The nervous wait to exchange....

[grudas]

Nearly moved in! house is slowly coming together. A downer today was neighbour reversing out of their drive straight into my rental van as I was driving by them. Guess that’s one way to meet your neighbours.

£1150 excess gone as if it was cheap to move already. Sheesh. But we’re basically done after this. Has been painful with the amount of crap we’ve got.

 

[Ricochet J]

Depends. That hasn't quite reached our area we are looking, the good properties are being snapped up within 48h and with offers around 10 percent more than the asking price

It's only a matter of time before it becomes a nationwide downturn.

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

Nearly moved in! house is slowly coming together. A downer today was neighbour reversing out of their drive straight into my rental van as I was driving by them. Guess that’s one way to meet your neighbours.

£1150 excess gone as if it was cheap to move already. Sheesh. But we’re basically done after this. Has been painful with the amount of crap we’ve got.

surely that'd be on them if they're insured?

sorry dude

me mate had something similar rented a van to. move his stuff, had his brother driving, his brother clipped another car :/ and he asked my mate to foot the bill lol

 

[squerble]

Nearly moved in! house is slowly coming together. A downer today was neighbour reversing out of their drive straight into my rental van as I was driving by them. Guess that’s one way to meet your neighbours.

£1150 excess gone as if it was cheap to move already. Sheesh. But we’re basically done after this. Has been painful with the amount of crap we’ve got.

Ouch. If it makes you feel any better we still haven't exchanged, and I also spilled a pint of squash in a 3-month old MacBook Air, so that's cost me £800 to repair

 

[JamesH85]

I agree about the property downturn - there's a few houses in my area that are struggling to sell. They're in as good condition as mine when we sold back in February and are priced the same as mine.

Yet I sold mine in February with no problem and in July they're struggling to sell.

I sold mine within a week of being advertised on Right Move and the others haven't shifted after a month.

A sign of things to come.

I am seeing this in my area too, 2 houses listed in the last 2 weeks that have not sold, houses were only lasting 24-48 hours here before being sold. Small sample size but even the EA I have spoken to are seeing a rapid slow in listings and sales

 

[HungryHippos]

I suspect it was the rush to get in and lock up good mortgage deals before they bump the rates up more, now that new buyers will likely face higher rates, markets may cool off a bit.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

I listed my property last Thursday evening with a local agent. Its a fairly standard 3-bed semi (1930's build) with average size garden and a nice open plan layout downstairs.

It went on at 6:30pm and Thursday and they had 13 viewings booked in for tomorrow by Friday lunch time. The EA is confident it shouldn't have any problems selling quickly and they have a great track record in the area.

It's on for OIEO of £180k. Fingers crossed we get some decent offers!

 

[Martynt74]

Potentially joining this merry go round at some point.

We've pretty much decided to move to Spain in around 18-24 months time. We live in a house we love, but it's old and so has regular maintenance needed. I think because we've made the decision to go, we're getting more and more reluctant to spend money on things because we know we're only here for a short term.

We thought about selling and then finding something smaller to rent. Just one less stress to have, however, over the weekend i floated the idea of selling up and then buying something cheaper. Our current house is probably worth ~£340k with a £200k mortgage. We could move into a new build 3 bed semi with garage within the local area for around £180k. This would bring our mortgage down from £1200 to £500 which gives us a lot of extra cash to save ready for the move (ignoring reduced bills). Whilst also forcing us to have a massive clearout. It wouldn't be a house we'd normally choose, but for 18 months i think it would do us, especially as mentally we've already checked out.

I'm just trying to get my head around costs and whether it does actually make sense.

Cost wise I'm thinking
~£2k in solicitors fees to sell/buy
~£1.1k in Stamp Duty
~£1k in estate agent fees
~£100 to hire a van for 2 days

That's hitting us with around £4k in fees. However, i'd expect we'd recover that in around 6 months of mortgage savings. Now the sooner we make the decision to move, the greater the savings. However if we put the house up for sale today and it takes 3 months roughly to go through, that's then only giving around a years worth of savings and the question is whether it's worth all the hassle.

 

[ci_newman]

Potentially joining this merry go round at some point.

We've pretty much decided to move to Spain in around 18-24 months time. We live in a house we love, but it's old and so has regular maintenance needed. I think because we've made the decision to go, we're getting more and more reluctant to spend money on things because we know we're only here for a short term.

We thought about selling and then finding something smaller to rent. Just one less stress to have, however, over the weekend i floated the idea of selling up and then buying something cheaper. Our current house is probably worth ~£340k with a £200k mortgage. We could move into a new build 3 bed semi with garage within the local area for around £180k. This would bring our mortgage down from £1200 to £500 which gives us a lot of extra cash to save ready for the move (ignoring reduced bills). Whilst also forcing us to have a massive clearout. It wouldn't be a house we'd normally choose, but for 18 months i think it would do us, especially as mentally we've already checked out.

I'm just trying to get my head around costs and whether it does actually make sense.

Cost wise I'm thinking
~£2k in solicitors fees to sell/buy
~£1.1k in Stamp Duty
~£1k in estate agent fees
~£100 to hire a van for 2 days

That's hitting us with around £4k in fees. However, i'd expect we'd recover that in around 6 months of mortgage savings. Now the sooner we make the decision to move, the greater the savings. However if we put the house up for sale today and it takes 3 months roughly to go through, that's then only giving around a years worth of savings and the question is whether it's worth all the hassle.

3 months is an optimistic completion time too if there's onward chains. You'd need to consider new-build depreciation too, plus costs of furnishings and garden (gardens will usually be mud, carpets not included etc). The £180k house could cost £200k to move into, then only be worth £180k when you sell in a year.

 

[ChrisD.]

If you're moving to Spain in 2 years time, I think it's utter madness to sell and buy now.

 

[Martynt74]

3 months is an optimistic completion time too if there's onward chains. You'd need to consider new-build depreciation too, plus costs of furnishings and garden (gardens will usually be mud, carpets not included etc). The £180k house could cost £200k to move into, then only be worth £180k when you sell in a year.

Sorry, by new build, i was more meaning "newer" house.

Effectively something like this

Check out this 3 bedroom terraced house for sale on Rightmove

3 bedroom terraced house for sale in Capesthorne Drive, Chorley, Lancashire, PR7 for £190,000. Marketed by Reeds Rains, Chorley

www.rightmove.co.uk

If you're moving to Spain in 2 years time, I think it's utter madness to sell and buy now.

Just something we're considering. What makes you think it's madness? If we can save ~£800 a month from living in a smaller/cheaper house then over a year that's around £10k we've saved. I know obviously that's not all pure savings as we'd have paid off a chunk of capital too. I guess i really need to work out what i'd be saving on interest on the smaller mortgage vs the additional cost of all the extra fees.

 

[LuckyBenski]

I know obviously that's not all pure savings as we'd have paid off a chunk of capital too. I guess i really need to work out what i'd be saving on interest on the smaller mortgage vs the additional cost of all the extra fees.

I think this is the maths to really look at. It will define the actual end outcome, although don't ignore the impact of:

- House maintenance if you stay
- House setup, new furniture/other general costs, if you move, especially into another owned property.

You seem like you might benefit from the reduced stress though, especially if you rent for a bit. Try and factor the quality of life improvement in there, I know I'm slow and disorganised so moving twice would add stress for me. Whereas for you you might find it easy then reap the benefits of having a lot less to juggle when it comes time for you to move/buy out in Spain.

 

[Buffman]

I guess i really need to work out what i'd be saving on interest on the smaller mortgage vs the additional cost of all the extra fees.

This is the only "saving" you should consider, the extra interest saving.

You're also de risking yourself from large house market changes (either positive or negative)

Frankly, I wouldn't bother. Without doing the maths it sounds like an incremental difference (maybe 5k?) and a lot of arseache/effort.


I recall your house being a nice coach house too? Gotta be worth something staying in a nice gaff for 2 years.

 

[Martynt74]

Yeah, the de-risking part is a factor, especially with rising interest rates and other factors, but then we have the benefit of a very unusual house vs a generic modern house of which there are hundreds of, so it's be nice to think we're safeguarded from that a little.

Selling up and renting was another option we thought about. Gives a decent amount of flexibility and minimal maintenance spend. Main issues there being at the whim of rent increases, and so what might make sense now, might not in 6 months time.

Going to book in an estate agent visit to get an idea of our property value. Zoopla suggests it's lower than i'd have expected so that would be a key factor.

EDIT - Scratch this idea. Of our mortgage payment, the interest works out around £400 a month. That means we'd only re-coup the additional costs in around 11 months and given the timeframe involved it just doesn't really make any sense. We are planning to rent in Spain for ~12 months just to really nail down areas/houses to avoid rushing into anything, and had debated renting out a UK house for that initial year at which point it might've made sense. But i think the risk/reward for such a small time period just doesn't make sense and would just cause too much stress.

 

[ChrisD.]

What makes you think it's madness?

All the costs you've mentioned, plus mortgage fees and ERC. It just seems like a gamble to me to save a bit of money.

 

[Martynt74]

No ERC here, we remortgaged a few months back and i made sure to pick a deal which had no ERC as i knew we'd be aiming to sell within the term period

The other costs are legit though. It could make sense if we went with one of the free online agents which would save ~£1k and then also looked for a cheaper house to minimise SDLT, but then it's getting to the point of way too many compromises.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Lender came back with the valuation and as expected they devalued it by 30k lower then what we offered the place. However we offered 65k more than the asking price so at least the lender saw that the property was worth a bit more than the asking price.

We will try to negotiate with the seller and see if they accept the offer 30k lower than the original accepted offer and go from there.

I Hope they say yes...

Else we will try meeting in the middle somewhere and just pay an extra 15k.

Thoughts?

We doing the right thing?

Well we have just recieved a responde from the seller/EA and there pulling out!!!

Change of circumstances....

Are they really telling a lie? Why all of a suddent they change there minds as soon as a mortgage lender downvalued the accepted offer?

Sounds fishy....

Did someone sneakly offered them higher and thust got gazumped as they say?

If they had a change of heart, that seems like a very strange timing to tell us this as soon as the valuation came from the lender....

Well at least we did not waste money in starting the searches and surveyor but this is a bummer.

 

[dlockers]

Well we have just recieved a responde from the seller/EA and there pulling out!!!

Change of circumstances....

Are they really telling a lie? Why all of a suddent they change there minds as soon as a mortgage lender downvalued the accepted offer?

Sounds fishy....

Did someone sneakly offered them higher and thust got gazumped as they say?

If they had a change of heart, that seems like a very strange timing to tell us this as soon as the valuation came from the lender....

Well at least we did not waste money in starting the searches and surveyor but this is a bummer.

Maybe £30k below the offer price just isn't enough for them to justify/enable their aspirational move.

 

[HungryHippos]

No ERC here, we remortgaged a few months back and i made sure to pick a deal which had no ERC as i knew we'd be aiming to sell within the term period

The other costs are legit though. It could make sense if we went with one of the free online agents which would save ~£1k and then also looked for a cheaper house to minimise SDLT, but then it's getting to the point of way too many compromises.

I don't know if it's worth it considering you need to live somewhere, unless you can go somewhere rent-free it seems like much of a muchness to just stay as you are until you want to leave for Spain.

Bear in mind your mortgage payments will partially come back to you in the form of equity when you do sell, so money paid in the interim is not a total loss.

Moving to a whole new house doesn't really seem to stack up as worthwhile with all of the fees, and the pain of moving twice.

Well we have just recieved a responde from the seller/EA and there pulling out!!!

Change of circumstances....

Are they really telling a lie? Why all of a suddent they change there minds as soon as a mortgage lender downvalued the accepted offer?

Sounds fishy....

Did someone sneakly offered them higher and thust got gazumped as they say?

If they had a change of heart, that seems like a very strange timing to tell us this as soon as the valuation came from the lender....

Well at least we did not waste money in starting the searches and surveyor but this is a bummer.

You were likely always going to struggle to get them to reduce much on the sale price with your delta on value/offer, sometimes these things just aren't meant to be. Something better may pop up.

EA's are expert liars and seem to have a book of excuse cooked up, you'll probably never learn the real reason. This book of excuses can work in your favour if selling though I suppose.

Mind you they could just have said they didn't want to sell for less, no real reason to make excuses outside of that. Also allows them to list it again without looking too obvious.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Maybe £30k below the offer price just isn't enough for them to justify/enable their aspirational move.

Who knows, but if that was the case, why diddnt they just say "honour the offer price or deals off" ??

Then the ball will be in our court and we decide wether is worth it or not...

sucks though . Not sure how we are going to grab a property where many seem to offer higher than asking price and the potential of down valuation happening.

@HungryHippos Then why diddnt they jusy say the above i quoted?