How did you feel after having an offer accepted?

firsttimetom

Hi All,

We had an offer accepted on a house on Monday of this week and I haven't even felt a shred of excitement - only nerves and perhaps even remorse.

Is this normal? I honestly thought I would be excited/happy about this, but I just keep worrying.

The house is really nice and the price we have negotiated is good (well below what the current vendor paid in 2005 and even below what the previous occupants paid in 2001!!). This is adding a bit to my nerves, as I realise it is a good price, but I am also thinking prices could fall further (i have been well and truly in the HousePriceCrash camp since we started looking in summer 2007 (could have been a lot worse if we had've bought then though!!)), but we do actually want to buy a house at some stage.

I don't want to keep the vendor hanging on if we don't want it, so I have to make a decision this weekend.

I was so excited whilst we were negotiating (took 3 weeks) and they thought about our offer last weekend and accepted it on Monday. I was excited and hoping they would accept it all the way through this period but as soon as the EA called and she told me it had been accepted it's like something hit me and all excitement was lost.

Is this normal? How did you feel when you bought a house?

Thanks in advance

The_Palmist

May be I offered too much.

Chuddles

As above, possibly too much put on the table in the offer.

I had previously been out bid on a home I'd set my heart on so was a little overzealous to get this one off the market. :P

Emmzi

I didn't feel excited until exchange of contracts - no guarantee of new house until then. Just lots of paperwork to sort!

dorset_nurse

I didn't feel excited... I was a bit suprised that my offer was accepted and worried about borrowing and spending so much money!

mark5

I dont think I got excited until I had the keys, I just kept expecting something to go wrong.

Mrs_Z

Excited, then scared, thought offered too much, could I have got it cheaper? What about if there is something drastically wrong with the house? Is it all gonna go through? Maybe the house is going to fall down! What about if the vendor pulls out and I've lost £££s in fees? Have I done the right thing? Can I manage the mortgage payments? What about if the interest rates rise? WHAT HAVE I DONE???!!!

Well, 15 years later, we're still in the same house, nothing wrong with the house, it didn't fall down, the vendor did not pull out, we have more than managed the mortgage payments, would like to move again but can't decide on the area... Looking back we paid the right price and should have really gone for a more expensive house but we were first time buyers and frightened to death having A mortgage, let alone borrowing the max that the bank would have given us....

A house is an investment of course, but above all it is your HOME.

tyllwyd

I don't think the way you are thinking has got anything to do with the actual house you are buying - its the normal sort of let down when you go through the exciting stage and then come to earth with a thump. Buying a house is a big commitment, and now you are scared by the reality. But you say you've negotiated a good price, you must like the house or you wouldn't have been so keen to buy - you've been househunting since 2007, how many houses are there that you haven't already seen and discounted? Unless you have got a solid reason why you've changed your mind, just feeling a bit odd is neither here nor there - sometimes you have to jump in and get on with it.

seven-day-weekend

I am in the opposite situation. We have had an offer MADE on our Spanish house, which we have accepted. My main emotion is anxiety! (Will the valuation be OK, will the paperwork be OK, the mysteries of Spanish bureaucracy).

We have seen a flat that we are going to make a (very low) offer on and I'm really laid back about it. They will take it or leave it, we are going no higher.

So I expect it depends upon your circumstances.

StaffieTerrier

I felt excited for approximately 30 seconds before the reality of the financial commitment set in. I spent the 3 months worrying and waiting for something to go wrong. I didn't have to worry as everything went through smoothly and we got the keys 3 months later.

hazyjo

We were in the pub when the offer on the house we're now in was accepted. We battled it out over a couple of hours through the EA. They knew we'd be offering as soon as we had a buyer, which, thankfully, didn't take too long.

I remember raising a glass with hubby saying 'let the madness begin...'. We cried in the pub. Both of us lol. Felt relief as we'd had a rubbish few months and, housewise, had other offers rejected on houses (all way overpriced), we lost a house and buyer along the way, and we so loved the house we ended up buying, it was more of a worry that we'd lose it.

We do think we could have pushed for another £5k off, but we wanted to play fair. They'd dropped to a more than reasonable price already, and we got another £15k off. In the end, they were good to us, and us to them.

Five nightmare months later, we were in

You need to work out what the 'worry' is - if it's more than just about buying. We nearly had an offer accepted on a house which was on a lane - fairly quiet most of the time, but it did go into a 60mph zone just along a bit from the house. I was worried sick about my cats and, a week or so after we'd offered, we decided to withdraw it. It hadn't been accepted, so no great shakes. So glad we didn't buy it. There was also an open park opposite which was lovely, but something niggled away at me saying it could end up being full of nightmare kids or there could be problems later. I felt incredible relief when we pulled out of that almost-purchase. I'd found myself singing the praises of the house, then saying 'but' at the end of it. It was a lovely house, but just not quite in the right location for us.

tbh, even with the one we bought, I started panicking about things. Hubby's brother had said he'd read something about our estate in his local paper - how there'd been cars whizzing round, and kids hanging around, trouble, etc. We took several drives round late at night and during the day, and I set up google alerts for everything I could think of - and pretty much nothing turned up, just a few historical complaints and issues. It's a very pricey estate with some big houses around, and we were so worried we'd end up losing a tonne of money on it and would want/need to move out soon after moving in.

We also worried that somehow fate was telling us not to buy it - so many things went wrong after our offer was accepted (including with the purchase), both our dads were diagnosed with lung cancer (finally lost hubby's dad shortly after moving in), two people we knew died, two more diagnosed with cancer, hubby was rushed into hospital with heart probs, a friend's son nearly died - even the couple we were buying off split up towards the end of us purchasing it! EVERYTHING was going wrong. More than I can even remember at this stage. Even our families were telling us not to buy in the end! We were so upset that hubby's dad was being so negative about the house, and we worried he'd never get to see it and would die thinking we were making a mistake. Thankfully he did get to see us here (and how happy we are here) - and he even made it up all three flights (four storey house).

We so nearly pulled out cos of all the madness, but the house was so perfect, we crossed everything we could that it'd prove to be the right decision.

Thankfully, since we've been here, it's been peaceful, quiet, friendly and we absolutely LOVE it. We walk round every day saying 'I can't believe how lucky we are' and saying how much we love our house. It's helped with all the rubbish that's gone on in our lives and kept us sane.

I think the panic always sets in a little bit. It's such a massive commitment, and most of us are generally happy in our homes, but choose to move for whatever reason, so it can be tough to leave. It was really hard leaving my last house - but the minute we stepped into this house, I didn't miss the old one, I just felt incredible fondness for it. It felt like it had 'served a purpose' and enabled me to end up where we are now.

Hopefully it works out for you and you're very happy there. Sorry for waffling on!

Jx