyers solicitors are contuingly asking for various documents and guarantees that I don't have. eg..the conservatory on my house was added in 1996. I didn't move here until 2014 ..so I don't have any paperwork for that. Despite me saying this..they still continue to ask again.
Got an appointment with my solicitor on Thursday where..no doubt..she will ask for more stuff.. I'm seriously thinking of withdrawing..

TheBirdintheCave

That might not help. You might be missing the hidden code in "the 3rd bedroom is too small" as a feedback comment.
What it might mean is that the 3rd bedroom is too small for the price of the house. After 11 weeks, some viewings and no offers its likley price thats the issue. Try asking the agent "what price you would need to reduce to if you want to attract multiple offers". That should give you a better idea of where to reduce to. You cant be that far overpriced or you wouldn't get viewings. 5 to 10% over where you need to market at probably.

We’re already at the very bottom of what we can afford to accept to make our upward move and have already reduced by £10k. We’re also currently the cheapest three bed in the area. An identical house to ours one road away is on for a crazy £450k which they will never get in a million years. Ours is a realistic £405-£415.

I can’t move any more on price.

Fair enough, but if your moving upwards by upsizing its probably better to wait anyway - thats if you can. Let the market falls work through and you should pay less overall to upsize..

Sadly we can’t wait. We’ve already had an offer accepted on a house that we really want. We also have to be out of here by next May which is when we’d have to apply for a new mortgage if we were to stay. It’s all just a horrible hellscape. And on top of that I lost my job in June 😭

@TheBirdintheCave that’s awful - I really hope you find a buyer soon and some of the stress goes!

Well we found another house and after a stressful day we had an offer accepted. A few days after that our buyers asked for a few thousand off the price as they apparently have to go into rental - which confused us as nothing was ever said or dates from them before and they live with family. We have said no.

It’s been a few days and now we haven’t heard anything - called estate agent who said she didn’t even know we’d had an offer accepted - her colleague does so communication is awful so now it may make more sense if no one bothered to tell our buyer and they don’t think we’ve found anywhere yet…
So stressful!!

Wishing you luck finding a new job. Could you consider reducing your house to get interest and then the offer on the new house ? You would need an offer on yours first - but once you have that you would have a valid affordability reason for revising the offer. Its difficult to get things across the line at the moment and your seller might be in a similar position in that they need to sell/move ? They also likley know that replacing you as a potential buyer - may not be so easy at the moment.

The owner is selling his grandma’s house which is empty so he’s in no rush to go anywhere. He has his own house next door. He’s already reduced the price once. I can’t see him accepting a lower offer after we’ve already agreed the full asking price 🫠

It’s a tricky one as technically they haven’t taken it off the market yet and won’t until ours sells BUT the offer has been officially accepted… so I sort of feel like we’re verbally committed. There’s just nothing else out there like it at the moment that we could afford. It’s got everything we need. Three large bedrooms (one with en suite) and two bonus smaller ones, a massive living room with separate dining room, a garage for conversion with its own ensuite/utility room, a driveway, a good school ten minutes walk away with space for our son to move in year… literally everything on our wish list.

I could try asking the estate agent whether the owner would consider a £5k drop so we could drop ours another £5k but then I’d just be feeling like we’re simply giving our house away.

@TheBirdintheCave It could work if you actually got an offer 5k under, and asked if he would take off 5k so you could proceed. You’d be in a better position. Sarah Beeney (I think) used to champion spreading the discounts along the whole chain to get things moving. Good luck.

Our buyer has been told we need a new roof in her survey. I am hoping we can convince her it is repairable. Yes, it is old but half the houses on our road have the original roof. It doesn’t leak or cause us any issues. It just needs a few patches sorted.

We have finally exchanged after 5 long months since we had an offer on our property!

but I feel soo underwhelmed!!

It’s grim how moving sucks the joy out of it all. You will find it again! @pinkcow123

Thanks for the encouragement to do some room changing guys. I didn’t appreciate how much my son would benefit from having his own space so that’s been an added bonus. He’s a lot happier about going to bed now :) The room looks great too. Weirdly bigger so hopefully that helps it sell 🤞🏻

We are still hanging on. Meant to exchange today or tomorrow for completion next Friday. Radio silence from the solicitor at the bottom of the chain.

Just as well really as DH had a terrible accident yesterday in work and lost half his thumb. 4 hour surgery yesterday to reattach it and he’ll be in hospital for a week whilst they use leech therapy to hopefully allow the veins to regrow.

Weve asked to push forward one week.

Oh my gosh that’s awful. I hope he makes a full recovery! I watched a programme about leech therapy once. It was really fascinating.

Gosh @WWBWBapparently hope it all works out for him and he heals up. What a ton of extra stress for you at an already stressful time.

It’s been an awful couple of days. He’s going to be in hospital a good few days yet. Living in a half packed house, going to work and visiting him 45 minutes away and I’m on my last nerve and I’m so tired already. I really feel for him, he’s got a long road ahead, just hope they will manage to save it after all this. It’s in such a mess, I can’t see it tbh.