To those BUYING in these difficult times....

iheartbristol

Offer accepted last night

superbabe612

I thought I'd bump this thread up to give other buyers a glimmer of hope. After changing our lender and solicitor on the day we were due to exchange (2 and a half weeks ago), we had to have another valuation done with our new lender (Nationwide) - albeit after they'd processed all our documents so they didn't spend our valuation fee unnecessarily! The vendor text me that the valuer had been at 1.30pm yesterday, and I got a text from the Nationwide at 4.30pm to say the valuation was satisfactory and they'd issued our mortgage offer. 3 hours from valuation to offer is way faster than I was expecting!
We're hoping to exchange this Friday and complete in a fortnight. Fingers crossed and good luck to all our fellow buyers out there!

javorka

We are still looking. Recently put an offer in, asking price is 150K we offered 140K and it was refused as unacceptable. Might just give up for a few months and see what happens around Christmas.

iheartbristol

Valuation tomorrow. There's been issues getting it booked in but finally it's happening.....

Edit: Valuation happened, it's already showing on our mortgage application tracker online. House is worth what we offered; so far so good. Just waiting now for the HomeBuyers report before we confirm buying price.

iheartbristol

Wow our lenders are quick! Valuation's been accepted and mortgage offer has been posted. Just going to check over the homebuyer's report when we get it to make sure we're happy with the offer we made on the property.

tyler80

Woo Hoo - exchanged today :-)

Skint_Catt

Still waiting to exchange here - and we're supposed to complete in 2 weeks - the only thing the solicitors waiting for is 'standard enquiries' - why these have taken 3 weeks I'll never know!

superbabe612

Just exchanged contracts on our new home, our first together. It's true what they say about it being the most stressful thing you can do - and I've been divorced, sacked, had 2 kids and moved (rented)house several times. What a relief! Straight to the pub tonight!
:beer:

Mazzawa

Think I'm going to cry. We sold our house and then offered/bought one back in June and due to the incompetency of my buyer we still have not concluded the missives (you conclude and exchange later on in Scotland). This means that we're being made out to be the bad guys by the rest of the quite long chain as no one, including ourselves, can go ahead and book removal companies for the exchange date or sort out utilities etc. Driving me up the wall! We exchange the second last week in Sept so it's cutting it fine. My solicitor is going crazy trying to sort it and there is nothing they can do! I want to moooooooovvvveeeeeee

ChrisEvanson

Skint_Catt wrote: »

Still waiting to exchange here - and we're supposed to complete in 2 weeks - the only thing the solicitors waiting for is 'standard enquiries' - why these have taken 3 weeks I'll never know!

Mazzawa wrote: »

....no one, including ourselves, can go ahead and book removal companies for the exchange date or sort out utilities etc. Driving me up the wall! We exchange the second last week in Sept so it's cutting it fine. My solicitor is going crazy trying to sort it and there is nothing they can do! I want to moooooooovvvveeeeeee

Well ours took 6 weeks start to finish but we ended up exchanging and completing on the same day (England), but we didn't know for certain (or as certain as we could be) that we would be moving on the Monday, until the Friday before. So we couldn't inform anyone beforehand with any certainty (although we did book a man with a van and hoped for the best)!

To be honest its not really a big deal. You can phone the utilities a few days after you move with your readings (closing and opening), inform Council Tax etc. The biggest nuisance was that Royal Mail took a week to implement the redirection. Luckily our old house is nearby and was not going to be occupied so they said we could keep a porch key for a week to pick up the post. The broadband was another annoying one as we had to wait a fortnight without it, but not the end of the world. Phone took just under a week to switch on.

So although I too was getting very stressed about all these things it really didn't matter. We had wanted to exchange a week beforehand but it wasnt to be. But if your solicitor is on the ball they will ensure things are in place the day before, although obviously if it is a big chain that can make more stress.