What am I supposed to do now?!

finnmum

Hi all,


Any help would be very much appreciated so thank you in advance.


We put our house on the market three weeks ago and yesterday we got an offer which we have accepted.


The buyers are a youngish, VERY SHY couple who already own a property. The man is actually the brother of the girl we bought the house from eight years ago! So he obviously knows the house, he is from this village, his grandma lives over the road (it's a very small community). They came to looks round, were extremely quiet (said about two words the whole time) then called up an hour later with an offer at the asking price! We then managed to up them by a grand so obviously we were over the moon and accepted.


I spoke to our EA to see if they had managed to get any more info out of the buyers. The EA agreed the couple were very very quiet and gave a lot of one word answers. They did manage to find out that they do not have a mortgage in place yet although they did say they have an advisor in mind and would get things sorted. They are also planning to rent their current property out.


My EA advised that until they have concrete evidence that our buyers have a mortgage in place we should sit tight and not offer on any property we like. Our EA said they would chase up this couple next week to see the progress of their mortgage.


The problem is we have seem a property we LOVE and really want. The owners are chain free. Do we put on offer in on for the property on Monday and explain to the EA that ours has sold but awaiting confirmation of our buyers mortgage? Or like our EA says do we sit tight and wait? Our house is remaining on the market for now until our EA has got confirmation of the buyers mortgage. Is this all normal procedure? I'm totally new to this moving game!

G_M

I really don't understand the prolem.

The personalities of the buyers are irrelevant.

They have made an offer, which you have accepted. You should now either change your mind and tell them you are not sellig to them (though god only knows why), or proceed on the assumption that you are selling.

Find somewhere to move to.

Property deals are always slow, always slower than people want/expect. Issues always arise and cause delays. There is no reason to expect this deal to be any faster, or slower, than any other.

If/when an issue arises (whether a problem you have, the buyers have, or indeed with the property itsef) you can re-assess at that point.

As for leaving your property on the market, there is no legal objection to this, but it is pretty underhand and immoral if you have accepted these peoples' offer......

finnmum

Thank you for your reply.


I think the problem may be that I do not understand why my EA has told me to hold off on offering on any property until the buyers mortgage is confirmed?!!


As far as I can tell, although they have given nothing away, the fact the buyers offered the asking price two hours after their initial viewing of the house means they are pretty keen.


So why the negative vibe off my EA (leave it on the market, don't offer on any properties yourself)etc etc. Although I guess I've just answered my own question there really and should be asking my EA why.


I guess I just wanted to know what normal procedure was in this whole house moving malarkey!

G_M

EAs are mostly pr*tts. They are either far more ignorant than their clients think, or are clued up but working to their own agenda.

Take most of what they say with a pinch of salt and make your own decisions. You are the boss.

Sarahspangles

It's more normal nowadays to get an Acceptance in Principle (AIP) from a bank or building society before even starting to look. An Estate Agent would want to see that before advising a buyer to take their property off the market.

finnmum

I guess my concerns about the buyer is that they already own a property that they want to keep hold of. Are they able to get another mortgage to buy this house therefore? I would hope they looked into this before putting an offer in but of course I know that many people do not and like previous poster said live in 'lala land. The fact they were quiet as mice and gave nothing away unsettled me a little. Then again, maybe they were just shy. Urgh. This house buying is rubbish

mrginge

It's not often that G_M is wrong but on this occasion he is way off.

EAs are ALWAYS pratts.

Hillbilly1

With the current mortgage situation I would advise waiting until they confirm they can get a mortgage.

Having just been down the route of buying a second property with a small mortgage it is a ridiculous system. We have the cash yet still failed to get more than 25% of the property value as a mortgage.

It wouldn't surprise me if they couldn't borrow what they expected. We couldn't yet are in an excellent position.

G_M

mrginge wrote: »

It's not often that G_M is wrong but on this occasion he is way off.

EAs are ALWAYS pratts.

:rotfl:

Come on! There are exceptions to every rule.

Hmmm.... now I think again, perhaps not the EA rule.

whitewing

How did you manage to up them by a grand?

Reactor_2

The EA was just covering his backside and reducing the amount of work he has to do when things go wrong, nothing wrong with that.

Quiet is the way to play it, as you don't want to reveal your intentions to the seller, otherwise they will up the price (or rip you off, depending on how sensitive you are) like the OP has done here.

In my industry, if people don't honour a verbally dealt price, it's considered fraud. Luckily for people involved in housing transactions, this fraud is not a crime, yet. Some clients hide their visibility, so you don't know their working hours and when they are in, because their transactions are so large and they want the element of surprise.