Should house be taken off the market?

shaneandhisdog

Hi,

I'm a (hopefully) soon to be second time buyer, and have therefore never sold a house to move into a new one so I'm hoping for some advice...

Basically we made an offer on a house that was accepted, but the selling estate agent won't take it off the market without us having a mortgage offer in place or an offer accepted on our property.

We were not intending to move until we saw the other property, so have no mortgage offer in place and have just put our house on the market (for the sole purpose of buying the new house).

In the meantime we have applied for a new mortgage and part of this process is getting a survey done, which of course costs us money.

I'm very concerned that as it is still on the market anyone could come in, up the bid and snatch it, leaving us out of pocket for the survey costs.

Forgive my inexperience, but is this normal? And if so when SHOULD the estate agent take it off the market.

Thanks in advance and sorry for waffling!

Running_Horse

Agent tried to keep marketing the house we wanted after vendor had accepted our second full asking price offer. When we threatened to actively view other properties, we were given two weeks to sell before they marketed again. Luckily we sold on the first day for full asking price, but could have made more if not in a hurry. Until you have found a buyer and mortgage offer your position will be weaker.

cattie

As somebody who still has a property to sell you are not a proceedable buyer & any good estate agent will advise vendor's not to accept offers from such buyer's & to continue to market the property. I recently sold my house & my ea ensured that all viewers had their finance in place & that they were ftb's or had sold their existing property.



You shouldn't actually be having a survey done untill you have sold your property & know you are a in a position to buy the other property. You should be able to ask for a mortgage in principle to show future estate agents that you will have no problem getting a mortgage.

So in answer to your question, the ea should only advise the property is taken off the market when an acceptable offer is received from a proceedable buyer.

shaneandhisdog

Oh nuts. So I've done it all in the wrong order then?

Running_Horse

Not necessarily. Our vendor was not in a hurry, as we found out later when trying to get any legal work done. Some people will be happy to wait, regardless of what their agent advise.

Amarillo

I agree with Cattie about you not being a procedable buyer and if I were the seller I would tell the agent to tell you that I accept your offer in principle but as you are currently not in the position to proceed that I want them to continue marketing the property and would unfortunetly accept an offer from someone who could proceed immediately. This is because I did once wait for someone who hadn't sold and it took many many long months and I am never doing that again.

However I guess there will be some people who aren't in a hurry as Running Horse says who would be happy to wait. I ask the agent to ask the seller to stop doing viewings for a certain period of time to give you a chance to sell your property, but not to be suprised if they refuse. Good luck, I hope it goes well.

Morley

If it were me selling I wouldn't be prepared to take it off the market until the buyer was in a position to proceed with the purchase. I think this is fairly common, most estate agents would recommend that you find a buyer for your place before putting in offers. Or for first time buyers to have a mortgage in place.