To those BUYING in these difficult times....

Funkygibbon

Grimbal wrote: »

Oooo - that's pretty close to where you wanted to end up wasn't it?

AFM: feeling despondent as we lost out on that house to cash buyers

Yeah that was our max!! Sorry to hear about you losing out.

TMoose

Funkygibbon wrote: »

We got our Mortgage approved this morning!! I'm a little lost in what happens next now! Good luck to everyone else!!

Congrats!

We just had our mortgage declined yesterday, (when is 6yrs not 6yrs? When it's a default!) so the mortgage broker is off to look for other options... Very frustrating!

I'm not sure what else I can do right now. I've told the solicitors they're engaged, so I'm now waiting for a mortgage, and then I can get on with surveys.

Keep us posted on your progress

Moose

Lukadeh

My partner and I are waiting till September to apply for a mortgage. We tried earlier on this year and it got declined because we're self employed we didn't have enough account history.

We've been assured that come September we will be approved, so fingers crossed!

For those struggling to get one - I suggest building societies instead of banks, they tend to look at every case differently rather than having a YES/NO set of criteria.

sonastin

Catatonia wrote: »

How are things going with you, Sonastin?

My purchase seems to be being delayed endlessly by rubbish solicitors who don't respond to emails.

My solicitor wrote to the mortgage lender last week (they should have received it Friday). I'm trying to guess how long it'll take them to respond so I don't end up harassing my solicitor too often but don't let the whole thing dribble on too long either! I'm thinking if they received it Friday, could have answered Monday or Tuesday so an answer by Wednesday is possible? I think I'll call the solicitor's secretary this afternoon to check if anything came in the post.

Although realistically, I know it won't have done because they would contact me if it had but I can't just sit back and wait with nothing happening. I wish I could magic up a way to speed things along...

Catatonia

I don't think there's any harm in chasing. Solicitors and mortgage companies seem to have no sense of urgency if you don't breathe down their necks.

Hope you get a positive answer soon. Could you give the mortgage company a ring directly or would you rather do things through your solicitor at the moment?

Grimbal

Aaaaaarggghhh! A bit of a vent coming up here, so apologies to all

- we offerred on a nice, but old & tired 1950s place & got beaten to it by cash buyers. Guide price on open day 385k. Accepted 380k from these buyers
- another house on the same road with another EA came up yesterday - 1970s this time, but needs gutting (literally) and just using the shell to work on. We got a foot through the door first before it goes to an open day on 2nd April.

Now, this place _seems_ smaller (although EA is saying it's "practically" the same as the first) and is in need of total renovation. The place has lots of tiny rooms in a state of disrepair. There is what seems to be a gas pipe running outside underneath the porch step along the front of the house and an earth wire running alongside it. Anyone's guess at the state of utilities inside the place !

So, given that the larger roomed place is admittedly tired but clean and liveable went for 380k, how much would you say that a smaller place that needs totally gutting and major work would have a guide price of? EA is apparantly going to market it at 400k :eek:

I've told the EA that the figures don't work (at the very least for us) but he seemed to think we were being unreasonable......

*sigh* I'm losing hope that we'll ever find our house. We're chain free, big deposit, MIP done yet we can't find anywhere!

Funkygibbon

Grimbal wrote: »

*sigh* I'm losing hope that we'll ever find our house. We're chain free, big deposit, MIP done yet we can't find anywhere!

We were like that! We had decided that the two houses that we were going to look at over a weekend were going to be the last two then we were going to be renting.

Luckily for us the last house that we looked at was that we have gone for!

Chin up! You never know what's round the corner!!

johnthebar

We seem to have hit a similar delay to Sonastin regarding building regs.

Everything else for the purchase has been done, but apparently the lenders need to sign off that the lack of building regs for removed chimney breasts and putting in an additional bathroom is not a problem for them. It's not a problem for us as the first bits of work we are going to do are to support the chimneys and rip out the bathroom.

My solicitor wrote to my lender last week and we are just waiting for this reply and we can then exchange. The house is vacant and we can move in pretty quickly. I'm hoping I can hand in the notice on my rented flat on 1st April

CheeseCat

Catatonia wrote: »

My purchase seems to be being delayed endlessly by rubbish solicitors who don't respond to emails.

I am in the same boat! As a FTB I am not sure when things happen (searches, when to expect to try setting a date for exchange, etc) and my solicitor doesnt reply or doesnt give much of an answer when I try to find out whats going on.

As a few things were flagged up on my valuation that need doing I have been getting people in to look at the property and provide quotes. I wanted to know when I should be doing this, who I contact (EA? Seller direct?) and if there is potential to negotiate so that the seller and I each pay 50% and get the repairs sorted before completion - it took me 3 emails to and fro to get a decent(ish) response to that!

It just seems like I am waiting... and waiting... and waiting. Apparently I was meant to get a fixtures and fittings list last week but this still hasn't come through and I enquired to find out we are 'waiting for the vendors solicitor to respond' - my solicitor informs me the searches 'are in hand' and she will forward the findings to me when she gets them. The searches I paid for 3 weeks ago?? :mad:

I said I would be happy when I got a mortgage approved and a valuation that says the house is worth the money so I am trying not to complain too much. I would like to complete before the 2x bank holiday weekends so I have time to spend doing the house up - thats over a month away so surely its possible?

I am in no chain so thats not the hold up, just slow slow slow solicitors. I do wonder how anyone gets a repo sorted in 28 days!! :cool:

sonastin

CheeseCat wrote: »

I do wonder how anyone gets a repo sorted in 28 days!! :cool:

Oh now that's like rubbing salt in the wound! I had 21 days for my repo. On day 21, my solicitor asked about the building regs certificates. Everything else was in place. If the building regs had been in place, we'd have made it in 28 days (even if it wasn't quite the 21 that we were set). But seeing as the, ahem, builder :eek: who owned the house but didn't pay his mortgage, didn't see fit to actually build in accordance with the building regulations or even good industry practice for that matter, there are no building reg certificates for his workmanship and 8 months later (or is it 9 now? time, unlike property professionals, moves so fast :rotfl:) we're still waiting...

I am once again caught in that chinese whispers thing. Haven't got contact details to speak to mortgage lender directly. The professionals (broker and solicitor) don't want to share because then I can cut them out of the loop. So I have to give my message to one or other of the professionals and hope that they a) speak to the right person and b) pass on the right message. And then hope that the message that I get in response is actually an answer to the question I was asking in the first place.

Why oh why did I think it was worth going with Santander for my mortgage when I knew it was a difficult case. And to make matters worse, they used e-surv for the valuation. Now I'm not overly familiar with national chains of surveyors but there's one company who get a bad rap on this forum and guess which one that is...



Grimbal - patience! If they've only just gone on the market, get your offer in. It might take them a bit of time to see the light but then they'll come round to your offer in good time. People who aren't involved in the property market (oddly sometimes, that seems to include estate agents. I think the market is so slow that they stop selling and lose touch completely!), don't really believe how bad it is at the moment. Its not that its a buyers market - there is no market. Not compared to what a lot of sellers expect. It takes them a while to realise that things have changed from the "good old days". Just be ready to catch them when they drop their expectations!