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.

Hope you don't mind me joining this thread, it seems like you all really know what you are doing when it comes to buying/selling houses! [clueless]

DH and I bought our house in 2005 at the height of the property boom. We are now looking to buy something larger as we are TTC. The problem is whilst our salaries have increased a lot since we bought our house, we have nothing like a 25% deposit or whatever crazy amount lenders want these days. We have approx 15k in savings (bear in mind this is the north east so your money goes a lot lot further!) and we also have what we have paid off our mortgage.

The thing I don't understand is though, how can we go to a mortgage lender and say, we have XX% deposit, when we don't know how much our house will sell for? Does that make sense? We've had it valued at 5k LESS than we paid for it which whilst disheartening TBH probably isn't reality- its probably more like 10k less.

So I suppose what Im asking is, how can we get a mortgage when our deposit is crucuial to what we sell the house at, does that mke sense? And has anyone come across any 10% mortgages?

Thanks

Hi notamumyetbutoneday - you will just have to guess what you will get for your house - did the EA say we will put the house on for X b& hope to get X? When we had our house on the market we went to the bank to discuss mortgages & we presumed we'd get X amount for our house & took it from there. I'm afraid I haven't seen any 10% mortgages - have a look on Mrtin's Money Tip to see what you can find. Good luck with it all & also with the TTC

notamumyetbutoneday- you should still be able to get a mortgage. 2nd time buyers are quite 'safe' compared to 1st timers. What we did was before we put ours on the market (but after it was valued) we went to the bank our current mortgage is with and asked them to do a mortgage promise just to get an idea of if we could even afford to look and what the monthly repayments would be. We were shocked at how much they would lend us and wouldn't have wanted to borrow that much.

If you sell for 5k less you'll still make money as you'll have paid off more than 5k of the mortgage (I'm guessing).

kitkatcadaverqueen- I would if I was very confident my house would sell quick. I wouldn't want that hanging over me for long.

I phoned the surveyor this morn to ask if our report had been sent out and was told the survey wasn't done last week as the house was infested with fleas!!!
They were waiting on the EA getting someone in to fumigate then tell them they could go in and do it again. I was really annoyed that noone had told me.
So after 2 phone calls to the EA they have said that its been fumigated and they are waiting on the surveyor getting back to them. Grrr

Hello notamummyet and kitkat!

Notamummyyet - you could talk everything through with an Independent Financial Adviser - we were recommended one by a (very money-savvy) friend and he has been fantasic. Cost us not a penny and has come to our house and sat down for hours at an end helping us with the mortgage. He has gone through all sorts of scenarios and comes up with figures literally at the push of a button, when it was taking us ages and ages to do all the calculations on a spreadsheet. You can find a local one here. Or if you are Beds / Herts / Bucks I can recommend you ours!!

mooki and Househunting - thank you for the sympathy! I knew when I joined the thread that I'd need the emotional support!

kitkat - depends a lot on the relative I'd say, but yes.

Debi - gr! At least you know you will be moving into a flea-free house!! (fingers crossed)

Finally heard back from our estate agents - our vendor is still negotiating on the property he wants to buy, so we have been braved and issued the "if you don't sort this out in the next 24 hours we are pulling out". Not a bluff either, because we will. Ha! DH said I rocked on the phone to the EA so at least I have the small satisfaction of being Mrs Hard Nosed Negotiator (not my preferred style usually...).

I am sooooo glad my day job doesn't involve this kind of negotiating! I'm not sure my blood pressure could stand it!

Well, we offered 5k under the asking price and agreed on 3k under - which covers the stamp duty so not to be sniffed at. I can't get excited though as we were in this position about 3 weeks ago and it all went tits up.

It's a smaller and cheaper house then the others we'd looked at but we'd plan to use the difference in cost to build a 2 storey extension. Are we nuts? I think/hope we'd just about manage in the space that exists to begin with - we've never done building work - oh joy.

Thanks for your replies, thats really helpful. The people who valued our house (we had two estate agents give us valuations) were a bit clueless really- very vague in a kind of "Well you could put it on at X and just see what happens..." which I suppose is understandable given the state of the market.

Wigeon, thank you for that link, an IFA is a really good idea and would certainly give us the fastest response I suppose in terms of whether our piddly deposit will be enough.

Good luck to you all in your house buying/selling- we have this all to come! I rememebr how stressful it was just BUYING a house- the concept of now trying to buy AND sell one at the same time seems over-whelming.

Fingers crossed mooki! Still awaiting an answer but nothing to rent either, eek, will I be still here at Xmas?

Our house purchase has just officially fallen through !

Vendor refused move into rented (as he promised when we made the offer), and his attempted purchase has just failed as he offered too low. He's instructed the EA to put the property back on the market at £10k more than the previous asking price and is hoping to achieve the old asking price so that he can then afford the kind of place he wants to buy. Why oh why did he not figure out his sums before accepting our (lower) offer and putting us through all this stress?!

Two more viewings booked in for tomorrow though, so we are doing everything possible not to loose our buyers...they've already paid for the survey on our place and last time they came round their daughter (aged about 5) was pointing out where her rabbit hutch would go! So we can't let them down!!

sorry to hear that Wigeon - were any of the places you saw on tuesday any good?

Oh Wigeon I really feel for you, it will happen, hopefully you believe in fate and that it is all happening for a reason like the perfect house is just about to come on the market

How did the viewings go?

We have now had 2 viewings on our house and we have a 2nd viewing tonight!! God I feel sick.

So do I just leave them to it to wander round? It is a strange one as it is her 2nd viewing of our house but will be his 1st. We all know that the woman usually decides

Off to clean and tidy, hopefully it won't take long as we had a viewing Monday so it is still relatively tidy from that.

I am thankful for in car DVD player that Dh puts on for the boys when he takes them out for the viewings

Thank you guys! Place 1 we saw on Tuesday was on one of those Stepford Wives / Truman Show perfect gated developments, 4 bed townhouse, 4 toilets , so we rejected it on the basis it was too perfect . Place 2 was ok but a bit far out of town and on a busy road. But haven't rejected completely.

Seeing two places today, but just found out that the one which is a 2nd viewing will start their househunting once they get an offer, so we'd be in a bit of an unknown chain.

Good luck with the second viewing! There's probably nothing you can do about it - if it was me I'd just let them wander round if the wife already knows the place. Like the idea of tidying up your boys into the car!!

Well the car is better than a cage

Keeps them out of the way and DH must look really strange parked up somewhere with 2 children watching a DVD in the back!

They also like being out when it is dark, it is a novelty.

We have already viewed houses so know where we would like to go to and they are all still available. One did say they would go into rented as they are relocating, makes me nervous now after your disaster Wigeon

Good luck everyone with your house selling & hunting. I am really sorry to hear about the house Wigeon I know how demoralising it is & I thought we'd never get a house but the 1st house we offered on back in June came back on the market &, as you know, we got it...so never give up hope hun.
Am feeling pretty miffed as our solicitor hasn't received anything from the vendor's solicitor yet, despite chasing them last Friday. We are hoping to complete 4 weeks tomorrow so am feeling rather nervous about it all. Have told our soicitor to chase again & DH has been on the phone to the EA to chase up the vendor. Ugh!!!

Yes, Househunting, when your offer gets accepted, the mightmare is not over yet... New horrors await till you clutch your keys in sweaty hands...

Things are getting crazier at my end as DP has now changed his mind again and wants to buy in Oxford now, it's so deja vu!

NO news from Cambridge offer (we are not the only ones offering, so competition is bound to hot up), then saw a new house in Oxford today and I'm feeling rather confused.

I know & both solicitors are playing a tit for tat game. Ugh.

I have been wondering about your offer & meaning to post - it seems ages since you offered. Oxford is nice too btw

Good luck.

Had second viewing, all seemed to go really well, lots of "isn't this lounge lovely" and "isn't this en-suite amazing" both of them seemed to be in agreement.

Loved it, were here 35 mins, seemed reluctant to leave, almost felt like they were looking at each other and wondering whether to say something like maybe an offer......said they were off to the pub (very location location location)

so where is their offer???

Have rang EA to get them to call and get feedback. I hate this house selling/buying process. No wonder they say it is stressful.

Seen anything you like Wigeon?

Oooh, that's exciting. Try not to get your hopes up though!!

Goldenpeach - how come you are looking in either Oxford or Cambridge? Would you both need to get new jobs? DH grew up in Oxford and I went to Cambridge and have always harboured a dream that maybe we'd live there one day, but the prices are crazy, aren't they. But lovely cities to bring a family up in.

We saw one house the other day which we are quite tempted by, but like all the others it's not perfect (needs quite a lot of cosmetic work, not our top best location, 3 bed not 4 bed) but does tick quite a few boxes (a bit bigger than current house, nice garden, potential to extend, nicer street than current house, off-street parking). And chain-free so we wouldn't have to move into rented! We are trying not to let that short-term attraction govern which house we buy to live in for the next 10+ years though!

PS in the meantime I seem to have come down with what looks suspiciously like swine flu (according to the NHS symptom thingie), wasn't even up to mumsnetting yesterday , have at least recovered sufficiently to do a little light mumsnetting today...

Haven't cuddled DD since Thursday evening though so as not to infect her ...I think she thinks I don't like her any more!

Well...... I am mid-negotiations with CASH BUYER!!!!!!

they driving hard bargain and we are dropping down, but rang EA of house we want, can't nake an offer as ours isn't sold but enquired if he could come down a bit on his asking price so we can tell cash buyer where we are...

they said no it has been on the market for 18 months and they have had to drop their price (dur clearly) so they aren't willing to drop ANYTHING! Not even £5k

I am here with a bloody cash buyer!!!

Vendor told EA "he didn't need to move" errr why is your house on the market then?

So it looks like we will go into rented. Sigh. Am not prepared to lose a cash buyer! We almost on the same page price wise.

Oooh exciting Wigeon - are you going to have a 2nd viewing?

Fab news Fizzy but at the Vendor of the house you like. When you have agreed a price with the cash buyers you can always make an offer on the house anyway. You have nothing to lose & the Vendor may accept. Good luck!!!

I know but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

My cash buyer is trying to knock £25k off my asking price which is a hell of a lot on a 3 bed house in Yorkshire where my asking price is decidely below £200k.

I was only asking them cheekily for £15k but expecting £5-£10k off their 4 bed house. And to get NOTHING grrrrr. Percentage wise I am taking one hell of a hit but I know it is a buyer's market.

The exact same house as theirs is for sale 4 doors down, they have converted their garage out and it is on for £5k more. Might go for that one instead.

Great news fizzy. We met lots of vendors like the one you describe, they don't need to sell, they just want to cash in and sell before the market drops further. That said, time will tell, there was this old couple who was selling a house for 410 and wanted at least 390. It went through at 365 eventually. Times are hard and if a house needs work, you cannot expect people to pay over the odds just because an estate agent overvalued it!

thanks goldenpeach, the house doesn't really need any "work" per se just a new boiler which is about £3k here. It has original kitchen which is now 10 years old so it is dated.

I can pay the asking price if I get my cash buyer up. You have obviously seen my house a house the same as ours on a slightly wider plot so more potential than ours sold for £5k more than mine is on for. So I am willing to accept £15k less than that.

Hopefully we'll hear today and then we can offer on the one we want. Not counting my chickens or anything until we have exchanged.

Just thought I'd pop in to update - we have now had an offer accepted on another house, which we are told is chain-free (here we go again!), except this time we have actually met the vendors, and the house is empty as they have been renting in Yorkshire for the past year. So it really does seem properly chain-free.

We are trying to complete before Christmas! Can't quite bring ourselves to get excited though because the last one seemed like nothing could go wrong, and it did. But allowing ourselves to get a teany bit excited...

fantastic news Wigeon - I hope it all works out.

We finally had a house to view this week - just the 4th all 2009. It wasn't for us - the 3rd bedroom was only 5 feet wide! Anyway, we were chatting to EA who casually metioned that a house in one of our preferred roads had gone under offer 3 weeks ago before it went to market. I asked why we weren't invited to view and he said that they had only shown around someone who was selling through him. Well I'm sure that the vendor would have preferred to sell to someone who is chain-free.

We feel deflated now - we are renting with a huge pot of cash and even that doesn't get us on the EAs list of people to call