House buying in London- current market is moving so quickly! Any advice?

readytofly

Thank you all so much for the advice. The house we're viewing this weekend is on at £234,999. We have a max borrowing limit of £240,000 but are only looking at properties with a value up to £240,000. We will have a 10% deposit plus the extra for fees for a property of this price, so we could realistically offer £5000 over the asking price and thats it. The house we are viewing this weekend is in waltham abbey, outside the m25. The property has 5 viewers so far as opposed to the 60 we had to contend with at a property within the m25.
I am 13 miles away from the area we want to live in and I cant just nip out, my husband is closer and could get to viewings but he doesnt have a car. If we're really in over our heads then we'll have to buy him a runabout car so he can get to viewings on lunchbreaks. I will also speak to my mum and dad to ask if they can help us out too!
I am upset that we have worked SO HARD for the last 7 years to raise our deposit, and now we are ready to buy and start our family, the market has gone absolutely nuts. But i appreicate 'thats life' and theres no point dwelling on the what ifs and could have dones.
Our contingency plan if we get to the end of our tenancy in August and we still havent bought somewhere, we will move back in with my parents and continue the search from there. I cant bear to stay in our tiny rental house another year, wasting more time being tied in to a 12 month tenancy contract.

Again thank you to all those who have offered sensible,useful advice.

Jenniefour

Looking a little outside M25 very sensible - you may well be able to buy for asking price. Or at least somewhere very close. And useful to have a plan B - hopefully you won't need it.

Good luck!

TrixA

As someone else who is trying to buy in London at the mo' I have to say I disagree with the view that weekday viewings are critical. In our experience, if you make an offer during the week the agent will still advise the vendor to wait for the Saturday open home, so that they have plenty of offers to choose from on Monday morning. Often the offer on Monday is just an expression of interest, you'll then be invited to submit 'full and final' bids by Tuesday. A bid made during the week will likely only be accepted if it's way over asking price.

I do agree with the advice about properties going for well over asking - if your budget is £240k I'd be looking at properties listed at around £225k max in order to be in with a decent chance.

It's also crucial that you get on the marketing list for agents in the area so that you hear about properties before they go on Zoopla etc - and you need to call to arrange a viewing the day they're listed.

Paulaviki

TrixA wrote: »

It's also crucial that you get on the marketing list for agents in the area so that you hear about properties before they go on Zoopla etc - and you need to call to arrange a viewing the day they're listed.

I'm not in London but in the south east where the market is also a bit mad and this is what worked for us. We had our names down with an estate agent and were in regular contact. We made offers on a couple of houses but missed out, then they contacted us about a house and said they weren't putting it online but we're offering viewings to those already on their books. Our offer was accepted on it so they didn't ever need to list it as available, but they have since listed it as sold stc.

dell12

Conversely I'm a seller in London where the market is pretty hot right now. We've found our buyer so far to be pretty frustrating. I would have thought in a market like this people would be keen and ready to go!

She's been slow, nervous, didn't actually a mortgage in place and took quite a while to get a survey sorted. I'm all for people keeping to their word when they accept an offer, but it's got to work both ways. If she doesn't get a move on I'm going to have to put it back on the market for an extra £30k!

tigsly

You could offer 10% over asking - by looking at houses priced lower?!

I suspect getting a house is just a chunk of luck reallly

Lizling

Other than being lucky, I think the key will be persistence.

The council newsletter I received this morning said something about 36 househunters for every seller, so don't get disheartened if you don't win the first few you bid on.

ItsyBitsySpider

All you can do is to stay positive and keep doing your best. Viewing during weekdays could be a plus in these conditions but if you can't make it, don't be worried - I don't think it would be a deal breaker.

As one of the posters already mentioned, most of the vendors make the final decision after the open days which are usually on Saturdays.

Looking for a property in a rising market is very stressful as you see lots of competition from first time buyers, cash buyers etc and increasing house prices are quite frustrating too. On the brighter side though, in this rising market, six months down the line, your house would be more likely much more valuable if you buy one now.

Halle71

We're experiencing both sides of the issue - we signed contracts with our EA yesterday to market our house and before we have even had photos done we've had two viewings and at least one couple is expected to make an offer. This may be over the asking price as they have just been outbid on another house we are familiar with that is on for £50k more. All well and good. Except....

..... there is an open day for the only house we have seen in a year that meets our criteria (and the reason ours is on the market) and we are well aware of the competition we face. We may be ok - if ours can go the same amount over the asking price as that does we could keep raising our offer. But it all feels so risky - I can see both going to final bids and I really don't want the stress of that.

But it must be even harder for a FTB - seeing the real value of your money drop before your very eyes while still not getting a look in. I think the other posters are right - you need to be more flexible on price and location.

ruggedtoast

readytofly wrote: »

Thank you all so much for the advice. The house we're viewing this weekend is on at £234,999. We have a max borrowing limit of £240,000 but are only looking at properties with a value up to £240,000. We will have a 10% deposit plus the extra for fees for a property of this price, so we could realistically offer £5000 over the asking price and thats it. The house we are viewing this weekend is in waltham abbey, outside the m25. The property has 5 viewers so far as opposed to the 60 we had to contend with at a property within the m25.
I am 13 miles away from the area we want to live in and I cant just nip out, my husband is closer and could get to viewings but he doesnt have a car. If we're really in over our heads then we'll have to buy him a runabout car so he can get to viewings on lunchbreaks. I will also speak to my mum and dad to ask if they can help us out too!
I am upset that we have worked SO HARD for the last 7 years to raise our deposit, and now we are ready to buy and start our family, the market has gone absolutely nuts. But i appreicate 'thats life' and theres no point dwelling on the what ifs and could have dones.
Our contingency plan if we get to the end of our tenancy in August and we still havent bought somewhere, we will move back in with my parents and continue the search from there. I cant bear to stay in our tiny rental house another year, wasting more time being tied in to a 12 month tenancy contract.

Again thank you to all those who have offered sensible,useful advice.

A lot of these viewers are froth, I wouldnt be surprised if half aren't chancers, and a quarter neighbours being nosy.

Anyway, 13 miles is not far in a car, thats less than my morning commute, and I can do that in 30 minutes if the traffic is light.