any other buyers having a nightmare at present??

[hatesponge]

or is it just me?! I seem to be unable to get an offer accepted, let alone then struggle through the hurdles of surveys, exchange etc!

saga as follows:

House 1: reasonable price, requires extensive modernisation. Being sold by elderly owner's family. Viewed it, but even before I had a chance to make an offer, EA rang to say has been withdrawn from market, they are reconsidering

House 2: repossession. Viewed, made offer. Takes a week to be rejected. Increased offer made, rejected within the hour and told someone else has had an offer - higher than mine - accepted. Board goes up Sold STC etc.

A month later, house back up 'For sale' again. Call EA, & am told buyers havent dropped out, but as they havent exchanged w/in 28 days, EA have been asked to put back up for sale - however buyers are still proceeding, & still expecting to exchange & will do as soon as possible

House 3: perfect house, no work at all required, saw it advertised on rightmove yesterday for the first time - I check weekly so it had obviously only just gone up. Phone EA today, told its already Sold STC (not what it said on website), but they are still having viewings. Leave my details, don't get a call back & on checking tonight house is no longer on rightmove so not sure whats hapened there but doesn't look good.

Am in a good position, no house to sell.....it's driving me mad. In some ways it seems harder to buy a house now than when the market was rising! Is it just me? Anyone else in the same boat? Or with words of wisdom?

yes me too. We are chain free with huge deposit (relative to the price of property). Lots of houses still quite a lot considering the state of the market, EAs seem to sneer at low offers despite no evidence to support high asking prices (previous house prices etc).

total stress! we are in the same boat as the people in your scenario of house 2 - except we are the other people iyswim.
our offer was accepted over other offer (if other viewers even existed - i have my doubts!) sold stc went up on website for a week then next thing 'our' house was back on market until exchange ie. open to anyone else wiht cash who wants to gazump us

we were on the market 2 and a half years before selling to our current buyers so have seen, fallen in love with and lost a few homes now!

just need to sit tight and remember that it will all fall in to place for all of us eventually (i hope!)

Yep, in exactly the same situation and same boat - not cash buyers but have a big deposit and living in rented right now. Have been looking to buy for past 6 months, but weren't in any rush as it seemed prices in our area had hardly fallen. Offered on a few places and either had EA laugh at us because offer too low, or were beaten out by higher offer (only in one case and it was kind of a one-off in terms of having some developable land with it, so not that surprising).

Now finding that very little is left on the market (some things sold, some just withdrawn as seller did not really need to move, I guess). What there is, is largely priced at higher-than-peak prices, which we are simply unwilling to pay. So kind of a stalemate here. Basically my feeling is, I'm not prepared to compromise on such a huge purchase (by paying well over the odds for something not that great) - and I am also not sure whether all these people putting houses on at very high prices would in fact be willing to accept lower prices, or whether they're just trying to take advantage of the apparent spring bounce.

In reality I don't see any signs of recovery in the economy at all, think it will still get worse for some time before it gets better and unemployment is definitely rising (and for those of us in the private sector like me and DH, no raises and no bonuses, and just keeping fingers crossed we don't get made redundant). And we can all see how much food and basics have gone up in price, due to the devaluation of the pound. So it's pretty hard to see what is supporting the current more positive sentiment on property, other than the continued British obsession with owning property at all costs, and the fact that there are lots of people apparently sitting on piles of cash which they don't know what to do with.

Long story short, we're waiting (though I really have no idea what will happen next), but also frustrated.

well, at least I am not alone

Chased agents 5 times today regarding house 3 above. After being told various times when the vendors couldn't have me round to view (I had previously said I would view ANYTIME) I finally got a call at 7pm tonight saying oh actually they've decided they dont want any more viewers & are going to stick with the current offer

I then proceeded to give the agent a (not inconsiderable) piece of my mind. Why - given that I have said if I like the house I'd be looking to offer more than is on the table - would they NOT want to see me? Who in their right mind turns down money?!

I smell a rat

I also officially hate estate agents.

Exactly what I'm worried about, this.

We're under offer, looks good, but have not found anywhere to buy in our area that we really like and/or isn't on at a silly price.

Plan is to rent, and be in a good position (cash buyers, no chain, etc etc) but...soo many doing the same thing. Just nothing coming on, and what there is is at high prices - whereas we dropped ours, and were prepared to move out and rent. Infuriating.

hatesponge, commiserations....sounds beyond infuriating. I recommend chocolate and a good night's sleep, and hope tomorrow brings better luck.

Oh this kind of makes me feel better - but also worse. we accepted an offer on our house almost 3 weeks ago but are unable to find anything suitable on the market where we want to move to. A couple of things have come up but seem very overpriced to me - it does seem that EA are taking advantage of the spring bounce. Really don't want to rent as we have a very low mortgage and are going to have to pay almost 3 times that amount to rent somewhere much smaller than our lovely house. Also don't want to lose our buyers who are paying asking price for our house. Nightmare....

Those of you who are renting - are you on six month min contracts? Does anyone know if short term rentals are available? If we do end up renting don't want to get in the situation where we are tied into a contract for 6 months and unable to move quickly on any houses that come up and are suitable.

Where are you all? We are in NW London and looking to move to Cambridge - just wondering is this situation is the same in other areas?

We're in SW London, and staying in same area...re lets, I think you could get a short 'holiday let' but the prices are likely to be higher.

FWIW, my dh seems to be quite good on economic predictions, and thinks there will be another wave of price drops over the next 12-18 months...probably more than 10%. So if you can rent, and hold your nerve, its probably worth doing from a purely £ point of view - currently, EAs are definitely trying to boost the market and prices are up around here from a few months ago

Me, I haven't a clue - having a hard time holding my own nerve, but am going to try!

Thanks for that Elibean - I'm trying to hold my nerve too but feeling very very wobbly about the whole thing today. Are you actually in rented at the mo or still in your house? I'm even thinking should we not sell at the mo - but know that would be crazy as we do want to move out of this area and are lucky to have the asking price on our house in the current market. More chocolate called for I think ...............

Mins, check out the 'Property Pundits' thread - lots to cheer you up there re prices dropping further later in the year!

We're not in rental yet, but looking for one as soon as we exchange. Do look at that thread though, will save you lbs in chocolate

Thanks for that Elibean - def does make me feel better but swallowing the pill of having to pay a huge rent (much bigger than our current mortgage) is a hard one to take!

Join the club. The irony is we are not fussy. We have been viewing in several counties 'north of London' (beds, warks, cambs, lincs, now oxfordshire)and not a sausage. We have cash, we are renting as we sold our house. We are even prepared to get a mortgage if needed be. Sadly if you're higher on the ladder you meet very unrealistic sellers who want to sell their house higher than prices in 2007. We were realistic in selling ours and we are not prepared to shoulder a huge debt to finance their retirement plans or their greed. And to add insult to injury all these houses need lots of work/updating. Now we are awaiting to hear about an offer on a house, we improved our offer four weeks ago - the EA is very keen on it but not a peep from the sellers.

Honestly I think things will keep going down. I don't actually think the recession has worked through yet, a lot of companies will be working from contingency funds, or on big contracts that they might not be able to replace.

Mins - we are also in Cambridge, and in rented accomodation looking to buy, and I have to say we have even contemplated a move back to London as there is so little on the market here. what there is, is generally priced at peak price or above (at least in our price range). discouragingly, some of this is actually selling at these silly prices just because there's nothing else around.

It seems like in London there is much more realism in part because there are just so many more properties so at least there's some competition and some people who really need to sell. Also in London it seems like most people have done up the houses nicely, whereas in Cambridge I find people expect you to pay top dollar for properties that have still got only one bathroom, an ancient boiler, and 1950s lino on the floor. We're staying put for now due to schools/my job, but we're about to renew our rental contract as seeing how little is coming on the market here, I can't imagine we're going to find something to buy any time soon.

Mizzan - good to hear your views on Cambridge. There is such a shortage of property there I really find it hard to believe. We leafleted houses in Impington (which is our preferred location) and are going for a second viewing this weekend but I'm not 100% sure but also feel quite pressured into finding somewhere. we've planned this move for a while and having sold our house (or at least finding a buyer) we never imagined it would be so hard to find somewhere to buy. did you move straight into rental there from London? Are you central Cambridge?