Did you manage to find your property easily?

sterl1ng

So we all have our checklists when buying somewhere for first time. I'm still buildiing up the deposit but once I hit my 20% I may properly start viewings of places which tickle my fancy on rightmove/findaproperty. I wonder how long it will take till I get that moment where I 'feel at home' and want to buy somewhere...the goosebumps moment.

I'd love to hear your stories as to how long it took you before you purchased your dream home and if you managed to get it at a knockdown price.

Wantahouse_2

The house we are currently purchasing was the only house we actually physically viewed. We were being quite picky really, and we liked the look of a house and rang the agent and found out it was gone. But knowing people on the road we were tipped off about a neighbouring house that was about to go up and we got in before they put it on with an agent. I'm not sure we got it at a knockdown price. I'd say we got it for what its worth. Much cheaper than other properties on the road, but reflects the work that needs doing - its what you would call 'a project'
It ticked all our boxes, except its terraced, but it has direct access to the garden by a gate at the rear and a garage, so we are very happy with it.
Still anxiously awaiting approval of our mortgage before proceeding further, but all going well we should be in just before Christmas.... its our first buy too, so I'm really excited about it all.

We hadn't started looking officially when we found it, because we didn't have our deposit fully saved up, but when we offered we told the vendor this and they agreed to a later potential completion date to allow us to get the stamp duty together. But I guess I'd been actively browsing Rightmove for about 6months. But I felt right at home the second I walked in the door if I'm honest - despite the 1950s decor!

Winkle1908

We viewed 3 houses all on the same street, as we knew exactly where we wanted to be. We put an offer in on 2 of them, one was a 4 bed and the other a 3. We knew that the 4 bedroom was empty but actually preferred the 3 bed slightly, however we put an offer in on the 4 bed. We were pushing our luck and put in a low offer, it wasn't accepted and we were told they wouldn't accept below a certain price which was 20k increase on what they paid in 2007. We knew they hadn't done anything to it so walked away (gladly looking back).

We then offered on 1 of 2 identical properties, it was actually on for 5k more than the other one and needed more doing to it but it felt like a happy house, which probably sounds strange, and we met the neighbours. If we hadn't have been successful with this property I think we would have put a low offer in on the other one and walked away if not, I can't describe why but I just didn't like the other one anywhere near as much when I was in there and can't put my finger on why.

We got 10k off the asking price and made some furniture a condition of the sale, nothing fancy just enough to put us on for 6-12 months (shed, dishwasher and bedroom furniture for the spare room)

So glad we didn't end up in the 4 bedroom now, both other houses sold the week after we had our offer accepted. I just knew that I preferred this house to the other, everyone said the other one would work out cheaper but we just got ''the feeling'' with this one and you can't buy good neighbours!

Mrs_b_4

We started looking in about Sept/Oct 2011 and actually offered on the house we are in the middle of buying in May. I think we must have viewed approx 15 houses. As much as it sounds like a cliche I do think you 'know' when its the right place...

And now we are just waiting to exchange which seems to be taking forever (our solicitors are waiting on info from sellers solicitor)

fannyanna

It seemed like forever for us to find a house. We viewed a lot of properties initially but in the end we worked out what we really wanted and only viewed properties that matched our criteria. That resulted in us going weeks without seeing a suitable house but it paid off in the end.

Ellie83

Compared to other people, our search was fairly easy. But the type of houses we were looking to buy were selling very fast (if they were priced right!).

We did a lot of research though, as we couldn't afford to travel 3 hours each way for houses we knew we wouldn't like/were too expensive for what it was.

Grimbal

We had a bit of an epic journey to get the house that we're in now !

- took over a year to sell (slow market, town house with "issues")
- offered on one house, vendor dithered until we pulled out
- went into rental
- found a do-er-upper during an "open hour"
- 1 of 3 couples, although we were chain free, we lost out to a supposedly mortgage free couple
- month later, the mortgage free couple's chain collapsed, allowing us to re-submit our offer
- vendor died, probate had to be applied for
- finally bought June 2011
- 4 months of planning wrangling, 8 months of building (a week of which was spent at minus 10C INSIDE the house - Feb this year & we had only a 3-walled house!)
- today: almost finished !


So, we put up my house for sale August 2009, and now, over 3 years later, our dream home is almost finished

phoebe1989seb

We found our (current) house relatively quickly considering our exacting criteria -

Period house with lots of original features & character

A fixer-upper, not something *renovated* to within an inch of its life

Large un-overlooked garden (1/4 acre minimum)

Minimum of 2000 square feet

Off-road parking

Semi-rural in village with good shop (and pub!)

Good market town etc nearby

Within 90 mins drive of family

Minimum 3 beds

Large kitchen/room to extend current kitchen

Minimum 3 receptions

Large hallway

Good access for our hot tub

Potential to have *wow* factor

What threw us was accepting an offer within the first two weeks of marketing in March 2011. We then had to start our search in earnest as we were looking to relocate 200 miles back to the South/South West and our buyers had a specific week in mind for completion based upon their buyers' holiday arrangements.

We were not prepared to go into rented as we have far too much *stuff* plus three cats, the aforementioned hot tub plus having previously paid over £4k to do a long-distance move we didn't want to have to factor two moves into our budget

We found a house that met most of our criteria quite quickly - but soon realised it didn't have the *wow* factor or enough hall space - so after a few days we withdrew our offer.

Within days we stumbled across a real *project* - a grade II listed house in need of major work, but although not phased by the work (or cost) we discovered plans had been approved to build two new 2-storey exec houses overlooking the previously very private rear garden. The EA and vendor both lied, saying these were to be chalet bungalows, but a quick look at the planning portal soon proved otherwise. We again withdrew our offer

A month after we'd accepted the offer on our house I found a promising house that had just come back onto the market, the previous sale having fallen through due to it being unmortgageable. We viewed the next day - fell in love with the external features (newly thatched, georgian, three storeys) and the garden (right size & beautifully landscaped in part) and could see past the fact that the then owner had stripped every internal wall back to bare stone (yuck!) and that in parts it had no floors or electricity plus no kitchen, basic bathroom - and offered almost immediately.

We completed five weeks later (May 2011 - although there was almost an issue when one of the solicitors in our chain had their office gutted by a fire days before exchange losing that person's paperwork) and have been living on a building site ever since.......we're half-way through building a new kitchen extension, have just finished one bathroom and have had no hot water or heating for five months - but we are so glad we pulled out of the other two house purchases as we absolutely love it here

Davesnave

No.

Sold first property in 2006. It took 10months after problems caused by the deaf woman next door, who was eventually given a hearing loop system for her telly.:mad: Made more money than expected, though.

House 2 was 16 months and 4 sets of buyers to sell in the market of 2007/8. Mixed up with Northern Rock, a mad looney and disingenuous people.:mad:

Eventually sold to someone we knew, but at a good price (for them!:rotfl:)

Went into rented 8 months. Expected to buy in the area (100+ miles away) which we'd been researching for 3 years, but most people there were still very deluded about prices.

Suddenly found the smallholding we have now with an extremely motivated vendor. Agent tried to have us gazumped, but we were cash and ready to meet vendor's deadline, so we got it, very cheaply.

It was a bit of a slog, but basically we swapped a 4 bed semi in the city for a 4 bed 5.5 acre smallholding in Devon, and we even had some loose change.

We haven't started doing the place up yet, but we have PP and enough cash to rectify the major shortcomings. Can't imagine city living now.