The 'We want to buy a house' support group

[fruitstick]

For like minded souls who are having trouble buying a house even though the property market is supposed to be on its knees.

We've had a vendor pull our, been gazumped and are horrified by the complete lack of any houses for sale at all.

So come share your woes here.

Me too ! Scottie22 do you live in the same village as me ( only things for sale on an overpriced development, lots of bedrooms but small lounge/kitchen dinner all in one and next to a busy road). Probably going to offer on a house we saw today - positive vibes please!!

Rox and Puffy - many thanks - will get it started early this week.

HI, fruitstick, I will join too! Still looking in Cambridge and the good news is that prices have gone down a tad (finally, although not enough) but supply were small. Luckily all those who have school children are out of the way now, but I think it will be another rental, sigh! The telling thing though is that many of the houses for sale are 500K to 1 million pounds, so I think that if you decide to sell in autumn/winter you must be desperate to cash in your money! Unfortunately we cannot afford those.

Somebody mentioned shortage of three to four bed houses, I agree and it's a national problem as we have looked in so many counties before choosing Cambridge... Meanwhile more small homes and flats are built, who wants those? Nobody as they are all unsold in many regions. The stock of flats and two beds is massive already. We need good three to four beds at affordable prices.

Another problem is that the owners of family houses are really greedy, they want to cash in and get a nice pension fund. They ask ridiculous amount of money for houses that need complete update with everything in it worn out. Some are finally realising that we are not made of money and times are hard, so a few 'grand' houses have come down massively. Some sold prices are quite shocking too. There was this house in a really pricey area of Oxford which had 400K asking price, it sold for 243. I was shocked to find this out!

Interesting article in the Times today talking about sellers withdrawing from the market waiting for prices to rise but banks refusing to offer the financing to allwo people to get bigger mortgages.

This last bit of the article perhaps explains why people are struggling to buy or even find a home to buy:

"Yet many of those who would willingly pay up to secure a new home are struggling, as lenders continue to thwart their ambitions with demands for deposits of 40 per cent or more for a competitive deal.

Rightmove has accused lenders of competing to ?cherry-pick the cash-rich? and warns that it could take ten years for the banking system to return to normality.

Mr Shipside said: ?Many aspiring sellers could face years trapped in their homes until values rise enough for them to join the equity-rich club.?

Can I join? I am in a 3 bed detached, been on the market 2 weeks, want a 4 bed, have viewed several and want at least one of them for definite and no compromising on that one.

Wanted to move 2 years ago, this was a stepping stone house but the market went crazy so we stayed put.

The house is big enough for us but it was never our intention to stay so it has always been just a house, never a home

Someone please just buy our house we are willing to make a deal on the asking price, never be afraid to ask what a vendor will drop down to.

We sold our flat back in July and are probably going to be out on the street at some point next month. One purchase fell through as the surveyor and builder pointed to such a huge amount of work and money (and when we went round again we could really see all the work) that we reduced the offer and they wouldn't take it. Not so much of a dream house that we would buy it and pay an overinflated price to get it!

As everyone says though, very few houses about and those which are any nice and going v fast. Not helped by the fact my hubby has just gone to Yemen for 3 weeks!

We're going to try to rent somewhere near where we currently are and fingers crossed something will come up which we can afford!

I'm beginning to pull my hair out. We're 4 weeks into our condition of completion within 4 weeks and our solicitor STILL hasn't been able to make contact with the vendors solicitor. Our sale is going well if you speak to the solicitor but I know that there is STILL NO MORTGAGE for our buyers. They need a valuation survey which they've not done in their million surveys. All the surveys they've done so far have been independant . And I've not had a call for it even to be arranged.

On a more positive front the inheritance money that we need to buy the house is being wired through to me tomorrow so I'm going to have a very large number in my bank account for a while which is going to be very difficult to make sure I don't touch. Maybe should sort an online savings account or something so its out of the way until we need it.

rebl - we have our capital scattered across several accounts, many offering over 3%. You are covered for £50,000 per institution if a bank goes under (£100,000 for a joint account).

Worth bearing in mind.

Alternatively stick it all in National Savings Income Bonds and not worry about it.

We haven't a hope in hell of buying a house anytime soon

Would need ridiculous deposit to get anything bigger than a shed, and we live in the SE in an area of v good selective grammar schools and short train ride to London = us staying in our tiny little two bedroom and renting until we are 70 odd

Plus we have lots of lovely people renting houses for 6mths-1yr to fulfill catchment area addresses. They then feck off to wherever it is they actually live and another lot come along and do the same thing

I do like to post this often but if you are feeling depressed about not being able to afford a house then read www.housepricecrash.co.uk - renting might not seem such a bad option after all!!

...I would of course buy a house at the drop of a hat if they weren't so outrageously expensive in my area!!

I can afford buying a house as I have been climbing the ladder for a few years (painfully as my first house was terrible) but I cannot afford paying crazy prices set by greedy owners. I'm talking about those well off oldies who want to sell high and buy low - ideally a rock bottom price bungalow.

They don't care that by the time we are their age we won't have any pension nor financial stability but are still eager to grab all our savings in exchange of their worn out houses that need everything done.

Abetadad, very well put, pity that these sellers can't (or won't) read informative article that are telling the truth about this recession. They only listen to the rubbish spouted by Estate Agents who are desperate to secure houses even if the price doesn't make any sense.

Made an offer on a house today but it was too low ! Can't/won't offer any more. Sob.....

We have seen a house that would be perfect for both us and my dad who is struggling on his own now. However our house is not yet on the market as we need to first sort the legalities of moving dad with us. I think the other house will be sold before its all sorted and I have not seen anything like it in the 5 years I've been looking

I spoke to a very grumpy estate agent on Saturday who said that some agents are overvaluing properties by up to 20% as they are so desperate to get the house on their books.

This is giving owners an inflated sense of what it is worth and not accepting realistic offers.

He wants all owners to pay for their own marketing, that way they might be more inclined to sell and not waste everyone's time with speculative listings.

Like I said, he was very grumpy

Can I join? Properties prices in my area have increased by 10% since last March when we are supposed to be in a recession. Vendors are playing, pulling out, gazumping or plain unreasonable.

Am so desperate i am considering calling Phil and Kirsty to the rescue!

Hi, I'd like to join too. Have had a very long winded process selling our house - was on the market between April 08 and April 09 and then we took it off as fed up with contstant viewings and no offers (lovely house, rubbish location), and we got DS1 into a lovely primary school that we are out of catchment for. Then in July EA rung us to say a woman who'd seen our house with a friend earlier in the year wanted to buy it and was in a position to make an offer. She viewed twice and we accepted her second offer. So we had spent months looking at houses but the minute we were actually able to put in a proper offer we couldn't find anything .

We have since had 2 houses fall through. We pulled out the first after major issues with the survey and legal pack (i.e. a potential oil field 500m away) and were gazumped on the second. We are now onto our third which is pleasingly our favourite so far. Survey was done last friday so we are waiting for the report and keeping our fingers crossed everything will go OK - we have started talking potential dates for contracts and completion so that's positive I think.

We are in Aldershot, Hants btw...

We have our first viewing this morning

Only he's got a property to sell that's currently on the market

How come, I've been deliberately holding off viewing houses so that I don't fall for anything, until we have an offer in place. Why do people bother ? What is the point ? Grrrr...

Just trawled rightmove and several properties that have been on for a while up here have just gone under offer, so it's definitely looking more promising in our area. We just need some viewings and the right offer now

Thats interesting about EA's fruitstick. Up here, I think they're inflating the prices again in an effort to get people to put their properties on. But unrealistically IMO

Can I join too? Our house went on the market on Tuesday and we have already had 5 viewings, with 3 more scheduled for Saturday . Am surprised because it's an ex-council house in possibly the worst street in a generally lovely town (St Albans). But at least that means it's a bargain! And I think it is rather nice inside at least .

We are looking to upsize and move to a nicer street, so probably looking to buy in Watford.

I think I will need quite a bit of emotional support so this thread is great!

Where is everyone else selling? Where are you looking to buy? If you aren't a first time buyer, are you waiting to sell your current house before viewing ones you might want to buy, or have you started looking or even putting in offers?

Got someone coming round for the second viewing tomorrow! Tell me not to get excited! And 4 other first viewings scheduled for tomorrow too. Not counting our chickens until they've hatched though.

How is everyone else getting on?

Wigeon - that's fab. We've had 10 viewings in 2 years!!! Hope it goes well for you.

Wigeon -

We had feedback to say the viewer would offer on our property if he'd sold his own. Really, what is the point !

Any news from your saturday viewings ?

Can I join too?

Accepted an offer on our house this week- got what we wanted from a couple who only saw it once! Were only on the market about 4 weeks so was very excited to get the offer.

BUT there's nothing out there for us to buy that is in the area I want to live in. There's not been much coming up in the last month and what does is either no good or has sold before we were in a position to do anything.

I'm finding it hard to deal with the fact that it's all out of our control and there's no way of knowing if or when anything will come up.
If I knew nothing will come up where I want to live I'd be happier to look at other areas. It's getting me down already. Thought it was meant to be exciting looking for houses?!?

Ok, ok, stop feeling jealous, the "second viewing" pulled out because they drove round our area on Friday night and apparently saw "something kicking off outside McDonalds"....

Not feeling too dispondant though because we still had the 4 other first viewings.

Congratulations Debi on your offer! Hey - why not buy our house?! Are you a Scot in Scotland or a Scot who wants a loooovely 3 bedroom house in St Albans?! Or if not , have you thought of moving into rented?

Everyone else - still curious about the answers to my earlier questions (post at 12:48) if you feel like sharing.