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!

@Sadteacher we had 2 second viewings with no offers and one third viewing with no offer when we were on the market a year ago…

Hopefully you’ll be more lucky than this! Sounds very positive that they said it was the best house they’ve seen. Are they proceedable?

Yes, currently renting. They seem quite young and we are not a typical ftb house, perhaps they’ve sold and moved into rented.

The best and final bids both came back at 5k over the asking, so we’re in a great position but sadly there’s nothing coming on the market that we like. Hope they can wait a little time for us

my in-laws have got a second viewing tomorrow, hoping an offer materialises and the people are normal! We’ve been trying to move for over a year, had some nightmare buyers and had a chain implode 9 weeks into the process, so I could with something going smoothly 🙃

We’ve had email today saying our buyer has no further enquiries! They are no just awaiting their mortgage offer. Our mortgage offer happened incredibly quickly - didn’t even really know it had happened 🙈.

is this typical? Or is the process usually strung out? Like, could we make the 30th June after all?!

@pinkcow123 looks like you might get it all sorted by the end of the month!! How exciting.

we’re still waiting for our sellers to answer a few more enquiries and then hopefully we’ll be able to sign contracts ready for exchange.

The second viewing went well - they asked if they could have a 3rd viewing! I said yes but it is a bit irritating, makes me think they’ll be awkward buyers if they do buy it. My house doesn’t need any work doing to it or anything.

@Sadteacher it feels so intrusive having people walking round your house (I know I will feel it - got our first viewing today). But three times is a bit much! Have they put in an offer yet? If they haven't offered yet, then they need to stop dithering and decide whether they are interested in your property or not.

I would talk to your agent about your concerns, and what the viewers have said to the agents about your property as they could be time wasters and you don't want to have to go through that if they aren't serious buyers,

If the agent says they think you should let them come back a third time, can you think of it as three different viewings to try and get through it?

we are planning on doing three viewings because the house is empty and there is a keysafe so we want to get another one in after exchange to measure door frames etc, but three viewings before even putting an offer in would definitely give me bad vibes. Are they FTBers?

Yes, they are ftb and want to bring their parents to have a look! Ours really isn’t a typical ftb house ( large 3 bed detached) so perhaps they are getting help from the parents to buy it?

Hmm yeah they could be a nightmare, but what can you do in this market?

The people buying our house are downsizing and have bought four houses before, they have been dream buyers so far. I didn't realise how much less stressful the selling process could be if you had chilled out but admin motivated buyers! Unfortunately the rest of the chain is really letting us down, we'd have been sold really quickly otherwise. Hoping it doesn't all fall apart.

So we had the "bending the truth" type buyers today. We were told "they are on the market with their property" when the booking was made by our EA, but here we are 3 weeks later and we find out they aren't on the market - they've only just had the photos taken. So in actual fact it may take them months to even get any interest let alone get a buyer.

Oh that’s awful! My parents buyer who did this has now very much got her act together and has three viewings today.

So frustrating that yours have taken so long to even get started!

Bad news my end. I now have no job :(

Viewing yesterday went well though and she wants to book another to bring her husband to see it too :)

So sorry @TheBirdintheCave job hunting is very time consuming ( I was made redundant a couple of years ago) Hope you have better luck with your house 🤞

Oh @TheBirdintheCave so sorry - you knew the job was in the balance but it's happened, awful isn't it. I hope you can get another job sorted soon.

sounds very positive about your house and I hope the second viewing results in an offer.

I contacted our EA and they've said they will do a better job of fact-checking anyone coming round, we don't necessarily only want proceedable viewers, but we do need them to at least be on the market, and be truthful about their situation,

Oh man, that’s bad news on several fronts thebirdinthecage hope you manage to find something else quickly. Such challenging times at the minute - the job market, housing market, and CoL are all just horrific, navigating all 3 is a nightmare

@TheBirdintheCave sorry to hear that, hope you find something else quickly!

I contacted our solicitor yesterday, our contract pack has been sent to our buyer, we're waiting on the management pack (DP is going to chase the company on Monday), but he hasn't received the contract pack from the couple we're buying from which is frustrating given it's 4 weeks today since our offer was accepted.

We've started listing big furniture we won't be taking with us for sale and clearing the loft/storage areas to get ourselves into a position of being a ready to pack properly once things start going through.

Forgot I’d posted here but all still largely progressing - buyer came round with a builder then finally booked a survey despite most of legal stuff being well underway. So now just awaiting whatever comes out of that. Everyone still talking about end of June/ start of July so let’s see. Still waiting for something to derail it all…

@WWBWBapparently I hope you find your perfect home soon. Having previously had an elderly dog and had to do the stealth crap search and recover on more than a few occasions, I'd also secretly be doing a little dance that I could' sell if I found the right place. The agents for our current ideal house purchase are still ignoring us/refusing a viewing as they've had one buyer, they 'hope' the seller will accept an offer for in for the past 2 weeks. This was following a 'huge' initial interest in the property back in April.

@hididdlyho that kind of behaviour from estate agents always makes me a bit suspicious that they’re trying to get a good deal for someone they know. I wonder if the seller knows they’re refusing a viewing?

@PyjamasForever It feels like there's something a bit shady going on. The house hasn't been marked as SSTC yet. The EA didn't really ask anything about our position. We do need to sell our house to fund the purchase, but we're paying cash for the remainder, so won't need to apply for a mortgage. We've also priced our house realistically and there's been lots of recent quick sales on our street and the next one over.

At this rate, we may end up selling our house, and go back the the agent to make an asking price offer without doing a viewing (with the condition we're actually allowed to view it)!

We’ve had an offer, and my prayers have been answered as they seem normal! Chain is complete with 3 separate transactions, top and bottom of chain are cash buyers so hoping that removes some risk….

how long are people finding conveyencing is taking at the min? I know last year there were massive backlogs, but presuming with the market so sluggish at the min that things can move a bit quicker? Am I mad to hope to be in by the end of July?

@hididdlyho just bonkers that you may have to make an offer just to view it!

@HouseMoveRound2 Congratulations! Good luck with conveyancing, we instructed end of March and still are not ready to exchange (but close!) with a 4 person chain. My top tip would be to make sure they request searches nice and promptly - ours hadn’t been requested after 4 weeks!!

We are three months in and haven’t even carried out searches yet - our conveyancer just isn’t responding and our vendors are totally shit, so not sure who is to blame. My suspicion is the vendors - they just seem useless with admin and are very unmotivated (probate). Our mortgage offer runs out in September so I’m assuming things will have moved on by then. Everyone is ignoring my emails.

Argh, so frustrating we have SSTC but just cannot find that perfect house. There is one contender but we have so many pros and cons

Pro’s - location, beautifully decorated with almost brand new kitchen and bathrooms, clean and bright, pretty garden. Plenty of parking. Detached.

Con’s - slightly too small lounge, galley kitchen with not quite enough work surface and stupidly low wall cupboards. overlooked north facing garden. 22 year old double glazing and boiler system. Not fan of the floor plan as you have to walk though the lounge to get to the kitchen.

Im wobbling on the cons but they are cons after all. We can spend on the things that need spending on if the price is right but we can’t change the fact the garden is very overlooked and north facing.