A progress diary from a FTB

homehunter

Did you have a mortgage approved before you started looking for a house?
We've had a mortgage agreement in principle when we've gone to make offers, but for this house, we didn't have one as it all moved so quickly! Mortgage deals were coming on to the market and finishing all the time so there seemed little point getting an AIP as it might be invalid by the time you get an offer accepted. Most important thing is to see a whole of market adviser and do your own research too, to see what's out there and whether you would be able to get a mortgage. We agreed offer on one day, got agreement with Natwest the next, got documents/ID certified and sent off to mortgage centre a couple of days later, and had it approved subject to valuation by the following week. I was quite surprised at the speed!

How you do find someone to do the survey for you? Is it the mortgage provider? Your solicitor?
For us, we let the mortgage provider appoint a surveyor. However, you could appoint your own if you wanted to - you'd have to see what the mortgage lender requires on that score. We went for a building survey which includes the valuation for the lender - thankfully you don't have to pay the lender's valuation fee on top of the building survey fee - they stopped doing that about a year ago apparently! Now it's a small admin fee plus the building survey fee.

olbigead

Hi VickyA,

We pretty much had the same experience as HomeHunter with both the survey and mortgage.

We're now just waiting for the solicitor to finalise the contract details!

Bufger

Update

Put the offer in 9am tomorrow. At 4pm they said they had spoken to the vendor and were waiting on a decision, they said it should be tomorrow (today). It came to 4pm so i rang them and asked if a decision had been made and that i was going to give them until 12pm tomorrow until my offer was withdrawn (i've decided to play hardball as i think thats whats needed in this case).

So anyway they said they would ring me back. Half an hour later they call back and say the vendor has declined the offer as they was hoping for low 140's (the house is 148k, i offered 138k as i guessed their limit would be 140k and 2k off is still tempting as im a FTB)

I say 'no problem, you have my number if they change their mind soon. I may have to ring back tomorrow to arrange a second viewing on (house address also on their books) as we liked that one too'.

she said 'oh ok, we normally ring people back a couple of days later anyway if there offer is a reasonable one'.

I said 'i expected that you would. Please understand i'm not messing around though, i offer what i want to pay for the house so i dont play the 1st offer 2nd offer 3rd offer game. My offer still stands and i will continue to look at and offer on other houses.'

Basically she has given the game away (with a few words highlighted in bold). I knew what they would try and do as i turned up in a suit the first day (just finished work) and people think i'd have a few thousand lying around. Watch this space, lets see if hardball works! I also used the friendly tactic at first which made the estate agent give away other valuable information like 'oh the people at (house number) would probably be more likely to take less given their current situation..'. I had already worked that out having talked to the vendor but thanks for the tip anyway!

s23sgn

priced round sols, picked one at £1,055. gave a gud break down of the costs and seems very gud.. note that this wasnt the cheapest quote, they ranged from 800 until 1600.

builder has agreed on doing a few extra bits and bobs around the house for us, this is included in the turnkey package..

got a meeting wit the bank on friday.. :T

homehunter

Hi there, time for an update I think...

Mortgage offer pack is sat on the coffee table in front of me! Valid til 9 Dec. Valuation was all fine, and natwest sorted it all out very quickly.

Building survey done on 4th Sep and two copies on our doormat by the following weekend. The surveyors (instructed by natwest) were, I have to say, fantastic. Great communications and all done very quickly and thoroughly from what I can tell.

Copy of survey passed to solicitor on Wed 16. Already advised to contact estate agent to arrange a damp and timber survey. The surveyor made some comments about the roof structure (nothing serious just stuff to consider witin new building regs) but there's a patch of 'higher than normal' damp meter readings in the hallway. Could be due to high ground levels outside but surveyor cannot say more than that, though the house has damp proofing course and cavity construction. Hoping it won't be an expensive job. Solicitor is still going through the rest.

Has been quiet as of late while waiting for offer/survey and also seller is on holiday til Saturday, lucky thing :0) - the only thing that niggles me is the chain above falling through. Seller already had one gazump attempt on where she's going and she had to up her price...:o

VKay

Interesting to see how quickly or slowly things are happening in your journeys!

Here is ours:

7.09.09 Offer accepted on 3 bed semi after house hunting since Jan 09.
10.09.09 Met up with mortgage broker.
11.09.09 AIP sorted with Abbey- rate higher than the last AIP we arranged in Feb (4.39%!!!) unfortunately but still ok at 4.78% for 3 yrs(deposit of just over 25%threshold).
16.09.09 Solicitor gets in touch and we send off lots of ID/ details etc and first cheque...
18.09.09 Hoping val survey will be done by end of today but have read how slow Abbey can be on here- will keep ringing and pushing...

Hoping to complete before stamp duty comes back in.

VickyA_2

Hi everyone!

An update from me...

We put in an offer on a great house (obviously!) which is empty - the house is part of an estate. It was initially rejected, but we upped the offer yesterday morning and it was accepted an hour later!

DH spent this morning on the phone to Natwest and they have given us an Agreement in Principle on their FTB Mortgage (5 yr fixed) at 5.99%. We're putting down a 10% mortgage as we need to do some work on the house (new central heating system, new carpets) before we move on. We're going for the Homebuyers' survey. Hope this is ok.

DH will contact a solicitor on Monday, who has been recommended by his sister who recently bought in the same area.

Good luck to everyone else!

AliceBanned

Hi all

I have found this thread very useful.

I have had an offer accepted, am FTB and have 25% deposit. Had AIP from the Halifax 4.39%, £995 fee, fixed for two years. Their surveyor is coming tomorrow.

I have instructed a local solicitor following some research and after speaking to a few of them - total costs around £700 including disbursements. Solicitor has sent me the paperwork and asked me to sign to confirm, and to send a cheque for £400 "on account". Not sure what this means - perhaps that they will use the money to pay the fees? I am not sure when to send the forms and cheque back to them, as I don't yet have a definite mortgage offer from Halifax; just agreement in principle. Can anyone advise please? I am not in a hurry and have told the solicitor that I don't want to complete before 1st December which they were ok with. Thanks.

Lunary

Hope it is ok to add my FTBing experience in this thread too.

We made an offer and had it accepted on the 24th Sept and are FTB so would quite like to be in by Xmas. The Vendor is looking for a place to buy at the moment, but has said that she wants to find the right place and so isn't in too much of a hurry. The estate agent seems to think she is a bit fragile and has said that he is not willing to chase her up on her progress too often but has agreed to contact me after speaking to her every two weeks or so. This worries me a bit, while I understand she wants to find the right house for her, the fact that the estate agent has said that she is fragile makes me wonder whether she is serious about selling. So we are still looking to see if any other properties come on the market that we like, although the nearer we get to Xmas, the slower the market is getting.

In terms of organising, I have found us a good mortgage deal and the paperwork was sent in on the 3rd - minus the valuation form and fee as we want to wait until she has found a property before paying the non-refundable fee. Likewise our Solicitor is primed and ready to go, all ID, forms and payment on account were all sent off on the 3rd too. I am currently looking into life assurance and buildings insurance quotes, oh and waiting for house and mortgage updates

Hi Alicebanned congrats on your accepted offer. The money on account is usually spent on search fees and is just an advance on the total payment. My solicitors have asked for £300. I sent back my forms and cheque to the solicitors straight away as it means that they can start on the prelim searches sooner rather than later. We don't yet have a firm offer from the bank yet, I sent both sets of forms off on the same day.

Good luck to everyone else. I'd never realised how nerve racking house buying would be!

homehunter

Lunary wrote: »

Hope it is ok to add my FTBing experience in this thread too.

We made an offer and had it accepted on the 24th Sept and are FTB so would quite like to be in by Xmas. The Vendor is looking for a place to buy at the moment, but has said that she wants to find the right place and so isn't in too much of a hurry. The estate agent seems to think she is a bit fragile and has said that he is not willing to chase her up on her progress too often but has agreed to contact me after speaking to her every two weeks or so. This worries me a bit, while I understand she wants to find the right house for her, the fact that the estate agent has said that she is fragile makes me wonder whether she is serious about selling. So we are still looking to see if any other properties come on the market that we like, although the nearer we get to Xmas, the slower the market is getting.

Hmm...if the EA is serious about getting the house sold, they'll chase her up, regardless of her 'fragility' - if she was fragile, why did she put the house on the market? She has to realise that she will lose her buyers if she doesn't get a move on after all.Keep looking in the meantime, and don't feel pressured to buy just because of the stamp duty coming to an end - obviously easy for me to say, coming close to exchange on my first home, but I would have happily kept saving and looked for longer if I had to. Good luck