How does one do this house-buying malarky?

[WD*]

So, the time has come to move from WD* towers, due to a number of reasons, including lack of space, lack of garden, lack of garage, scroty neighbours, etc...

This is our first house, so when we bought it, we weren't selling a property.

We went to view a house the other day, partly because we were interested, but mainly to get an idea of what the area and houses were like. The end result is we have fallen in love with the house, and want to make an offer.

However, our house isn't even on the market yet. We are having the valuer in on Monday, and as the estate agent knows we are interested in one of their properties, they are going to rush us through and get the house advertised ASAP.

Can we make an offer on the property we want before ours is sold? According to DN, that is possible, though to me, it seems a bit off, what if ours takes a year to sell? The woman selling the house is planning on moving to a council house and reckons she can get one instantly, so she has no forward chain.

Assuming we are able to get the mortgage on it, which shouldnt be a problem, do we start the ball rolling then?

Is there any way of making an agreement with her that she wont sell it to anyone else?

Help!

[m1spw]

I can't help with the whole process, but before you put an offer in personally I think you should explain your situation to the owner. And make sure you go and look round a few other houses as well, although you say you've fallen in love with this one an even better one may also be for sale.

The house market is weird, you never know what you could be missing if you buy the first house you see!

[fido]

WD* said:

Can we make an offer on the property we want before ours is sold? According to DN, that is possible, though to me, it seems a bit off, what if ours takes a year to sell? The woman selling the house is planning on moving to a council house and reckons she can get one instantly, so she has no forward chain. Help!

yep, but it may be a waste of (their) time. she won't take her property off the market until you are under offer. i'd get your property 'under offer' first before making an offer - you will be in a better position to negotiate. depends how easy you think it is to sell yours. having just taken over a year to get mine sold, i'm sceptical of the whole process.

[WD*]

m1spw said:

I can't help with the whole process, but before you put an offer in personally I think you should explain your situation to the owner. And make sure you go and look round a few other houses as well, although you say you've fallen in love with this one an even better one may also be for sale. The house market is weird, you never know what you could be missing if you buy the first house you see!

Unfortunately, for our price range, there is sod all on the market that we want - the houses that fit our criteria are in the scrotiest areas ever (£46k for a three bedroom semi with garage you can picture the area!). We have seen a couple of others, and are going to keep looking, but at the moment, this is the one we want.


I told the owner our situation when we went for the viewing, which is how we know she is going to get a council house - her husband has just left her leaving with her two kids and grandkid living with her, so I suppose she would be a 'priority case'.

I just get so disheartened when we see a house then lose it - when we were looking for this one, 3 years ago, was when the market was mental, and we were seeing houses at the estate agents on a morning that were sold by the afternoon!

[WD*]

fido said:

WD* said: Can we make an offer on the property we want before ours is sold? According to DN, that is possible, though to me, it seems a bit off, what if ours takes a year to sell? The woman selling the house is planning on moving to a council house and reckons she can get one instantly, so she has no forward chain. Help! yep, but it may be a waste of (their) time. she won't take her property off the market until you are under offer. i'd get your property 'under offer' first before making an offer - you will be in a better position to negotiate. depends how easy you think it is to sell yours. having just taken over a year to get mine sold, i'm sceptical of the whole process.

This is my worry. Its a two bedroom mid-terrace, of which there are loads on offer in the county, and fortunately/unfortunately, ours is one of the better ones, and we will be asking almost double some of them on the market. Apparently this one was on the market for a year before we bought it.

We have considered one of these companies that will buy your house within 7 days, but for less than the market value. The only one we have found so far which doesnt charge for a valuation will pay between 75-90% of the open market value. Assuming the house is worth what we think it is, we could afford to lose 10% for a quick sale, but obviously would much perfer not to!

Does anyone have any experience with any of these companies?


Also, there is a high level of landlord owned houses in the area. We personally know one landlord who we are trying to get in touch with to see if he is interested - is it worth asking some of the tenants we know to see if they would be interested?

[fido]

WD* said:

We have considered one of these companies that will buy your house within 7 days, but for less than the market value. The only one we have found so far which doesnt charge for a valuation will pay between 75-90% of the open market value. Assuming the house is worth what we think it is, we could afford to lose 10% for a quick sale, but obviously would much perfer not to!

i think it's been mentioned before on here - personally i can't see how you could do any worse by selling privately than by going through one of these 'merchants' - they will give you 'trade value' for your house.

get several valuations for your property. stick yours on at the most realistic price (lowest perhaps) and make the estate agent do some work - he'll want to make the sale(s).

[WD*]

fido said:

WD* said: We have considered one of these companies that will buy your house within 7 days, but for less than the market value. The only one we have found so far which doesnt charge for a valuation will pay between 75-90% of the open market value. Assuming the house is worth what we think it is, we could afford to lose 10% for a quick sale, but obviously would much perfer not to! i think it's been mentioned before on here - personally i can't see how you could do any worse by selling privately than by going through one of these 'merchants' - they will give you 'trade value' for your house. get several valuations for your property. stick yours on at the most realistic price (lowest perhaps) and make the estate agent do some work - he'll want to make the sale(s).

I was arguing out the difference between the amount we would lose selling at trade value, and the amount it is going to cost us in estate agents fees. The one we are having a valuation from are quoting £1200 + VAT as a minimum cost.

I think the house is probably worth £55-60k, so to lose 10% wouldnt be too terrible, but we cant afford to lose too much as the mortgage is still pretty close to that figure.

The site we have looked at - a-quick-sale.co.uk say they do free valuation and no obligation, so in theory there is nothing to lose, it just sounds too good to be true. They want the exact house address before they will even talk to me. I gave them the street but not the number (there are only 16 houses on the treet, and externally, they are identical, so for an external valuation, I cant see the issue, other than to say that it has DG, etc).

[Ace-T]

We have had ours on the market for 4 months and not sold. Why? Various reasons, glut of houses like this on the market, slow time anyway, we had not given it a 'wow' factor, wrong marketing/estate agent. These are not the only reasons I am sure but I think they are the main ones.

Try to fall out of love with this house or you will be heartbroken. As Gazboy has said do not look until you have had a definite offer from someone who has sold/nothing to sell. It also puts you in a much stronger position with the sellers of that perfect little house if you have SSTC.

This is the voice of experience having lost 4 houses we would have loved to have bought. We believed our estate agent when they said there would be no problem selling our house. Yeah, right...

Still, if we can find 1 a month that we adore, I am sure there are more out there

Ace-T

[Balmoral Green]

Sell the one you are in, move out, money in the bank. Then start looking for the next one and ensure that there is no chain on that either, just a clean straightforward buy. Personally I wouldnt do it any other way, too many messers, faffers and folks who dont know wether they want a shit, shave or haircut. Buying and selling property is a pain in the arse because the buyers and sellers make it so, I for one will not deal with these people, yet it is considered the norm.

[Yugguy]

Well, basically yes, if the seller accepts.

We are currently moving to a newly built house and all we needed to do to reserve the property was to present a letter from our mortgage company to prove that funds would be available. The seller wasn't interested in the fact that funds would only be available if we managed to rent/sell our existing property, our mortgage company simply set up a package for us to present.

[minimax]

Balmoral Green said:

I for one will not deal with these people, yet it is considered the norm.

but warben I thought we were mates?

[Yugguy]

Balmoral Green said:

Sell the one you are in, move out, money in the bank. Then start looking for the next one and ensure that there is no chain on that either, just a clean straightforward buy. Personally I wouldnt do it any other way, too many messers, faffers and folks who dont know wether they want a shit, shave or haircut. Buying and selling property is a pain in the arse because the buyers and sellers make it so, I for one will not deal with these people, yet it is considered the norm.

That's all very well but then you've got to mess about renting somewhere in between, giving a bond, deposit, etc etc., not to mention that too many moves in a short time can sometimes screw your credit rating.

[minimax]

WD* said:

So, the time has come to move from WD* towers, due to a number of reasons, including lack of space, lack of garden, lack of garage, scroty neighbours, etc... This is our first house, so when we bought it, we weren't selling a property. We went to view a house the other day, partly because we were interested, but mainly to get an idea of what the area and houses were like. The end result is we have fallen in love with the house, and want to make an offer. However, our house isn't even on the market yet. We are having the valuer in on Monday, and as the estate agent knows we are interested in one of their properties, they are going to rush us through and get the house advertised ASAP.

no point making an offer on a property when your house is not sold as to carying degrees the estate agent will tell the buyer "this proves we can market your property, now lets hang out for a real buyer" or words to that effect..

an offer subject to sale is a bit like walking past a car showroom and saying ooh, i'd buy that car if I had the money

WD* said:

Can we make an offer on the property we want before ours is sold? According to DN, that is possible, though to me, it seems a bit off, what if ours takes a year to sell? The woman selling the house is planning on moving to a council house and reckons she can get one instantly, so she has no forward chain.

you can do, but see above. best advice is to get a new mortgage sorted, find some solicitors that come recommended and get some more valuations done on your property

WD* said:

Assuming we are able to get the mortgage on it, which shouldnt be a problem, do we start the ball rolling then?

mortgage agreed, valuations and then solicitors in that order...can't buy the house you want if you can't get the finance

WD* said:

Is there any way of making an agreement with her that she wont sell it to anyone else? Help!

unlikely. unless you can be pally with her or give her some sort of inducement etc

any reasonable estate agent will advise their clients to market the property and accept viewings until the survey report is done. this is why it's a good idea to have the finance in place, it means you can get the survey done immediately and minimise the risk of losing the property.

when it comes to marketing your property don't even consider employing the first agent who comes round, there are massive variations in the quality and price of estate agents. also, - and I cannot emphasise this enough - price should not be the main consideration cheap does not equal good, and expensive does not equal quality

[muley]

Balmoral Green said:

Sell the one you are in, move out, money in the bank. Then start looking for the next one and ensure that there is no chain on that either, just a clean straightforward buy. Personally I wouldnt do it any other way, too many messers, faffers and folks who dont know wether they want a shit, shave or haircut. Buying and selling property is a pain in the arse because the buyers and sellers make it so, I for one will not deal with these people, yet it is considered the norm.

Couldn't agree more. One snag is renting during the transition, normally you have to take a minimum of 6 months rent, but if you have a relative you can house you it's OK, I suppose.

When buying though, it's a lot painless if you have sold, moved out and have 'cash on the hip' - well a thumping great mortgage agreed in principal at least ... and puts you in a good bargaining position (must have saved us 10 grand when we bought 'mule stables'

[Yugguy]

Or alternatively, hang on to your existing one and rent it, and buy your next house brand new. It's what we're doing and the actual transition process is going to be very easy. We have total control over when anyone can move into our old house so have a huge window in which to move.

What renting will be like I dunno, but the rental agency will vet and credit check prospective tenants, and if the tenants then default on the rent the agency will still pay us the rent.

[smirnoff]

minimax said:

WD* said: So, the time has come to move from WD* towers, due to a number of reasons, including lack of space, lack of garden, lack of garage, scroty neighbours, etc... This is our first house, so when we bought it, we weren't selling a property. We went to view a house the other day, partly because we were interested, but mainly to get an idea of what the area and houses were like. The end result is we have fallen in love with the house, and want to make an offer. However, our house isn't even on the market yet. We are having the valuer in on Monday, and as the estate agent knows we are interested in one of their properties, they are going to rush us through and get the house advertised ASAP. no point making an offer on a property when your house is not sold as to carying degrees the estate agent will tell the buyer "this proves we can market your property, now lets hang out for a real buyer" or words to that effect.. an offer subject to sale is a bit like walking past a car showroom and saying ooh, i'd buy that car if I had the money WD* said: Can we make an offer on the property we want before ours is sold? According to DN, that is possible, though to me, it seems a bit off, what if ours takes a year to sell? The woman selling the house is planning on moving to a council house and reckons she can get one instantly, so she has no forward chain. you can do, but see above. best advice is to get a new mortgage sorted, find some solicitors that come recommended and get some more valuations done on your property WD* said: Assuming we are able to get the mortgage on it, which shouldnt be a problem, do we start the ball rolling then? mortgage agreed, valuations and then solicitors in that order...can't buy the house you want if you can't get the finance WD* said: Is there any way of making an agreement with her that she wont sell it to anyone else? Help! unlikely. unless you can be pally with her or give her some sort of inducement etc any reasonable estate agent will advise their clients to market the property and accept viewings until the survey report is done. this is why it's a good idea to have the finance in place, it means you can get the survey done immediately and minimise the risk of losing the property. when it comes to marketing your property don't even consider employing the first agent who comes round, there are massive variations in the quality and price of estate agents. also, - and I cannot emphasise this enough - price should not be the main consideration cheap does not equal good, and expensive does not equal quality

Minimax, do you ever do any work?

On the topic of not having your house on the market, it is getting very common around London to buy without selling, many of my clients do it. Obviously not everyone can, but it can be done. Many of my clients keep and let out their exsisting property and then buy the new one.

It can be expensive and isn't always possible, but can mean you get the house of your dreams, keep an assett you already have, and move.

AND you can let the old one out for upto 3 years without attracting CGT.

If you would like to see if it can be done email me from my profile.

Adrian

>> Edited by smirnoff on Thursday 2nd February 10:48

[rude girl]

I did it the Balmoral Green way the last time I moved. It was completely stress-free. Having the rental property as a buffer meant that I could get the old house clean ready for the new owners, and do any decorating in the new house before I had to put the furniture in.

Fortunately I knew the agent in my village and was able to take a 3-month let, which was brilliant. Not so easy if you have to take 6 months though.

[muley]

rude girl said:

Not so easy if you have to take 6 months though.

To be fair, we did wriggle out of our agreement after 3 months as the agents found another renter ..