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Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

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Original poster

The 'We want to buy a house' support group

245 replies

fruitstick · 16/09/2009 22:55

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.

OP posts:

DebiTheScot · 26/09/2009 19:38

lol Wigeon. We are in England but nowhere near you. We're in North Hampshire. Do want a 3 bed house though.
Not seriously thought about renting- mainly because I can't bear the thought of doubling what we pay now on our mortgage to pay the rent (we'll have to do that when we buy but at least there's a point to it then)

DebiTheScot · 26/09/2009 19:43

Wigeon:

Where is everyone else selling? Farnborough
Where are you looking to buy? Farnborough- about a mile away from this house.
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? We looked at some but didn't put offers in as there's no point. The ones we looked at though were either no good or have since sold.

jenniepanda · 26/09/2009 22:34

Wigeon, we are currently in Chorley, Lancashire in a lovely, reasonably price 4 bed detached if anyone is interested in it! We are re-locating to Cambridgeshire, not quite sure yet, but probably the Huntingdon area. We are not going looking until we have a firm offer on this one. As previously mentioned we had accepted one offer, went and found a lovely house and then lost it all, plus the cost of the survey when our buyers buyer pulled out of the process. I look on right move every day to keep up with what's selling down there, but at the moment all I can do is dream.

NoseyNooNoo · 26/09/2009 23:13

An estate agent that I've only spoken to once before rang this week - he was very excited since he had THE house for us - it ticked all the boxes and was certain we'd want to buy it so I was very excited too.

The problem was that it was the house we pulled out of 2 weeks ago, the one with the asbestos problem. Interestingly, he had no idea it had been previously marketed, having been told by the vendor that the sale was a spontaneous decision (surely the date of the HIP gave it away). He also had no idea the house had so many problems and I made sure he realised that the vendor was not a great person to deal with.

And, to add insult to injury, it's on for £50k more than we were offering, before we realised it needed tens of thousands of pounds worth of work on it.

MarquesDeLeon · 26/09/2009 23:14

Should start a property board with postcodes - we are cash buyers in rented looking for a 4+ bed detached in WD3 - you'd think it would be easy wouldn't you?? Been looking for ages.

MarquesDeLeon · 26/09/2009 23:15

Not all doom and gloom. Have been leafleting actually - had a couple of hits so fingers crossed!!!

NoseyNooNoo · 26/09/2009 23:18

Lucky you - I spent several weekends leafleting and got one (rubbish) response. I hope it works out for you.

MarquesDeLeon · 26/09/2009 23:24

Don't lose heart Nosey - this is our third attempt at leafleting (different roads).

MarquesDeLeon · 26/09/2009 23:27

Put leaflets through all houses - even those you think might be too expensive.

puffylovett · 27/09/2009 13:17

Nosey - Thats dreadful. I would be so tempted to put a shitty note through that vendors door.

I suppose there is no chance he's had the work done on the place, and that's why the price has rocketed ? That could surely be the only reason. Some people are just shocking aren't they

NoseyNooNoo · 27/09/2009 15:15

The work definitely hasn't been done in that time. I drive past it several times a week and there would be a contamination unit outside for over a week. Besides, it takes the Health and Safety Executive a couple of weeks to approve the commencement of such work.

That man is a bad'un!

elvislives · 27/09/2009 16:44

Joining this thread. House has been on the market for just over a week. Loads of viewings but no snifter of an offer. I've already moved out (and in with my mum ) because I have started a new job but DH and the DSs are back at home.

Have been browsing on rightmove but not looking seriously until (if) we get a buyer. Scarily houses here (SW) seem to be going really fast so I hope there will be something left that we can afford if we ever get to that stage. It is so depressing.

hollyhobbie · 28/09/2009 19:49

I guess this might be the thread for me then!

Feeling very glum today: we are first time buyers, have been living abroad and renting there for 6+ years, now we're back in the UK we're thinking about buying. Especially since the way tenants are treated here is not as good as on the continent. There it was OUR house until we moved out, here we have to get written permission to sneeze, it seems.

DH is earning a pretty good salary, we have what I thought was a good deposit but it turns out isn't that great (only 21% of the house we've seen). We have no debts.

We've found a house that we like, it's a big project that will need a lot of money sinking into it, but we think it could be worth it, we can see it becoming a real home for us. However, we just can't afford it.

I always thought it was cheaper (monthly repayment-wise) to pay a mortgage than to rent, but we're looking at monthly payments that are 30% more than we're paying at the moment in rent. We could probably -just- stretch to that, but it would leave no money for paint, a new bathroom, electrics, let alone all the building work we're dreaming of.

Everyone's banging on about what a great time it is for 1st time buyers and it's just SO not (unless you have that magical over 40% deposit...)

Hum.

rebl · 28/09/2009 20:09

jenniepanda - You're looking to move close to my parents. Lovely area of the country .

I'm starting to get ants in my pants and worrying about the lack of movement on the part of our vendors. 4 weeks into my condition of moving in 8weeks from offer and STILL no contact from their solicitors. It would seem their whole office has disappeared into the ether and no one can get hold of them. Scared they're going to pull out .

rebl · 28/09/2009 20:10

Plus, where the hell is my written mortgage offer? Its been well over 2 weeks since the valuation survey report was recieved by us. What are they doing?

jenniepanda · 28/09/2009 20:55

rebl - if we ever do get a buyer then I'll be back for some location advice! Hope your move picks up momento soon.

mooki · 28/09/2009 22:05

OOh I need to join too. We got a good offer on our place today but found out 5 minutes later that the place we wanted had been sold on Saturday, despite the fact we had asked the agent to let us know if anything was happening. rrrrrr.

Original poster

fruitstick · 28/09/2009 22:12

Absolutely no houses have come onto the market since I started this thread and we move into our second rental place next week - so are signed up for another 6 months .

We too, are looking for a 4+ bed detached and have a 50% deposit but can't find one for love nor money. Am slightly sick of estate agents ringing up to offer us any old shit hoping it will do.

Rebl Fingers crossed your vendors turn up.

Hope everyone else's viewings go well.

OP posts:

HouseHunting · 29/09/2009 13:39

fruitstick we are in the same position:

Will be going into rented mid Nov
Looking for a 4 bed house
Have a 50% deposit
We are in Herts

Nothing on the market & anything nice gets snapped up before you get chance to make an appt to view. Hoping (praying?) now that we are chain free we will have more success.

Good luck all

DebiTheScot · 29/09/2009 14:17

we haven't had anything in writing from our agents yet about having sold. Should we have? The board has already changed to say Sold outside though.
Could it be coz we haven't instructed our solicitors yet? We should do that this week but have to wait to get house valued by an independant person because we've got money from Thames Valley Housing tied up in it too that they lent us to buy this house because of me being a teacher.

Going to see a house on Thurs but wouldn't be surprised if it either sells before then or is no good as it seems cheaper than it should be!
Don't know if we like it anyway as you have to go through the dining room to get to the living room and don't know if the rooms are the right size to swap them round.

Wigeon · 29/09/2009 22:02

Gosh, what a nightmare, NoseyNooNoo.

Sorry to hear others are in various frustrating positions too - fingers crossed things get moving for you all. At least for those in rented you are a vendor's top favourite buyer type.

Congratulations on selling, Debi - is that since Saturday?

Where in Herts are you looking, HouseHunting? We are in St Albans, probably looking at Watford.

Our good news is: been on the market a week and had our first offer!!!! The bad news is: it was £40k under the asking price (which is not exactly huge). So we said earlier today they are taking the piss and there is now a deadly silence. Oh well - not feeling despondent yet.

NoseyNooNoo · 29/09/2009 23:04

The house we were buying is now on the estate agents website and is described as 'very well maintained' - what a joke!

DebiTheScot · 30/09/2009 09:43

Wigeon- we accepted the offer last Wed after having the house on the market for about 4 weeks.
Did your offer get increased?

Nosey- hearing things like that really makes you wonder how much of any house description is true. It's scary how much they will lie or exagerate to sell a house.

abgirl · 30/09/2009 13:22

Debi, you won't hear from the EA until you pass on your solicitors details to them and then you'll get a memorandum of sale. We're very close to you (Aldershot) and I can recommend an excellent specialist conveyor if you're interested...

abgirl · 30/09/2009 13:29

Update on us, surveyor's report back with no real surprises. Mortgage offer received , just waiting for some searches to come back and have a few queries to clear up with vendor and will be ready to exchange. Our buyer ready to exchange. Luckily that will be the complete change, keeping my fingers crossed...

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