The nervous wait to exchange....
- Thread starter noj
- Start date
I always wonder how much estate agents hate showing these sorts of properties. We saw one when we were looking about 7 years ago that looked good. Large, decent garden, not a bad price. Turned up and the estate agent seemed like they would rather be anywhere else and had no enthusiasm for the property. When we got inside we realised why. It was a mess. Water marks on ceiling in a couple of places that didn't look like old ones. General state was awful. Needed huge amounts of work doing to it. Probably best part of £100k.
I assume the estate agent had shown far too many people around it who all came out and had the "what do you think" conversation and said "its about £100k+ overpriced. They even tried to get us to make an offer saying that any offer might be considered. They must have been hoping that if enough people said "**** off, its worth £100k less than you want" they could persuade them to lower the price and actually make a sale.
Low resolution photos, kind angles and lens' along with only showing the pictures that look good.
We've seen waaaaaay too many £1m+ houses that only have like 7 photos. We're talking 5 bedroom, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, 2 reception rooms, utility, office and garden and they have 7 pictures. Very suspicious.
Don't be disheartened, people generally come to complain. Once you have bought a house people tend to drift away from resources that discuss it so all thats left are the bitter dregs who have had a nightmare (only joking!).
The process in this country is a mess but we've bought a flat and a house and had little problem with either beyond our first estate agents being **** (purplebricks) and our solicitor being crap. Outside of that its been fine. It requires some luck but its often not too bad.
I've been keeping an eye on the local market (Bristol) for the last year or so and have noticed quite a few properties reappearing for sale. Speaking to various estate agents they say there has been a widespread issue with chains collapsing.
The other fun thing was when I was advised about a property coming onto the market that met my requirements. Got a viewing in on the first day, liked it, said I was interested in making an offer and arranged a second visit for my partner to take a look. Was then messed around by the estate agent and told various conflicting stories until they finally advised that the owners had changed their mind about selling and it had been withdrawn from sale.
Its been the same here in Tunbridge Wells. Lots of massively overpriced properties either having large reductions (often 10% or more) and others leaving the market only to come back on at the same price despite the market being worse than ever for sellers.
Fundamentally, in my view, the market is going through a period of readjustment and people are struggling with it. They have basically never seen house prices drop so when they looked in 2022 and saw their house was worth X, they can't quite fathom that its not worth that now. They also have no clue how expensive everything has become when it comes to building and renovations.
Well priced houses are still disappearing really really fast but thats because there are so few of them and there is a lot of demand at the moment. That demand isn't willing to pay what a lot of people want though.
The silly thing is that plenty of the people who come off the market until things pick up will re-list when its picked up again some time in the future and pat themselves on the back for waiting and getting what they want when the chances are very high that all thats happened is everything has got more expensive and inflation has effectively come up to meet their asking price. They haven't actually got more money for their house in the grand scheme of things.
Agreed. It is a gamble in most aspects. In comparison to our current house, the previous one was painless and I went from offer to completion in 8 weeks, then slowly changed things over the years. Sold the house at a nice profit which helped with buying this one. Great house, but it was time to up size as things had changed.
You can't always win, unfortunately!
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- 30 Nov 2024
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- Kettering
They were asking for £330k and we thought "no chance" - we initially made a low-ball offer of £280k before agreeing on £300k.
An update.
- We didn't exchange on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or any other day last week. Because? it turns out a new maintenance agreement was needed for the Water Treatment plant that replaced the old septic tank as its shared with the neighbour.
- We got to Monday, I was just about keeping the removals firm onside who were threatening to give the slot to someone else.
- We got to Tuesday... still no joy. At 4pm our solicitor said 'I need to cancel the mortgage funds, this isn't happening this week'.
- All goes mad. Our buyer flapping (as they've rented out their house) and the people we are buying from flapping even more as they moved out on Tuesday.
- Our solicitor offers to step in and sort it out even though its not our problem as its looking like the chain could collapse.
- Wednesday.... WE EXCHANGE ! Completion set for Friday 12th Sept.
So, the summary:
- 2 failed purchases
- 1 failed sale with a buyer who pulled out on exchange day
- thousands lost because of the above
Yeah. Never moving again. Thank god its our dream home.
8 months. Dare I ask...?
I was ready months ago, as were the ones I'm buying from. The ones they are buying from decided in April that they were going to rent somewhere, and it's taken until now for them to find somewhere it seems! I wasn't in a hurry but it did get frustrating after a while...
So the chain didn't break, it just got rather stretched.