Found our dream home - but we are not under offer?
Discussion
A situation I'm sure you have all been in at one time or another.. My wife and I have just put our property on the market about two weeks ago. It is a well presented apartment in Boscombe / Bournemouth and we have loved every minute of living here for five plus years - however we are looking to buy a house that we can start a family in etc etc.
The only problem is.. Today we went out and viewed a house that we love! It has just come on the market and we were one of three couples to view it this weekend. The couple selling the house are desperate to sell and have been given six weeks to sell theirs buy the owners of the house they want to buy. The chain ends there. So, does anyone have any previous experience / advice on how on earth we can make our offer be taken seriously when we haven't even got a buyer yet?
We are taking all traditional approaches to this like making sure our property is well advertised (I have just put it on here!) and we will be discussing our asking price with the agent asap to make sure our property is well positioned for viewings!
The only problem is.. Today we went out and viewed a house that we love! It has just come on the market and we were one of three couples to view it this weekend. The couple selling the house are desperate to sell and have been given six weeks to sell theirs buy the owners of the house they want to buy. The chain ends there. So, does anyone have any previous experience / advice on how on earth we can make our offer be taken seriously when we haven't even got a buyer yet?
We are taking all traditional approaches to this like making sure our property is well advertised (I have just put it on here!) and we will be discussing our asking price with the agent asap to make sure our property is well positioned for viewings!
AudiSport said:
Sounds expensive and risky?
It is.Explain your situation to the people selling your dream place and leave it with them. Do not get emotionally tied to the prospect until you have your own current place sorted (or certainly much, much closer to being than it is now). Easier said than done perhaps, but it will avoid potentially huge headaches. And somewhere else will come up if the place you've seen sells
Am in a broadly similar position myself so know how you feel. Patience, I am sure, will be a virtue.
AudiSport said:
Sounds expensive and risky?
Yep, but we did a similar thing when we bought our current house.Your first problem is to find someone who is willing to lend you enough money to buy the place and that might be a stopper in the current climate. So talk to your building society about your plans, what you need and how you could repay a bridging loan, etc. They might say "no", which means game over unless you get a buyer quickly.
If they say "maybe", then approach the seller and put your cards on the table. I offered a £5k deposit with his solicitors as a show of good faith and to cover his expenses if we had to pull out for any reason, which worked really well to get them on our side.
My advice would be to plan to have the bridging loan for at least 12 months and to take a 10% drop on whatever the estate agent thinks your house is worth. Regardless of the claims of Estate Agents being a profession, it's just one person's opinion of the market value and it can easily change over the next 12 months. If you can pay the interest on the loan, plus your current mortgage/living/moving expenses then go for it.
Actually, what I did was borrow £10k more than we really needed and that was roughly enough to pay the bridging loan for 12 months without using our normal income, although of course I didn't mention that at the time. In the end we were extremely fortunate because we got a buyer who was only looking at "vacant possession" properties a few weeks before we completed on the new house.
In hindsight we could have managed without a bridging loan but at the time we'd had so many "we want it/oh sorry we can't" tales that I took the loan and paid it off having had it for only a month. A very expensive month, but it depends if the house is worth it to you.
Dropping your selling price and taking on a bridging loan are risks you can calculate and possibly accept. The one unknown is whether or not you wil be succesful in buying the new house - the owners might decide to stay put, or sell to someone else who made a higher offer. That's the gamble IMHO.
I was in similar position.. i did the following.
- made sure my property was the best available in the area at the price
- ensured it was priced very aggressively and instructed agent that I was much more in favour of cash buyers
- bent the truth with the vendor's agent, said I was under offer and agreed the price on basis that the place i was buying was taken off the market.
It was stressful and tense and involved juggling lots of balls, I'm now in the house i wanted.
- made sure my property was the best available in the area at the price
- ensured it was priced very aggressively and instructed agent that I was much more in favour of cash buyers
- bent the truth with the vendor's agent, said I was under offer and agreed the price on basis that the place i was buying was taken off the market.
It was stressful and tense and involved juggling lots of balls, I'm now in the house i wanted.
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