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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 · 07/10/2009 20:02

After being very pleased with yesterdays mortgage figures I am now pissed off.
What we were going to do was keep our existing mortgage and take out a 2nd product to top it up.
But it turns out that Halifax have just decided that because we've got money through a Key Worker scheme in the house too that they won't let us do that. Seems so unfair that anyone else would be allowed to but not us. They're clearing just desperate for us not to have a 1.19% tracker at all.

So we're having to keep all the key worker money- thought we'd be able to give back £16k of it- and extend the mortgage to 30 years and still pay £100 a month more than yesterday.

DebiTheScot · 07/10/2009 20:03

clearly not clearing. Don't know what happened there

goldenpeach · 07/10/2009 20:28

Fizzy, do you feel like sharing the link? could give you a personal opinion if you give me email address. In the quest of our perfect location we have researched so many counties!

Not keen on those houseselling sites, had bad experience a few years back as I encountered some really dodgy people. My DP says he would never go to visit a house through such a site as owners always overvalue properties. So there might be some prejudice.

I agree, reduce the number of pictures. Too many pictures make it easy to rule out, leave a bit of mystery to hook them in!

grumpyskater · 09/10/2009 21:22

I need to join this thread! Been renting for over a year, cannot find a house to buy!!

Yes, we're looking for the usual 3/4 bed, in Kingston, we are chain free, good deposit, but there is NOTHING! Fierce competition when something occasionally does come up. We actually had an offer - asking price - accepted 2 weeks ago, only to have the vendors pull out 4 days later!!!

I am getting grumpier by the minute and fed up with someone else's laminate bl**dy flooring. Nice tho' the landlords are.

Well - if you want to sell your house, especially if you live KT2 or KT1, just put it on the market (or get in touch!!)
Not sure where you'll find something to buy tho.... there's the catch.

jenniepanda · 10/10/2009 10:52

I like the fact that we have so many photos so that I know the people that do actually view are not wasting my time and there are no surprises for them. Also as we are relocating 200 miles away, I need to see lots of photos to be able to make sure I'm not wasting my time viewing either. I can't stand it when there are no photos of the inside and in some cases, not even a photo of the front of the house. It always looks to me like they are hiding something!

Fizzylemonade · 10/10/2009 12:31

My local EA said they don't photo the poor looking rooms so try to keep it to just 4 or 5. It gets more people through the door of the property but it can mean you have crap loads of viewings and no offers.

I would prefer someone to walk through my door already thinking that this house might be for them rather than "how do they fit a 16ft kitchen in that house" like we did when we viewed it.

I am the kind of person who works out whether my furniture would even fit in a house before I view it and I have to be serious about wanting it. I hate weekend viewers who see people's houses as entertainment for their dull Sunday.

With regard to over-valuing, anyone can over-value their house even with a traditional EA. There is a house near us which has the same asking price from almost 3 years ago and the EA (personal friend) has told them to please drop their price because it is ridiculous, but they won't. It even went on for far more than it was valued at.

Goldenpeach - thanks for the offer, I have the most neutral house ever, boring in every room, it was intentional as we knew we wouldn't stay.

We are very close to one of the best primary schools in the country so that should help move it. We know the negative to our house is that it is on a relatively small plot, but then aren't all modern estate houses built in the last 15 years and that the kitchen isn't nice looking but it is big for a 3 bed.

fruitspooksbatsintheeaves · 10/10/2009 12:39

we have put our house on the market and have a viewing scheduled already and the estate agent only took photos yesterday!
It's very scary as we have been in this house 19 years and we will have to sell dad's house too and he's been there for 47 years!

Wigeon · 10/10/2009 15:18

Hello Grumpyskater - hope something comes up soon!

Well, we went to see 7 houses this morning and are now mulling...

And if anyone has any thoughts on townhouses, please post on this thread where lots of lovely people shared their thoughts about their townhouses with me. I've linked on that thread to two of the townhouses we looked at, so nose around if you like! And tell me whether I should buy them or not!

(We have just done a spreadsheet scoring all the houses on 12 different factors in the hope the final score will tell us what house to buy - is anyone else that sad?!)

Wigeon · 10/10/2009 15:19

Oh, and good luck fruitspooks!

goldenpeach · 10/10/2009 18:08

Lucky you, not a sausage here. After ages there was an affordable house and when we viewed we found out why! The location was not right so not worth spending all that money on it. Pity you cannot take a house and move it elsewhere!

I'm getting resigned to rental but to add insult to injury we have already lost two houses to competition. Good grief, even renting a modest, standard three bedders seems to be a challege. We live an hour and a half by car via a busy motorway so it's not ideal for viewing.

On the 'bright side', we are just renting here so don't have the problem of selling.

goldenpeach · 10/10/2009 18:45

Fizzy, I couldn't resist a spot of internet investigation. I might have got it wrong, so my comment is totally irrelevant, but if I have to pass a comment on property I have just viewed, I'd say that I'd want to update one of the bathrooms and the kitchen so the asking price is a bit high (plus one terrace in the street sold for 100K in July, while a detached sold for 295 in May this year).

I would try and have a punt here on the boards by posting the link to your house. This week I got approached on a another thread by somebody who wants to sell their house, unfortunately we are not looking in that area anymore, which is a pity as her house sounds good and I'd have gone to view!

Maybe mumsnet could do a relocation board where people express their wishes for buying and selling? It would be great to be able to bypass EAs and talk to like-minded individuals direct.

Fizzylemonade · 11/10/2009 11:37

goldenpeach, have CAT'd you! Feel free to dis my house via email not publically, I don't think I could cope

No house round here would reach £300k unless it was an executive 4 bed

Looked at your profile, we used to live in West Midlands several years back. Loved it.

goldenpeach · 12/10/2009 13:31

Your house is good, Fizzy, you shouldn't worry about posting it!

Yesterday I got a bit desperate re our househunt in Cambridge and put an ad in Gumtree for a rental house. It's really the pits when despite wanting to buy, we cannot even find a house to rent.

Going round our current rental and freecycling/donating stuff so I'm not unprepared when we find something.

HouseHunting · 12/10/2009 14:11

OMG we have a house! The 1st house we offered on (we have offered on 3 houses) came back onto the market this morning & we got it & it has been taken off the market!! I am in shock! Good luck to everyone

Wigeon · 12/10/2009 17:21

Congratulations HouseHunting! That's fantastic!

DebiTheScot · 12/10/2009 18:16

yay great news soontobenothousehunting(hopefully)

NoseyNooNoo · 12/10/2009 19:50

I am little envious of the people on this thread who have houses to view. Only 3 houses have come up in our search area in the whole of 2009. We have leafletted twice too. I don't know how to 'make this happen' for us.

HouseHunting · 12/10/2009 21:08

Thank you Wigeon & DebiTheScot

NoseyNooNoo - have you tried placing an advert in yoiur local newspaper saying what you are looking for? Worth a shot. Wishing you lots of luck

mooki · 12/10/2009 21:43

We pulled out of our purchase after 3 days as the information about the neighbours just sounded too dodgy. I am gutted, it was a perfect house.

I feel paniced - like every day we don't have somewhere to buy, the prices are going up by thousands. I'm sure that's not strictly true...

Viewing something with potential tomorrow - looks nice, similar size to our current house but in a better area, a quieter road. For that priviledge; 95k more than we got for our place.

Wigeon · 13/10/2009 08:44

What a pain, mooki. Sounds like you had a narrow escape.

We have the same thing - same size houses in the nicer streets in the same town are at least £100k more than our house, which hardly costs a fortune to start with. Which is why we are moving to a less nice town 20 mins down the road - we can get a bigger house and a better street for the same budget.

Good luck with your viewing today - we are doing a second viewing later today too, so fingers crossed for us both!

abgirl · 13/10/2009 20:19

Hi All, mooki and widgeon hope your viewings have gone well. We are hoping to exchange this week - v much on tenderhooks though - us and our buyer are ready but not hearing a lot from our vendor - just need their responses to a final few queries we have raised and agreement to completion date and we are all systems go. Hoping to complete on 26th so we will have to pack blooming quick if exchange happens as planned this week...

goldenpeach · 15/10/2009 21:18

Hi mooki, where are you looking? Putting ads is not always the best thing. I put an ad on gumtree which was very detailed and got a list of properties from an agent miles away from Cambridge and some dodgy emails from people who wanted make to scam me with fake properties. Since we have been looking in Cambridge only two houses came up that we could afford and liked (and we are not being picky). We also lost two rental properties to competition. So you're not alone Nosey. The irony is that since we started our search we had a large radius in different counties and a year later we are still in rental and cannot find a thing. Changing towns have made no difference. It's ridiculous. Prices in Cambridge are still sky high, no sign of recession there (and good properties sell like hotcakes)as the offer is so limited.

goldenpeach · 16/10/2009 20:47

Update: we offered on a wreck in Cambridge but having been outbid through same EA on another property, we are not holding our breath.

I'm hoping the fact it has no central heating will put people off.

Yet the EA told us they have two offers at asking price. We said we can complete in a few weeks but I think they are trying to engineer another bid war. I'm not emotionally attached to this property, but if we get it we will be OK as we have budget and some DIY skills for renovation.

Still looking for a rental (in vain), we will need to rent even if we get wreck.

Wigeon · 17/10/2009 14:26

Gosh, it's such a rollercoaster goldenpeach! You sound quite sanguine about it though.

We put an offer in yesteday, got it rejected (was totally expecting that), upped the offer, and now are on complete tenterhooks, waiting for the estate agents to ring back!

HouseHunting · 17/10/2009 17:07

Good luck goldenpeach & Wigeon, I really hope your offers are accepted as I know how demoralising this whole process is. Even though we have just this week had an offer accepted on a house we can not tie in the completion dates, so we will have to rent for 2 weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed for you

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