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!

Augh I’m so mad! Turns out the buyer of my parents house lied to the estate agents (deliberately or out of incompetence we’re not sure) and isn’t actually proceedable so they can’t accept her asking price offer. Back to the drawing board for them! They have another viewer lined up so maybe she will be the one 🤞🏻

I feel your pain bird - we are also buying with parents and the coordination of all the moving parts would be hard enough at the best of times, but in the current market it’s impossible. All we need is for my in-laws to sell their place and that’s the final piece of the puzzle, they reduced the asking price price by over 10% last Monday and had some interest/viewings this week, so hoping this leads to something. They had one offer on Friday but the person withdrew by Tuesday 🥴🥴

Can I join ? I’m nearing the end of the process - property sold to cash buyers and purchasing a probate property. So far so good and legals nearly complete so we are looking at mid/end June. My last transaction was hell on earth so waiting for something to screw up!

how long did your surveys take?

Survey? Booked with a couple of weeks notice. Did you mean searches? They came back relatively quickly

Yes sorry searches!
Its been a long day of back and forth with the solicitor!

No worries that is totally understandable!! - the searches came back in around three to four week I think - we are currently on week eight I think - offer accepted early April after being on market for a week or so. I’m in London if it makes a difference.

It’s so awkward isn’t it? Always one step forward and one step back x_x I hope they manage to sell soon!

When someone says they are an"cash buyer" I presume that means they can buy the property without a mortgage eg due to downsizing ? It's quite a misleading term.

I always imagine someone with a wheelbarrow full of cash rocking at the solicitors 🤭

It’s a term frequently misused to just mean ‘no chain’ it seems, but yes that’s what it should mean.

Yayyyy we have another viewer for Saturday :D I feel a lot better with two.

Yayyyy @TheBirdintheCave great news, fingers crossed!

Amazing news @TheBirdintheCave ! Hopefully offers follow 😁

We've sent off the last of our paperwork for our mortgage. Hopefully that will all get going and then we can get on with other bits with the solicitor.

Does anyone have a list of everything that needs done before completion? I'm pretty convinced we're doing everything out of order 🤣

Has anyone had any contact from National Homebuyers ?
My house has just gone on the market and I had a letter from this company today..

@pestowithwalnuts yes ours came through about a week after we went live. I think they just mass send them to anyone on the market. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole though

We had communication yesterday that the top of the chain needs to be completed by the end of June… mixtures of feeling hopeful and anxious… as I’m not sure our sale will be ready by then…

If that does happen that would be 3.5months from offer to completion!!

@pinkcow123Gosh that’s scary. Why the rush?

No it doesn't mean that. It means the buyer can provide proof of funds from savings/investments/completed sale etc.
Unfortunately sometimes people dont insist on the agent getting proof of this at the time of the offer. Later down the road they then find out a property sale is required to proceed. That situation is just a potentially mortguage free buyer, not a cash buyer. Agents will not always explain this to a seller and likewise buyers may not also tell the agent. Thats why if you recieve a "cash" offer you must push your agent to get proof of funds. Buyers who genuinely have the money, and can show it, are getting thin on the ground at the moment.

@TheBirdintheCavefor reasons I don’t really understand. But additional costs for the top of the chain due to moving abroad? I think!

@TheBirdintheCave how were the viewings on Saturday?

Crossing my fingers that everyone has a productive week.

We found out last week that the house we are buying had spray foam insulation, but that it’s been professionally removed. Still really want to buy the house but furious that the solicitors being slow didn’t share this info with us until we were 9 weeks in (despite having it from the sellers weeks before!)

I won’t find out until tomorrow unfortunately! 🤦🏻‍♀️

It is mad estate agents don’t work Sundays. Surely the weekends are the busiest times for viewing, feedback etc.
We have viewing number 3 later today.

Yep! Ours finish at 4pm on Saturdays and are then closed all Sunday 🫠

We're going on the market this week, getting photos and EPC done today. Already feeling the fatigue from cleaning and finishing off all the odd jobs, so not sure how I'll cope with actually having to move 😆

Hoping we get an offer quickly, as we've seen a house which looks ideal for us, but we can't view it until we're proceedable. It we don't like it or it sells in the meantime, I'm not sure what we'll do as there's so little coming on the market at the moment. I'm not sure if we should tentatively ask to book a viewing for a couple of weeks time, as our estate agent did say he thought a ftb would snap our house up.

It's been 12 years since we last bought and the process seems to be a lot more drawn out post covid. Do people typically still do two viewings before making an offer? That was the advice we were given as first time buyers, but estate agents seem a lot more reluctant to do in person viewings these days.