Anyone struggling to buy a property even with funding?

flibbage0 said:
Or they're buying it without even viewing! If I manage to get a viewing and put an offer in I have been beaten by cash buyer on 4 separate occasions, each time I've put an offer over the asking price.
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Yes, have been buying buy to lets and the last 2 years and houses are literally being sold within an hour of going online.

House up the road from me, sold on the first viewing for 25k over asking.

Ive just picked up a BTL flat, I was first viewing and my instinct was to offer less as its in a right state, but just asked how much to do a deal right here and now, got told the figure and said "done". No point trying to haggle at all.
 
What's everyones views on sitting this period out?

I am tempted to move to a lower cost village (like, 30-40% cheaper than where I am now) into a house that needs quite a bit of work but fundamentally has the ticks in the boxes - garage, decent garden, great location for the high street.

I'm worried I'll just get priced out of where I live now though, even more?

The house I want is £975k and I won't get the borrowing I need to make it up, so need more time to save. However by the time I have saved it'll be £1.2m! :o:o
 
Gammawolf said:
On the flip side my sister is buying a house as a first time buyer and to be honest they were just looking to keep afloat of the market etc and noticed a house that had been up for a few months. Decided to punt at it for below asking and got it 10k cheaper. House is part of an estate so it needs the usual redecorating/floors and kitchen doing at some point but its not a wreck as far as houses of that nature can be. Its in an average area for our city.
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Depending on how much it was on for, £10k under may have still been a good deal for the seller. In this market if a house doesn't get sold within a week, it's massively over priced.

There was one we went to look at, down as 3 bedrooms, but the 3rd bedroom wouldn't actually fit a bed in, unless it was frameless, a mattress would struggle. We offered 10% below asking because it'd been on for a month or two already. It's still for sale 6 months later, only they've bumped the price UP 10%. I'm guessing they're hoping to get what they originally asked for by someone offering below. Unsurprisingly, it's not selling (a month into the new price). In this market, that should tell them the price is just wrong. There's nothing really wrong with it either, a very similar place literally 10m away, sold within 2 days for well over asking, only that genuinely had 3 bedrooms (3rd was still tiny, but a bed would fit).

I'd repeat again, get in with the estate agents, show them your loan in principle letter, show them a screenshot of your bank statement showing your deposit, tell them who your solicitor will be, make it clear that you have the cash and you're ready to go.
 
dLockers said:
What's everyones views on sitting this period out?

I am tempted to move to a lower cost village (like, 30-40% cheaper than where I am now) into a house that needs quite a bit of work but fundamentally has the ticks in the boxes - garage, decent garden, great location for the high street.

I'm worried I'll just get priced out of where I live now though, even more?

The house I want is £975k and I won't get the borrowing I need to make it up, so need more time to save. However by the time I have saved it'll be £1.2m! :o:o
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It's ruthless out there. We are currently looking at upsizing and finding a place is nightmare. I can't see it getting any better unless interest rates go up. I really feel sorry for first time buyers. Our house has gone up 100k in the last 12 months. Crazy amount.
 
RockLobster said:
It's ruthless out there. We are currently looking at upsizing and finding a place is nightmare. I can't see it getting any better unless interest rates go up. I really feel sorry for first time buyers. Our house has gone up 100k in the last 12 months. Crazy amount.
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Yeah this is my dilemma. Unless I am chain free I have no chance - I have an offer accepted on my place which is a +75k return over 3 years (not bad considering the place is plot bound).

However I am in an ERC period so it'll cost me £8k to leave/rent. And then there is no guarantee I won't get gazumped/offer over and end up in a dispute with mortgage valuation and have to find more cash.

Crazy how I can afford copious amounts of gucci belts, corner sofas and floating televisions above fireplaces but I can't afford a house.
 
We've had an offer accepted on a place we liked last Thursday. To get it sorted after viewing loads, and missing loads we just booked some days off work and stayed local to the are we wanted to buy in, as unless you're completely across stuff as its gets listed they just disappear before you can sort a viewing (we're in London now, but buying on the south coast, so were only free for viewings at weekends).

We got the place we liked at asking price - there was another buyer offering 5K more than us but they weren't procedable.

The house we are selling went for full asking on the first viewing within a day of going up on rightmove (west london).

Market is bonkers - the house we're selling at 525K has gone up 80K since purchase in 2019. The house we're buying is 700K (up from 435K 10 years ago when it last sold)
 
Ninco! said:
Crikey. I am not sure I could stomach paying nearly 60K over asking price simply out of principal!

I phoned around the estate agents and simply advised that I was on holiday for one week and wanted to buy a place by the end of the week - view anytime - this was as a FTB.
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That 60k is representative though.

My sister was looking at properties for 250 and putting in 270 offer and still got outbid.

So it's in line with market conditions.

But i do agree with you. I was anxious about going 10k over on a 250k house due to downward price pressure risks.
 
My sister had an issue like OP

Constantly getting outbid and prices rising all the time.

They are fussy with location and as time goes by they are offering more than they were 6 months ago for worse properties.

Market is in a precarious place
 
Unseul said:
Depending on how much it was on for, £10k under may have still been a good deal for the seller. In this market if a house doesn't get sold within a week, it's massively over priced.

There was one we went to look at, down as 3 bedrooms, but the 3rd bedroom wouldn't actually fit a bed in, unless it was frameless, a mattress would struggle. We offered 10% below asking because it'd been on for a month or two already. It's still for sale 6 months later, only they've bumped the price UP 10%. I'm guessing they're hoping to get what they originally asked for by someone offering below. Unsurprisingly, it's not selling (a month into the new price). In this market, that should tell them the price is just wrong. There's nothing really wrong with it either, a very similar place literally 10m away, sold within 2 days for well over asking, only that genuinely had 3 bedrooms (3rd was still tiny, but a bed would fit).

I'd repeat again, get in with the estate agents, show them your loan in principle letter, show them a screenshot of your bank statement showing your deposit, tell them who your solicitor will be, make it clear that you have the cash and you're ready to go.
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It was about right given the market direction and work that needed doing, we're not talking london sums. It's a 3 bed semi, the house was on for 190k, they paid 180k. Similar properties were going for 190k a year ago early 2021 in that area. Houses of that size that are ready to move into are going around 200k so the discount represents the cost of a kitchen and flooring/walls.
 
Yes it is mental. We moved in December 2020 for £410k, we just had our house revalued by the bank as we're trying to remortgage and it's worth £470k... Absolutely nuts +60k (+14.6%) in 15 months.

I have friends at work who live in Cambridge trying to buy and it sounds exactly as you say OP. Houses are on the market for 5 minutes and there's already been a million views and selling at asking price +10%.
 
Puzzled said:
Apparently first time buyers were seen negatively as they cause too much hassle with buyer survey concerns :confused:
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I can attest to this, FTB bought our house and the only 2 issues brought up on their home buyers report were a small hole I had drilled through a wall for a fish tank drain, and a lintel above one of our windows upstairs was wet, the surveyor put this down to the gutter next to it being blocked.

The buyers wanted us to sort both of these "issues" and then come round and inspect that they had been done.

I almost sent them a copy of the report from the house we bought with "real" issues so they could see how petty they were being, but I just put it down to naivety on their part and obliged them to get the sale moved through.
 
MrRockliffe said:
Few houses around here have almost doubled in value in 8 years :(
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Isn't that the norm ?

I saw a "short" the other day that explained house prices double roughly every 8 years, and it looked at the average UK house price since the 60s or 70s and the "rule" seemed to work.

Although i don't know how long that is sustainable as more and more people struggle to get on the housing market.
 
We got our offer accepted start of March after months of looking.

House was up for £400K we offered £424K that went to final offers, did £432K and secured it. FTB with AIP etc so ready move. Did have to prove our position but that was not a problem.

Same house sold for £169K in 2005. To give you an idea.. this area in the last 2 years has gone up by 25% average. And we wanted to stay here but were flexible to a point, 10 mile radius from this but lucky enough found one literally 2 minutes walk from current place.

Market is insane and I don't think it'll hold up like it is now.. ! prices maybe but I doubt the demand will stay. I guess it's all demand v supply here.
 
Glad we got ours bought just before things went really crazy. Won't ever need to upsize again, so hopefully won't be involved in this insanity again.
 
Looked at my local area on rightmove out of curiosity today to see what prices were like, and availability is just shocking. Only a few 'normal' houses on the market in my area, the rest being the huge 4+ bedroom ones which always take a little bit longer to sell - even in that price bracket there were much fewer than when I was looking at what was around for £££ just for fun when I was buying a house a few years ago.

People have been posting on the local Facebook group trying to intercept houses coming into the market before they're advertised generally because they just can't get anywhere and I see why now.

A family member was trying to buy somewhere rural in Scotland last year with their partner and just couldn't get anywhere, with selling prices ending up being massively over the guide prices, pushing basically anywhere suitable for what they wanted to do with it completely out of budget, even with significant help from both families. They did get 'a look in' as many places seems to be sold with sealed bidding in Scotland so they were allowed to put offers in, just never got anywhere near the winning bid.

I was looking at a different area a couple of months ago just to get an idea of the possibolity of moving there at some point and availability looked really poor along with huge price rises.

So at least OP can rest assured it's happening all over the place, not just in your area.

Chickens coming home to roost from years of mismanaged housing policy, financial benefits of covid for some people, and gov monetary policy pushing demand for housing up further. Of course the property speculators, older people settled in their current house and retirees will be loving it. Everyone else not so much.
 
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Been looking at the increases over time recently seeing lots of large numbers flying about. For our new place last year we paid 63% over what the previous people paid for it in 2002 (new). Feeling we may have done ok on that even though there's a lot of work to be done.
 
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