Waiting to exchange - Not for the impatient!

dj.boz

Getting extremely close to the exchange of contracts (my current property is being brought by a cash buyer, and I am buying a chain free property). Everything is ready to go with the sale of my house and just awaiting one single enquiry (about a second charge) on the property we are buying..

The stress is killing me!!:mad: House buying / selling is defiantly not for the impatient! Just want to exchange now, then just the 'easier' task of moving (at least I have some form of control over the physical moving!!).

How do others deal with this 'waiting game'? Wish I could just bury me head in the sand at times till it is over!

Boz

moneyistooshorttomention

I was hoping someone would start a thread like this - as all hints welcome for getting through that Waiting Time between one house and another or, indeed, one Life and New Life as it is for some of us.

I'm on the bit of Waiting Time in between putting house on market and having got my buyer firmly in place at the moment and its twanging on the nerves. Still twangs no matter how much I remind myself that correctly-priced starter houses in my area sell somewhere between instantly and 2 months later bar something really "unwantable" about them - so my house is due to be sold either this month or next. There's always the "suppose they decide that there IS something unwantable about my house and it takes longer to sell than that 2 months?" I can see that a lot of FTB's seem to want/downright expect a 3 bedroom house with recent kitchen and bathroom - even though they cant afford it and my own generation didn't expect that at the outset and have to keep reminding myself "That may be what they want, but in such an expensive area as this, they will have to settle for a 2 bedroom house needing a new kitchen in the event".

...and then there's coping with the nearby house that put itself up for sale after yours deliberately at a price £10,000 lower than they should have (because they have already found theirs and are therefore flogging their starter off at a discount price:mad:). ........

I think the whole process is harder for those of us who plan our lives and like to be in control of them. Those who just "wing it" living on a day by day basis and not looking too far into the future basis must find the whole process a lot easier than we do.

mummyroysof3

I'm dreading that part. We haven't put ours up for sale yet but will be in the next few weeks. We are going to have trouble finding a 4 bed though so may have to put ours up slightly cheaper than the other 4 on our street to get sold quicker if we want a chance of buying one of the 2navailible we like that is in our price bracket. So sorry but ill be doing that but those already for sale have been up between 4 and 6 months already so it's either dead here and nothing selling or they are over priced.

Old_Git

while you are waiting make a list of all the thing you need to do and who you need to notify when you do move .
DVLA
TV
Phone
Broadband
Doctor
Dentist
Insurance
Bank
employer

System

It's horrible isn't it.

I got through it by trying to keep my mind off it and limiting the amount of brooding time I gave myself.

Ours was around xmas so I just did more baking than usual.

New hobby?

Better_Days

Keep a very close eye on what is going on and what, if anything, is causing delays. Speak to your EA every day if need be. Communication is vital.

We finally completed on our property at the end of January. But the first exchange date we were given was just after Christmas 2012. Exchange date was moved so many times. Each week it was 'exchange at the beginning of the week, sorry been delayed, exchange at the end of the week, sorry delayed, exchange the beginning of next week'.

This was partly due to the appalling inefficiency and the snail like pace of the Church of England (who were buying the property at the bottom of the chain). And also to the inability of the EA who were d/w 4 properties in the chain of 7, including the CofE one, to tell the truth about what was actually going on.

My EA worked incredibly hard to keep me and my buyer informed which did help enormously. In the end though I did 'meltdown' and said I would not agree to the completion date everyone wanted unless we exchanged by Thursday 24th Jan.

We exchanged on the 24th. A dangerous game though. We were going into rented so it would have been much worse if we had been trying to tie up a sale too.:eek:

The chain was put under incredible stress due to poor communication. Luckily there were no FTB's in the chain, everyone was desperate to move, and there weren't problems with mortgages (apart from one offer which had to be extended because of the delays). Managing expectations is vital and it got to the point that I couldn't trust what the other EA said as they had misled everyone so many times. They hoped for the best rather than finding out the facts. Very unprofessional.

Hope it goes well for you

Edit to add: I coped by eating lots of chocolate and 'going to bed with Jack Bauer' watching 24 on dvd in bed for much needed escapism !

Dan-Dan

I am struggling , we had accepted an offer on our grandma’s house (will never be in our names , will be sold straight from the estate) , which was a mistake as we were a bit green and spent 4 weeks getting strung along by our proposed buyer

now we took the plunge and its gone live over the last few days with a local agent, we have had 3 viewings, all of them are too old to do any modernisation, this was the problem with the agent putting the house on RM (just one shot from the outside) just to get it visible on RM, Zoopla etc for the start of the BH weekend....now all the pics are on we hope to have viewers who have their eyes already opened

Anyway ,foolishly i suppose , we had already found the house we wanted based on our former proposed buyer promising a quick sale , no mortgage etc etc , now of course we are stranded in no man’s land , i have my mortgage in principle , the house we want will accept our offer as soon as ours is sold

All this whilst waiting for probate to come through at the same time , and i wonder why , combined with two little babes , i cant get more than 4 hours sleep a night

It also feels like we haven’t even had a chance to grieve yet, memories everywhere; just want to move on, to a new life

Very frustrating process, made worse by us seeing the house we want before selling ours, big mistake

mrsmchapman

I'm in the process to, its been quite slow for a couple of reasons, surveys are all done on our house and the one we are buying, searches etc done on ours, just waiting for searches on the property we are buying due to delayed paperwork, my solictor calls the ea every other day as well as the other solictor to chase this up (I can't complain), and then yesterday we were told the people buying ours need to complete by end of may, which is great with me, in the fact that they are still very keen to move into our house. Two years ago we got one week before exchange and the cash buyer contacted the ea, not even their solicitor for over a week later saying they had no money and refused to mortgage and pulled out, left a very bitter taste and us out of pocket, so the quicker I get to exchange the better, then I will believe we are moving and start packing etc. I really do wish the UK would do something to improve and protect people on the buying and selling process, it might get a lot more people house moving!

moneyistooshorttomention

I guess that's one thing we all have to remember, ie not to start packing until we have contracts exchanged stage.

I've done the decluttering, as I thought that was fair enough - so that its possible to see exactly how much there is to pack.

Agh...that just brought up another thing to worry about - whether my buyer might try to force me to have less than the standard 4 weeks between exchange and completion (even having heard that I will be moving from my home area to another area of the country - so I need that time more than most and that 4 weeks is therefore non-negotiable).

mrsmchapman

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I guess that's one thing we all have to remember, ie not to start packing until we have contracts exchanged stage.

I've done the decluttering, as I thought that was fair enough - so that its possible to see exactly how much there is to pack.

Agh...that just brought up another thing to worry about - whether my buyer might try to force me to have less than the standard 4 weeks between exchange and completion (even having heard that I will be moving from my home area to another area of the country - so I need that time more than most and that 4 weeks is therefore non-negotiable).

I have also done some de cluttering, but more to do but that's as far as I will go, my mum as given me loads of boxes which I wasn't happy with Incase it gave me bad luck (silly i know) but until I get the call saying exchange as happened life continues as normal in my house. I can't wait to tell friends we are moving

bclark

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I guess that's one thing we all have to remember, ie not to start packing until we have contracts exchanged stage.

I've done the decluttering, as I thought that was fair enough - so that its possible to see exactly how much there is to pack.

Agh...that just brought up another thing to worry about - whether my buyer might try to force me to have less than the standard 4 weeks between exchange and completion (even having heard that I will be moving from my home area to another area of the country - so I need that time more than most and that 4 weeks is therefore non-negotiable).

Since when is 4 weeks the standard length between exchange and completion? I would say that is the absolute maximum that most people would be happy with in a typical transaction. Its more typically something like 1 to 2 weeks in my experience.