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're still hoping for completion 23rd, after paying £1600 to hold slot with removal company! Not heard when we'll exchange but at least we've had acknowledgement from solicitor and onward seller is messaging her solicitor too. Have spent most of the day wrapping numerous pictures in bubble wrap and trying to fit awkward shaped things into boxes. I'm hating every minute of packing 🫩

Hmmm I’ve just been asked for ‘best and final’ offer as there were multiple offers. My final bid is moderate, and he has said there are higher offers than that, but I’m also a cash buyer with no chain so maybe that will give me a leg-up. Don’t want to be sucked into going higher, plus I can’t actually afford more than what I’m offering.

@LivingLounge
Yes, it'll count for a lot - we went with 2nd highest as they weren't in a chain. In the end, 3rd highest is nearing completion with us after the other one withdrew after about a month. We even accepted a slightly lower offer from them when we went back to ask if they were still interested.

Oh thank you that’s encouraging. I’m not even that much under asking price, it’s 3% so feel I must be a contender!

@GlaceCherryFromThePast you made me laugh about the tat in the house, same here. You think why the hell have we been storing this for yrs, Im also following your strategy part packing and cleaning. We laid a new carpet in my sons bedroom not because buyers want us but out of pure shame, its my teens bedroom and the carpet had holes in it, just couldnt pass that on. So far 3 bedrooms emptied and cleaned ready. My biggest headache so far is the garage, my husband just wont part with stuff, after a massive argument, we got our heads together and ruthlessly culled loads😂

@KrankyKumquat lets hope you,ll here this week about exchange. The pack is awful and at some point when thjngs got awkward I questioned if I needed it 😂. Most went in the skip 😂.

@LivingLounge aw estate agents are great arent they, when he said offers were greater than that id have laughed. You have the power here and the best position over anyone, lenders are taking ages with offering mortgages, if at all and here you are with all the cash.Plus the estate agent knows it, hes just doing his pitch for more cash. If i was a seller and wanted a guarenteed sale, id go with you, plus it will cut a few weeks off the dreaded conveyancing.

Sorry I was logged out and took me ages to get a reset password link.

Am putting my big girl pants on and asking for 5k reduction today, following what the survey I had said about the roof. I want to get a complete re roof and don’t want to just have them paper over the cracks to push the sale through.

any success stories on here? Anxious!

@2longinthetooth
Wish I'd got a skip! I'm currently drinking yet another coffee while pondering how best to pack 3 large table lamps which are taller than small boxes but dwarfed in large boxes! And what do do with tall things like mops, broom, airer, ironing board...they surely can't all go in the lorry loose?

Our buyer actually asked DH if we were leaving our carpets (and sounded like they were scared we'd say no). My DH cackled like a witch when he told me. I mean, of course we're leaving them, but now I'll have to scrub and shampoo all the shame outta those too (especially the kid's bedroom!).

And still no word on a potential exchange date 😭

@InOut2023 welcome back, personally I think asking for a reduction is a safer way. This way you can instruct who you want and oversee the whole project. Id just not trust others because they will do the cheapest route to get the sale. Very risky. Do you think they will resist the reduction?

@KrankyKumquat oh i wanted to get a skip but my husband was going on about the cost and how he could do it cheaper by going in the car to the skip. I think he was worried id just throw out his stuff 🤣. For the awkward stuff like lamps ive just bubblewrapped them thickly. As for mops hoovers etc i will take in tne car. We are not moving tbe same day as completion as im planning to deep clean when empty. When ive moved in the past I threw out mop but it all went in van loose, removers are used to stuff like that. I was looking at tv boxes on amazon but they want 30-40 quid just to protect the tv. I will bubble wrap that also.

@GlaceCherryFromThePast Do people take their carpets 🤣 We only put a cheapy in bedroom, it cost me 71 quid and we laid ourselves, tbf it looks amazing, smells of new carpet. I feel better leaving it like that.
Not heard anything either and surprisingly ive not heard from my EA 😲. At this point we are in the 13th week of conveyancing. I know when we started my solicitor told us 14 to 16 weeks and I think they are going to drag it out. Dont know whom im more pissed with.

@2longinthetooth I agree. The remedial works will not provide us any guarantees / warranties.

I also do think they will say no to the reduction, because the remedial works they have likely been quoted will be less, but do not address all of the issues reported.

It will put me in a tricky position, because it genuinely is the forever home, I just so do not want to be responsible for something which I couldn’t foresee in my initial and accepted offer.

I think they can also afford to still move in to their new home and go back to accepting offers on their house. It’s just whether they want someone else to have a survey done and it say the same thing, or if they will do the remedial works and hope that it doesn’t flag it as a “condition 3” ifswim

@InOut2023 yes that sounds very risky especially as they are not giving guarantees etc. Sometimes you have to take the emotion out of it. Another forever home will pop up. Unless you have secured the house well under market value and leaving money to do the work comfortably then its a risk that you are taking on a lemon. My thoughts would also go to what else is covered up, the roof is a biggie. Its not a job that is left. The survey has only picked up on that, surveys miss loads more.
I know no one wants to lose money in a sale but with the current climate they may accept it, finding a buyer today is like hens teeth, with our sale we said 5k contingency if buyers found something so we budgeted for 5k less. Id rather do that than put it back on the market looking for a buyer. Was the rest of the house in good condition?

My solicitor just rang, we are all waiting for the start of the chain to give us a date. As much as im 🙄, im also thankful for the update. There are only 3 of us in the chain 🤣. Honestly its like a farce.

I’ve had a message to say that we are working towards 28th September with exchange next week some time. Will believe it when it happens 😁

Coincidentally we bought the house 28th September 1999 so that date is obviously good for us!

Glad to hear lots of you are edging slowly towards the end goal! We're back to square one - gave notice at the end of August as the agent we're with has done absolutely nothing for us since our buyer pulled out. We've got another agent coming either this Friday or next to take new photos ready to relaunch the flat on the 29th (day after we finish with first agency).

Hopefully we'll have better luck with this one... They sold the flat next door to us in 5 weeks while we're sitting here with fuck all viewings let alone any offers!

@2longinthetooth I think we are over paying tbh, which actually we are okay with because feel it’s the forever home.

We did however put an offer in on what we believe the house to be valued at, based on what we can see. The survey report showed us things we couldn’t see, such as the roof, which is why we believe it now to be worth less, because all the remedial works will do is paper over the cracks. So a full re roof is required and we would rather get it done ourselves with the warranty/guarantee and before the weather turns completely rubbish.

Praise be, I’ve finally had some contact from our solicitors 🙏 after nearly 14 weeks of almost total silence, they allocated someone more senior to us and she was very apologetic, and there has been a flurry activity from her today. I’m so pathetically grateful I could have kissed her. And we finally have a completion date penciled that everyone is in agreement with, thank god!!

We are now 10 weeks from the chain being complete. We still haven’t had enquiries raised by our buyer, despite chasing the solicitor. Our buyers have been so picky over issues in the survey, I’m anticipating a round of tricky questions. Who knows how long this will take.

@WWBWBapparently oooh that sounds like its meant to be, fingers and toes crossed for 28th. Its a step in the right direction.

@TeddyBeans Aw that sounds rough but we have been there many times in the past. Hopefully you will have a better relaunch. Did you get any viewings at all?

@InOut2023 lets hope the seller will budge on the price.

@HouseMoveRound2 gosh 14weeks with nothing happening is insanely long. Seriously I would have kissed her 2 and cried, finally you can see some movement.

@Sadteacher Our initial enquiries were silly picky things and we were bracing ourselves for the survey, the surveyor said on leaving it wasnt perfect but I said what house is, we knew there was nothing major but you never know with these things, we braced ourselves for the worst and nothing, not 1 question, solicitor said survey came back ok, buyers are happy to proceed. So anything can happen in this game.

@2longinthetooth I think we had 4 between Feb and may when it was originally sold (5 if you count the second viewing from the guy who made the offer). Since we went back on the market it July it's been crickets...

Which makes next door selling in 5 weeks even more of a kick in the teeth but as we're hopping on with that agent hopefully some of their good juju will be left over for us 🙏🙏🙏

Both viewings we had booked for the next few weeks have cancelled 😭 I’m never going to sell this house. We’ll be trapped here forever.

Ive read people are holding off, waiting to see what the oct budget says. However in general people are watching sold prices not estate agents valuations because estate agents are over valuing and giving people false hope. Its been said in other areas of MN that people wont even view if they think its overpriced. Whats the point because they know the seller wont negoiate. Same with our sale, we looked at sold prices for our home, there was a 50k gap between them and estate agents valuation. We went down the middle and got 3 viewings, zero offers. Dropped 10k still zero. Put it on for the sold house price for the area and it went immediately, full asking. Thank god we did because in the last 3months very little has sold but tbh what is left on the market is very overpriced. People saying you are chasing the market down by dropping but now I have full asking and in the last 2 months the sold prices for my home has dropped by 2k.
Now we are on the otherside buying, ive viewed very little and wont bother going because we are seeing homes 25 to 50k over the sold prices. So we think people wont negoiate on price so wont view. In our area im seeing prices reduced constantly. There are buyers out there but they are looking for value. Homes that are top spec all bells and whistles still sell quickly. People with run of the mill homes think they can sell for the same price as these top spec homes. Its crazy a detached home sold very quickly by us and the next week a semi with a tiny strip of land thought he would put his on for 5k more than the detached, The house is a probate sale and needs work throughout. Surprise, its not sold. A home came on yesterday they have done very little to it, they bought it in jan, added a new garden and now asking 40k more for it. Problem you have today is people can see inside your home when you bought it, what you have done to it, how much you paid for it and really how much its really worth. Estate agents valuations are irrelevant today. So to sell you really have to show the value of the home and what you have added. People dont want work because having trade in is super expensive.

@2longinthetooth good points well made. Our house would be open to scrutiny as regards the price we purchased it for, the extensive work we've done on it in the years we've owned it and the fact there is a small additional amount to the house value increase, but most of the extra is due to the improvements we've made, so it's a turn key solution and no additional work needed.

But it's still not getting very much interest.

It's a very tough environment out there and we aren't feeling pressure to move if we don't get the right buyer (we've had several people claiming to be cash buyers just to get inside for a look, only then to say the common feedback trope "not for us".). It's all very frustrating isn't it.

We take "cash buyers" claims with a big pinch of salt. If people have liquid asset i.e cash to buy a new property outright and not having to sell their property, it's going to be an inheritance (quite rare) or they'd have to liquidate investments, and it's very doubtful they'd do that, and have an extra property on their hands in such an uncertain market. If it seems too good to be true it normally is.

Its an agonising time for both selling and buying, you think youve done everything right to sell, then nothing, its a good job you dont have to move it gives you some breathing room. When you look at your home realistically you have to leave emotion at the door (easier said than done). I thought our home was nice, we, ve done jobs, brand new boiler etc and when I asked people online to review it, wow! What a shock. People dont hold back 😂. When it launched with the estate agent it went online and people were making comments about the decor, the drive condition, too much parking, obviously price, feedback from viewings also was picky, I said to my husband they realise they are not buying a new build ffs. However this is how buyers are, very picky. They want bang for their buck so to speak. At 1 point i felt like saying f off because its your home, its personal.
What ive noticed, loads of homes came on the market jan, nothing was selling until april then boom loads were sold. We were heartbroken because there were several we liked but we were having zero offers. Over the summer hardly anything sold, speaking to estate agents they were all saying sept things will pick up, now we are in sept hardly anything has come on and literally nothing has sold, im on the property portals daily. Its shocking. Now estate agents are saying its due to the oct budget but personally I dont think so. They are not freezing stamp duty. Rates are stable for the forseeable. There is now a stand off between buyers and sellers, ive spoke to many that are going into temporary accom, so buyers are out there, but they are all watching, waiting for prices to drop.
Tbh I dont think anyone knows whats going on, there is the added problem as well, I spoke to 2 people few weeks ago and they are saying there is a mismatch between lenders valuations and asking prices so chains are collapsing, seen a few homes in the area come back on. Ive never known the market to be in such disarray.

Anyone exchange this week? Ive heard nothing regards dates, I suppose it was too hopeful given how slow everything else has been. At this rate I will be moving at christmas. Feeling very indifferent about it today.

We're in the middle of doing bank transfer of funds to solicitors as I type. So I think we're on our way to exchange.