Is anyone moving now?

[rah1888]

lizardbrain said:

75% transactions are chain free.

Do you mean that 75% of transactions have no chain either side? That seems remarkably high.

[lizardbrain]

rah1888 said:

Do you mean that 75% of transactions have no chain either side? That seems remarkably high.

I read it somewhere, low confidence as I can't find the article!

So could easily be wrong apoligies, careless post.

Would be interested in the correct answer but suspect it's higher than most would guess

[Discendo Discimus]

Discendo Discimus said:

We've bought our dream home, mortgages approved and it's now sold STC. There's a big problem however.
The vendor is the ex-husband of the woman who lived in the house and sadly passed away a couple of years ago. He sold the house without first sorting the probate or the letter of administration, so we're now having to wait months for that to be sorted.

Our buyer has gone a bit quiet recently, and I believe her mortgage offer ran out around now so she'll need to renew that, hopefully the rates aren't too bad.

The new house needs some work before we can move in, and our second child is due any day now so maybe it's a blessing in disguise. I just really hope our buyer is willing to wait.

As usual, solicitors are absolutely useless. The paperwork for the probate and LOA was sent to them a month ago and they've only today started working on it. The only time we ever get any updates is when me or the wife chase them (twice a week at the mo).

Hopefully we won't need to move again any time soon, it's enough to put you off forever.

Quick update - The letter of administration has finally been applied for after weeks of faffage. Meanwhile summer has happened and the place is now an overgrown mess.
I've got permission from the vendor to go and tidy it up out the front as it's really letting the neighbourhood down. We should have a completion date in June.
I know people will advise against doing any work to the house until it's actually ours, but I can't keep going to the house and seeing it get worse each time.

[edc]

lizardbrain said:

rah1888 said:

Do you mean that 75% of transactions have no chain either side? That seems remarkably high.

I read it somewhere, low confidence as I can't find the article!

So could easily be wrong apoligies, careless post.

Would be interested in the correct answer but suspect it's higher than most would guess

How is 'chain free' and transaction defined? In a chain of 3 the buyer has no chain below and the top seller no chain above. I've only bought and sold 4 times but never totally chain free.

[Tyndall]

The transaction not being linked to or dependent on any other sale/purchase

[leef44]

edc said:

lizardbrain said:

rah1888 said:

Do you mean that 75% of transactions have no chain either side? That seems remarkably high.

I read it somewhere, low confidence as I can't find the article!

So could easily be wrong apoligies, careless post.

Would be interested in the correct answer but suspect it's higher than most would guess

How is 'chain free' and transaction defined? In a chain of 3 the buyer has no chain below and the top seller no chain above. I've only bought and sold 4 times but never totally chain free.

When I did my downsizing move from Surrey to North Yorkshire, I took a mortgage out on my previously mortgage-free house. I used that to pay for the new house plus using some retirement savings.

The owners of the house I bought were moving to their son's house while waiting for their new build. So they were chain free. They were happy with me as a buyer since I had the mortgage approved with a click away from the money in my bank. So effectively I was chain free cash buyer.

When I sold my property, I was chain free since I already had my new property purchased, just needed to sell this to pay off the mortgage.

The buyers of my property had their purchase fall through and they had already moved into rented accommodation and with mortgage money waiting at a click. So they were chain free.

My original plan was to move into rented but this mortgage move made things much slicker. The only issue is having to pay second home stamp duty then claiming it back later.

[ooid]

edc said:

How is 'chain free' and transaction defined? In a chain of 3 the buyer has no chain below and the top seller no chain above. I've only bought and sold 4 times but never totally chain free.

Property you are buying: Vacant, the vendor has not made an offer on somewhere else on the promise.

You: either FTB, or someone who already has the cash or financing ready to buy and move in somewhere.

Or simply New build scenario.

FTB buying from a developer.(Recently completed)

[ooid]

I'm not surprised about 75% btw.. loads of BTL investors have been offloading stock to FTB, and some new builds had big incentives recently.

[okgo]

Possibly. They’ll both be taking a decent 7 figure sum from the houses I’m looking at so assume that hopefully won’t be too much of a drama. But unrealistic expectations of things perhaps is an old person trait.

[DirtyHarley]

Been on the market for a month now; had 8 viewings booked of which all but one has turned up. We are with a 'hybrid' agent but have issued our 30 day noticed to terminate as they tried to tried to pressure the Mrs (who is only a point of contact for viewings and isnt on the mortgage!) to lower the price by 30K as 'its not doing well with only 8 viewings and the feedback has been its priced too high, plus other stuff in the area has sold easily'.

This is the first we have been told this; the feedback thus far has been:
1. They hoped the 'home office' was big enough to convert into a third bedroom (... its not, or else we wouldn't be moving.)
2. Great price, great size, exactly what they want - but don't like the area (the council flats in the next road over are run down with several boarded over windows and rubbish outside)
3. Love it, but traffic getting there was awful (its Canterbury, early afternoon on a sunny Saturday... traffic is always awful here!)
4. Good size, good price, great size garden, but the 2nd bedroom is a little smaller than we would like.

So, its up for 250, the agent tried pushing the mrs to drop to 220, or at most 230 - local agents valued it variably between 240-275. The local agent we are talking to and lining up to take over once the termination is complete seems content she can get 250 fairly solidly and said that 8 viewings in a month was quite good showing at the moment.

Not sure what I'm after by posting on here; but mostly, is 8 viewings in a month for a 2 bed end of terrace in a fairly decent part of canterbury a bad showing? Is 8 viewings without any offers a bad sign or more a sign of the current times?

Also - looking on rightmove - the only places that have sold nearby have been 2x 4+ bed places (guessing to student landlords!), and a handful of fairly new build flats; everything else that was on the market before ours seems to still be up. Similiar situation to where we are looking to move to as well; wen we started looking about 2 months ago they were flying off of rightmove after a week or two, now all but 1 on our 12 house shortlist is still available and some have been reduced! Cheers of any replies

[brickwall]

Honestly - 8 viewings and no offers would suggest to me something is wrong in the listing. Buyers are tuning up expecting one thing, and seeing another in real life at the viewing, so walking away. Perhaps it’s marketed as having more bedrooms than it does, or being in better condition.

I’d have expected 1-2 offers from 8 viewings (even if the offers were lower than you might have hoped).

[okgo]

I dunno - people are ‘very’ stupid.

We have done somewhat better and had perhaps 10-12 viewings in the last week with a couple of seconds and a third. One offer so far.

However, some of the feedback baffles me - “garden too small” & “kitchen needs extending sideways” - all things that are completely obvious on a floor plan, assuming you understand how long 1 foot is - and of course if kitchen had been extended it wouldn’t cost what it does. People are maddening.

From my own POV we saw a house we’d quite like to buy today, chain free, being posted abroad with work. With that we are hoping our offer sharpens his pencil somewhat to get to near asking, even though the few percent is a drop in the ocean it all helps. But I’m not prepared to lose a house for it, but it’s early days to be accepting low offers in my head.

I think the market is tough at the minute where we are looking, you’ve got to really want a move and ideally have a lot of equity behind you to make it palatable with rates where they are and it’s reflected in stock. Probate/downsizers basically. Our one trump card is having a large amount of debt we can port with 3 more years of it costing peanuts at 1.8% (may take it interest only to maximise). Puts us likely in a better shape than most to stomach a move right now.

[Sheepshanks]

DirtyHarley said:

The local agent we are talking to and lining up to take over once the termination is complete seems content she can get 250 fairly solidly and said that 8 viewings in a month was quite good showing at the moment.

I live in a biggish village and only one agent (local firm) has an office here and they seem to be able to sell faster and at higher prices than other agents.

I’m constantly bemused by how people choose agents - there’s maybe 10 with offices in the nearest city and it’s almost as if they’re used on rotation as they seem to be used fairly evenly.

I always think people using Yopa, Purplebricks etc aren’t really serious about selling.

[rah1888]

okgo said:

However, some of the feedback baffles me - “garden too small” & “kitchen needs extending sideways” - all things that are completely obvious on a floor plan, assuming you understand how long 1 foot is - and of course if kitchen had been extended it wouldn’t cost what it does. People are maddening.

In my view, feedback from prospective buyers is a vastly overrated construct. Half the time it's people just people saying the first vaguely plausible thing that pops in to their heads that will get the agent off the phone.

For "garden too small" it sometimes can be the case that it's only part of the message. As in: "if the rest of the property had been absolutely perfect I would have put up with a smaller garden, but overall it didn't tick enough boxes."

But I completely agree, people are maddening.

[okgo]

Yeh I figured most of it was just fluff. If you’re serious you’ve done your research.

I am a bit OTT but I scour everything I can find, extensive use of maps/streetview and much more. Often all that before I’ve been to view. I only view things that I’m very interested in.

Seems many aren’t like that

[rdjohn]

We completed yesterday, what a PITA!

4 House chain, us to an empty house, first time cash buyer at the bottom - BOMAD, all agreed for an early completion at the start of February.

It seems that the ability to work Smart, has simply offered the opportunity to employ dumber and dumber staff.

[Sheepshanks]

DirtyHarley said:

The local agent we are talking to and lining up to take over once the termination is complete seems content she can get 250 fairly solidly and said that 8 viewings in a month was quite good showing at the moment.

I live in a biggish village and only one agent (local firm) has an office here and they seem to be able to sell faster and at higher prices than other agents.

I’m constantly bemused by how people choose agents - there’s maybe 10 with offices in the nearest city and it’s almost as if they’re used on rotation as they seem to be used fairly evenly.

I always think people using Yopa, Purplebricks etc aren’t really serious about selling.

[rah1888]

Sheepshanks said:

I live in a biggish village and only one agent (local firm) has an office here and they seem to be able to sell faster and at higher prices than other agents.

I’m constantly bemused by how people choose agents - there’s maybe 10 with offices in the nearest city and it’s almost as if they’re used on rotation as they seem to be used fairly evenly.

I always think people using Yopa, Purplebricks etc aren’t really serious about selling.

You can say that again!

[DirtyHarley]

Cheers chaps!

We had the local agent we are thinking of going with around today to discuss; she's happy we are priced properly and is pretty sure she'd get us what we are after fairly quickly. We chatted through what we have experienced with the current agent and she came up with three key points:
1. It is only being listed on rightmove and isnt being promoted via any other avenues
2. The current agent mostly sells to the buy-to-let market, as such we are probably getting a lot of student landlords coming in to see if they can convert it into a multiple occupancy - which it isnt really suitable for.
3. they are subcontracting out the viewings to another company which covers a wide geographic area and have little area knowledge. Having chatted through the fact that each time an agent arrives either me or the Mrs has to do a 10min talk and walk around to property before leaving and then letting them get on with it suggests that they are likely just doing the bare minimum.

We have a 30 day notice period to run down, but are probably going to get everything ready with the new (local) agent so that the day that ends we can go live with a sole vendor contract with them on a fairly good rate (as they were willing to negotiate unlike the other major local vendor who wanted 1.5%+VAT). Going to take a few days to read through the stuff she left and have a think amongst ourselves what we are going to do, but this looks quite sensible compared the London based hybrid agent we are with now. Definitely think that its going to be better than the current hybrid online type as there could very well be some truth in that whole 'not a series seller' perspective too!

Frustrating situation and feels like I've wasted a month, but hopefully it will go fairly quickly once we have moved agent and can get on with sorting out the busines of nailing down our next place.

[Unreal]

rah1888 said:

okgo said:

However, some of the feedback baffles me - “garden too small” & “kitchen needs extending sideways” - all things that are completely obvious on a floor plan, assuming you understand how long 1 foot is - and of course if kitchen had been extended it wouldn’t cost what it does. People are maddening.

In my view, feedback from prospective buyers is a vastly overrated construct. Half the time it's people just people saying the first vaguely plausible thing that pops in to their heads that will get the agent off the phone.

For "garden too small" it sometimes can be the case that it's only part of the message. As in: "if the rest of the property had been absolutely perfect I would have put up with a smaller garden, but overall it didn't tick enough boxes."

But I completely agree, people are maddening.

Most agents just want to get as many viewers through the door as possible. There are a few reasons for this beyond the obvious one that they think it increases the chances of selling the property. One is that it makes sellers happy and a low number of viewings is one of the biggest triggers for changing agents. As a result, most are poor at qualifying viewers, beyond cursory checks about the extent to which they are proceedable. That's as much for their benefit as yours as they are looking for the opportunity to arrange a mortgage and other cross selling opps.

There is no way you should be getting feedback that the garden is too small or north facing when all those requirements should have been addressed prior and made clear in the details. If this keeps happening then you need to ask the agent what the viewer has said about the small garden when asked prior to seeing the property. Some may still get through but at least you may get some useful feedback.

Unfortunately agents will try and swerve this obvious logic with an old excuse that people sometimes change their mind when they do the viewing. Bear in mind that within your viewers will be timewasters and dreamers who make a hobby out of nosing around and the more unusual and attractive your property, the more they will be interested. It all goes back to an agent only allowing the right people through the door in the first place.

Unless your property is highly unusual then a chimp could value it. It really does come down to pricing and the state of the market. If you want to sell quickly in a typical market then the only way to guarantee that is to price low.

Edited by Unreal on Friday 24th May 07:49