To those selling in these difficult times Part Deux. AKA sellers support network!

Davesnave

pink68 wrote: »

thanks davesnave.....feeling a bit better now i have a bottle of red on the go!:beer:

the pet thing isnt an issue as we only have a few goldfish now..the last cat died last winter and i said we wouldnt get another one until we were moved in somewhere permanantly.

mind you if they say no kids i may be tempted!

need to speak to some of the local agents really to get a feel for it all but with the kids off its so hard to think straight about it. perhaps its time to get a babysitter in for a few hours and head into town!

That's the spirit! Of course you can't be sure exactly what properties will be available when you need one, but if you look though what's on offer now on the Internet, then home-in on the agents who seem to have more of what you're after, you'll not need to burn too much shoe leather finding those that chime with you.

Where I am, there's quite a divide between 'posh, out of one's league' properties, student houses, and what I'd call 'normal long term lets.' It was only the latter we wanted, of course, and one day's targeted viewing did the trick.:D

9wizard9

Congratulations to you too Davesnave!

Out of interest, how long did you ask for in the end between exchange and completion when you were selling? Is four weeks likely to be enough to find somewhere reasonable to rent and get the contracts sorted to move in? Can't help worrying as a couple of letting agents have said it can take several weeks just to process the paperwork for references and credit reports etc.

Just seems like asking for more than four weeks would be getting into the realms of fantasy though.

Fingers crossed for Pawpurrs...

Davesnave

9wizard9, we exchanged on 8th January and began renting here on 9th January. Our completion came on 23rd January, so there were only 2 weeks between the key events. I can't remember when we found this rental, but the credit checks/references didn't take more than a week or so to do their stuff.

You'll be lucky if you get exchange & completion a month apart. This may be what we'd all like, but the reality is that solicitors drag their feet.:rolleyes:

shellstar

Hi Everyone,

Been lurking around for a while, I wish I'd known about this forum 18 months ago though, would have been nice to have some support in the year of hell.

So we're on our 3rd buyer (after one went AWOL and another pulled out because 'his sister said he couldn't buy the house he wanted'!!!) and this is the 4th house we've tried to purchase. It's a respossession, and we were supposed to exchange today, but no, it's been delayed for a week. The bank we're buying from have said this is ok.

Am trying to remain calm and keep breathing. The problem is with the buyer at the bottom of the chain, who is buying our buyers flat to rent out. He's a cash buyer who is not doing a survey, and despite having had 8 weeks to exchange on this empty house (our buyers are in rented) still isn't ready to exchange!! :eek: I'm told his solicitor is a nightmare but that's all I can gather. Sounds to me like someone might be stalling?

I asked my agent today if they will be ready to exchange next week as agreed, and he has just told me that he will do his best!!

THIS IS SOOOO STRESSFUL! We'd be devastated to miss out on the house we're buying. It's the first house we saw a year ago, when we got our first buyer and we had an offer accepted before it all fell through. We were about to offer on another house 4 weeks ago (a real compromise, neither of us loved it but we have to move, the area we live in has gone really downhill and we haven't spent a weekend there in 2 years, staying out the way of the nice drunk teenagers who roam the streets of a weekend) when we got the call to say this house had been repossessed and was on the market that day. We couldn't believe it, I'd hate for us to miss out again because of another investment buyer mucking about!!

Sorry - didn't mean this to be such a long post. I think the stress is getting to me today and needed to unload to strangers - have completely exhausted my friends and family over the last year and they don't all understand how awful it is out there at the moment!

Fingers crossed - it is out of our hands now!

kymie

Good luch Shellstar. Yep, house buying/selling/moving is up the top of the most stressful list!
Viewers came yesterday,half an hour early,just as I was getting home with the kids,trying to get them in the house (the kids not the viewers) while it was raining outside! Needless to say I showed em round as best as I could whilst trying to take off kids coats,putting the dog out, etc! So I dont think I did a very good job of selling the house! Oh well, people will either like it or not, doubt there is much I could do to swing it anyway.

pink68

well the surveyor came today...at 8.50am! during the school holidays! have they no sense of fairness!!! lol

needless to sya the house was a pigsty, last nights dinner things still by the sink, kids not dressed, me opening door with breakfast bowl in hadn...you know!

but he was gone in 20 minutes and siad it was just a formality so thats looking good. agent phoned me up later to say they would ring in a weeks time to let us know if the buyer had signed her mortgatge application yet.. I said well as the valuer has just left i think we can presume she has!

seemed a pointless phone call that should have been made last week imho. fortunately as my buyer is an acquaintance i have her mobile no so we have kept each other up todate with it all. seems a lot simpler like that!

thifty

:j:j:jWell done Davesnave:j:j:j:j

We have had some good news and some crap news which incidently we would not even have been aware of if i hadnt responded to a mail drop from the EA of the house we had made an offer on before our sale fell through 10 days ago.
The house has now sold to a cash buyer and we have lost it:mad:.

Apparently one of the eas has been on holiday and didnt tell the other man who works in the same office that it would have been nice to let us know that we are no longer able to buy the house as some other bogger has got it, gits!
Then we get phone call 2 to say that the woman who viewed last Fri, made a weak offer on Sat which we couldn't accept, has now come back with another offer (after telling us they couldn't get any more off their FTB) . We are going to sit down tonight when Dh comes home and kids are in bed and work out if we could accept this and look at the new short list on Rightmove I have made today.
then phone call no 3 to say could we do a viewing this weekend. Another couple but they are on market and haven't sold. I AM SICK OF CLEANING ARRGGGHHH Sorry should nt be moaning when some aren't getting viewings.

Davesnave

Wow, Shellstar, I hope that one works out for you. It seems you've had the sort of ride that many of us have had here, but it would be great to get the original house you wanted. As I recall, and it's a long time ago now, one house we really liked the look of went past us twice. When you 'sell' three or four times over, it all gets confusing!:o

So I understand where you are coming from, Thifty, and especially on the EA front, but we won't go into that. It comes to a point where you may accept compromises you'd never have considered initially. On the other hand, some of the properties you might buy are only there because others have sat down and made compromises too. Hopefully, there will be something in your list. For us, there wasn't, which is why we ended up renting. Even now, the property we're completing on today is a blooming compromise. It's a fantastic bargain, but there will be years of work ahead before it comes close to what we'd originally hoped for. That's maybe what comes from hoping for too much!

Kymie & Pink, you made me laugh, as many others do, about the stresses of having inconvenient visitors. That's going to happen to us again, as we'll have folk traipsing around this rental. I don't mind that, or the chaos they'll find, but if there are dishes in the sink or someone's underpants on a chair, I'll be mortified. I should really know better by now, having walked around so many properties and literally climbed through piles of devastation in many a teenager's bedroom!:rotfl:

Thanks everyone, for all your kind good wishes. I shall still be lurking around, though with acres of land to tame and a house that needs some TLC....no, make that partial demolition... it might be less frequent from now on.

May everyone's viewings be happy and lead to you all saying those wonderful words, 'Sold, at last!' when that call from the solicitor comes through.;)

pawpurrs

Well I still havent exchanged! And my stress levels are going through the roof!
Its the bottom of the chain holding it all up now! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, not another weekend of this! I was hoping to start moving stuff this weekend, am in limbo here!
Good Luck to all with viewings this weekend.

Fortheloveofmoney

Blimey Pawpurrs are you going to write a book when you're finally sitting in your new home? I've read the thread from the start (part 1) and am really routing for you.

I had my 1st viewing this week. I haven't had any feedback so I guess it was a no this time.

The open house is happening tomorrow so hopefully will get some news from that.

Has anyone had any experiences of open houses? Are they successful?