buying and selling what to do

Poppycat

Okay guys the buying and selling lark is all new to me, we live in our first house since 89 so have acrued some equity. We now need to move to a bigger house, a 3 bedroom semi from a 2 up 2 down mid terraced.

I have had house valued early this year however I am going to get some update valuation, although I dont expect value of my house to increase that much.

We have been to EA and looked around several properties, one of which we like although I am holding out for a slightly bigger property with a bigger garden.

I been to see a BS and can get £145K including estimate of our equity (105k). I then seen a broker and he has come back today with 160k on 4 3/4% with Halifax, term unknown but he did say it will probably be for a couple of years at that rate, he then said you can always remorgage later.

I am with a tracker with Halifax at mo and we are charged 6.75%. Broker said we have been accepted up to 160k based on 20 years.

Now I get some hard sell of EA when I go in about selling, most charge above 1.5% only one I no charges 1.25% and 1% plus vat.

I am planning on selling by the end of the week or early next.

Now this bit is what I dont no what to do.

Assuming I have a offer on mine and I find the right property. What do I do next?

I no some where we have to have a survey on mine and hopefully the new property, and also I think we need conveyance, is there anything else?

I have some money thanks to my respective families to help pay for these up to 5K, we are so desperate to move and money is tight, any advice will be gratefully received. Thanks

MascaraMinx

I am also new-ish to this, we are in the final stages of conveyancing, so I'm not an expert but will tell you my experience.

We managed to get a 1% + VAT Estate Agent Fee - I think this is the lowest going at the moment and there is an excellent thread somewhere at the top of this board that suggests you should negotiate to get this fee (or less!) if you can.

Ideally you should find a buyer for yours first before you find the property you want - the EA's take you more seriously and it puts you in a better position for negotiating offers.

You will need a mortgage offer in principle before you can put an offer in on a place.

I'm not one to advise about mortgage rates but you can definitely do a lot better than your current rate - especially with such a big chunk of equity. Go to a whole of market broker (like London and Country mortgages or similar) and get a quote - I reckon you should be looking at around 5% but there are lots of experts on here who will tell you more accurately. You will probably need to pay a mortgage product fee (could be anything from £200 - £750)

Once you put an offer in and it's accepted, you then need to get a survey done. This is where you have to part with your cash! You will need to pay for either a basic valuation (just for mortgage lenders purposes) or a Homebuyers Survery (more expensive but more thorough) or a Full Structural which will cost anywhere between £300 - £900.

You will need to budget for the conveyancing fees for buying and selling and then lots of other charges for searches, admin etc. Try and get a recommended solicitor and ring around for quotes. We are using an online firm that have a fixed fee and no sale/ purchase no fee policy. I think in total this comes to just over £2k for all this.

Finally, you will need money for stamp duty on your purchase - if it's under £250k it will be 1% of purchase price. This goes to the solicitor after the exchange of contracts.


Think that's it. HTH